jferguson

We live on a 36 foot Trawler. Since 2003 we've had a 3U server cabinet equipped as described below mounted to the overhead above the helm. Corrosion has been very slight - none on the MB or aluminum case - just a bit of rust on steel screw heads - now they are all stainless.

I thought it would be good to go to DC supply and save some power over the inverter, and lossy AC-power supply setup. Efficiency of that system was about 50%, maybe a bit less.

So i bought a refurbished DSATX from these guys. Too bad they don't seem to be able to get the cable kits. So I made my own.

I was able to get 2 dead ac-power supplies from the local PC shop - FOR FREE - and cannibalize them for the cables and connectors.

If you are going to build your own cable, it pays to keep a clear head. There are a lot of wires. I used crimp connectors and heat-shrink tubing. I installed the DSATX on standoffs in the box of one of the dead ac power supplies the pc dealer gave me. I removed the fan from the box, becaue my 3u case has 3 fans. box is installed in front of case and fans draw all air for system through dsatx power supply box, then over drives and MB, then out the back.

IT WORKS GREAT. I'm using a bit more than 1/2 the amps the inverter and old ac ps used. Typically 65 watts/ compared to 120-130. Boat has eight 6 volt golf cart bats. computer WAS second biggest consumer after refridge. we use genset to recharge bats, so consumption is issue with us.

This is what I have:

Intel D945gcpe w/2 gig RAM
Core Duo 2.2 E4500
2 3.5 hdd,s one SATA, one ultra ata plus usual 3.5 floppy
Audigy 2 platinum w/front panel
ATI All-in Wonder Radeon 7500 (this is our TV)
LiteOn DVD drive.

wide-screen samsung lcd monitor, Power Acoustik peq-71 graphic equalizer-amp.

I used the jumper to thwart the board's many options and it turns on and off just like a conventional PC -

what a great product.

MP3Car.com

 

jferguson

System described above works great but no matter what I did, I couldn't get rid of high-freq noise in the Power Acoustik PEQ-71 which is a combo graphic equalizer and amplifier. I tried re-routing grounds, installing noise suppressor capacitor in power lead-in to peq-71, and even a ground loop isolator on the leads from the computer to the peq-71. the ground loop isolator got rid of the popping and crackling but not the high-freq. The fix was to dump the audio output from the computer into a Sony CD player (automobile type) which has an aux connection on front - no noise whatever. I think some of the observations on this site addressed to noise suggest that a cheap amplifier may not respond to all of the usual fixes, and at $35, the PEQ 71 was cheap. Ah well.

Forget what you see above. problem turned out to be defective coax. even though it is very unusual, once in a while a coax will be shorted out at the RCA plug. that was what was wrong here and there was NOTHING wrong with the PEQ-71 , sorry Power Acoustiks. Your product is just fine.

MP3Car.com