How to Turn your Old Generic PSU into a TEC Power Supply

[MaxxxRacer]

WARNING!: This mod has not been fully tested and you do it at your own leisure and risk. Please do not blame me if you dammage any if your hardware and/or house becuase of doing this mod. I present this as an idea to save some money, but it is just that, an idea. When/if I fully test this psu mod I will let you know how it goes. And even after I have it all tested for safty, please be extremely careful when hooking up components inside of the psu, it can lead to some very unhappy results if not done properly.

I dont have a TEC myself, but I was bored and felt like f'ing up a old power supply.

The mod is incredibly simple to be honest. All you need to do is unhook the all of hte extra wires, and then close the circut that turns the power supply on when ur press the power on the motherboard. For me there was an extra step of removing the input voltage selector but that is entirely optional.

Tools used
Wire Cutters (by Lindstrom [get a pair.. 80 bucks but worth it])
Wire Strippers (please dont use the automatic ones.. learn how to use the real ones and regain ur dignity ;) )
Mini Needlenoze plyers (not neccesary, but useful for some of the stuff)
Soldering Iron (I used a Edsyn Loner, but pretty much any cheapo will do)
Phillips Head Screwdriver (I used my Hudy Tools alluminum screw driver)

On to the steps...

1. Remove the casing on the power supply.. If you needed to know this you should not continue reading :p:

2. Remove the internal circut board so that you can get to the bottom of the board.

3. Remove all but 2 of the ground wires by applying the soldering iron to the bottom of the board to melt the solder on the ground patch.

4. Remove all but one the 12+ volt wires.

5. Remove all of the other 5volt and 3.3volt wires and any other sense wires that might be sticking out of the power supply. Remeber to mark the placement of the green sense wire that turns on the power supply

6. Take one of the ground wires and solder it into the place where the green sense wire was. In my psu i just made it real short to make things simpler and i suggest you do the same. Just no reason to have it long.

6a. I didnt have this, but if you have a psu with a switch you can get fancy here. Unhook the 120v ac from the switch and solder it directly to the board as if there was no switch. Then take the sense wire (green) and a ground wire (black) and hook them up to the switch as if they were the 120v ac lines going through it before. this allows you to turn the psu off and on. so that it will give 12volts. cool stuff eh....

7. At this point you should have two long wires (one yellow and one black) still soldered to the board. Just cut them to whatever lenght you want and get rid of the rest of the cabling.

OPTIONAL: If you dont want bare wires you can get fancy and make a molex connector on the end of the wires. To do this, just get rid of the two wires that were there before (by unsoldering them) and taking a molex connecter from the psu with the longest wires attached to it u can find and hack off the red wires and one of the blacks, so that you only have one yellow and one black wire coming from it. Then solder these into their respective places. 12v+ for yellow and ground for black. You can use whatever color you want but for sanitys sake just use the stock colors. I used red and black, but im strange....

8. Now put hte board back into the box and close the box up. You should now have just two wires coming out of the box w/ or w/o a molex. Just hook it up to your TEC and your done.

This mod was really simple and is an inexpensive and effective way of powering your psu. I created this tutorial becuase I coudlnt find a cheap 12v power supply. You can get a generic power supply for like 10 bucks or take one that came from a cheap arse case that you probably happen to have lying around like I did.

Now for some pictures

HEre is what the psu looks like after I was done with it
http://images5.theimagehosting.com/top_view.jpg


Here is the mod i did to get rid of the 115v and 220 switch. Its the white wire there. I found that if you just connect the wire it permanently sets it to 115volt operation...
http://images5.theimagehosting.com/115v_close.jpg


Here is the side where most of the work was done. As you can see I have a ground wire that is going to where the green sense where would go and then another ground and a 12v+ line going out of the box. On the left you can see where the 115v switch used to be as well as the extra plug for doing a passthrough on the power supply which i got rid of as well.

http://images5.theimagehosting.com/power_out_side.jpg

Here is a pic of all the tools I used.
http://images5.theimagehosting.com/tools_Used.jpg


If anyone has anything they want to add or any questions for me, dont hesitate to ask/comment. I wrote this up real fast so sorry for any spelling errors.

[afireinside]

What kind of pelt would you power with that? Looks like it would aslpode if you out a 226 watter on there :p:

[enzoR]

lol... yea i think so too... and dont most PSU's need a load on their +5v rail to bring the +12 up to 12 volts...

[MaxxxRacer]

Aafireinside, that 300watt psu would be safe to power up to 120watt tec most likely. its rated for about 140 watts on teh 12volt line but i dont trust it. So you could run a TEC for your vid card with this cheap arse power supply.

Enzor, actually the 12v line on this psu went up to 12.4 volts when I unhooked everything else. I would like to get some further specs on the power supply to actually remove the transformers for the 5 and 3.3volt lines in hopes of giving more stable power to the 12volt line. But it seems that by removing the other stuff the voltage actually went up. interesting stuff imo.

[saaya]

did the 12v rail remain at 12v under load with no load on the 5v rail?

[MaxxxRacer]

havnt tried it.. the ground wire fell off the board.. I guess i didnt soler it well enough. I need to resolder it.... pathetic.. lol...

no tec to test it on... and nothing that i would risk it on either... sooo...

[TheDude]

havnt tried it.. the ground wire fell off the board.. I guess i didnt soler it well enough. I need to resolder it.... pathetic.. lol...

no tec to test it on... and nothing that i would risk it on either... sooo...

VERY interesting work.....but I wouldn't post something like this until I had made sure it works OK. Some noob could copy it and end up destroying his hardware or much worse.....and end up blaming you or the forum.

[MaxxxRacer]

I dont think its too necesary (sp) becuase running tec's is not something that a noob would attempt. Atleast we can hope this..

But as far as testing goes, i really cant run a tec on it.. but i know it will run the amps that it gave before the mod, and probably more. And it seems to give more voltage unloaded.. 12.4 as I noted before.

Before the wire fell off, it was running fine and i tested it with a mutli meeter.

The dud: do u have any suggestions on how to test it that wouldnt endager my hardware... I cant exactly afford to buy new hardware that I dont need (but i do it anyway) as I am on a tight budget...

PS: have a white russian on the house...

[Holst]

LOL, nice disclaimer.

I dont think this will work very well.
Without a load on the 5v line most PSU wont work very well. A couple of automotive light bulbs should do the trick.

You should also uprate the wire you are using to 12AWG or lower to handle more current.

If you want to test it then using car light bulbs is as good a way as any. They are 12v so if you get a few in paralell you should be able to get quite a high current.
Bar the lightbulbs getting hot you wont kill anything.

[Holst]

What kind of pelt would you power with that? Looks like it would aslpode if you out a 226 watter on there :p:

Most 226watt TEC have Vmax of 15 or 16v so a PSU from a comuter is no use for them.
I have a 172watt 12v TEC, that would work on a PC PSU.

And your right, it probably would exploded with a 226watt TEC on there :P

On a totaly unrelated topic, what RC car do you have MaxxRacer. I assume you have a X-Ray judging by the Hudy wrench..

[MaxxxRacer]

Ahh i was wondering who would notice the hudy screwdriver... hehe. I love hudy tools.

But no I dont have a x-ray. sweet car though.. I never did have any serpet cars. I wanted the 1/10 nitro car (name escaped me at the moment), but I never did get it.

As of now I have no rc cars, but I did have a tc3, nxt, stampede, 2 tmax's, an emax, and a kyosho mp6. And no i didnt have them at the same time. I had them at various times throughout my rc car days.. but ive since gotten out of that as it is too expensive to support two hobbies. And I've found that computers break less than RC cars... more functional too.

About the pelt, a 170watt would be the absolute max u could put on that particular psu. but if u got one of the generic 450 watters you could probably power a 225watt pelt. I would think they would have enough juice to do it. The only problem that arises from using the second psu, is where to put it. For me, I can strap it right on top of my current psu and not have any problems, but most ppl dont have that much room in their cases.

[MaxxxRacer]

sory for double post..

Holst, good idea with the car headlights.. dont have any handy, but if i did...

I didnt realize that psu's dont work well when there is no load on the 5volt line. The only thing i noticed from it is that the 12volt lines voltage went up. But I think that with some current goign through the psu, the 12volt line would seddle back down to its normal voltage. Im guessing this cheap psu compensates for the dip in voltage at load that it gets (becuase it is a pos generic) by overvolting the 12v line a bit..

Out of curiosity, what symptoms would arrise without a load on the 5v line? Ahh, I know what i could do. I could run a bunch of my 120mm fans on it. I have about 9 high amperage 38mm by 120mm fans.. Time to run those in parralel. That should give some draw on the 12v line. What do u think holst?

[TheDude]

LOL.....sure can't miss that disclaimer! Good idea tho...I looked around for a TEC and only found one...but I'm hanging onto that one...it's HUGE (runs on car battery)
Looks like you are getting a grip on things. It's a cool idea and I'm enjoying your progress. Thanks for the drink, next rounds on me :D

[Craig]

LOL.....sure can't miss that disclaimer! Good idea tho...I looked around for a TEC and only found one...but I'm hanging onto that one...it's HUGE (runs on car battery)
:D

I have to ask, what's the wattage of that beastie?

[MaxxxRacer]

yah me too. that thing is freeking massive. you could cool a refrigerator with that thing...

[TheDude]

I have to ask, what's the wattage of that beastie?

LOL....I honestly don't know the wattage. It takes a LOT to power it up. I'm still trying to find out more about it. The guy I got it from (Fleabay Auction)didn't know squat about it.
I'm guessing Military surplus? Maybe used with several others as a tent air conditioner? Anyone ever seen one before or have any guesses?
It does work and gets damn cold/hot! I'm thinking of trying to use it to cool my entire case by having cold side inside case with fan attached and hot side on outside of case with another fan there. I have huge aluminum heatsink for each side as well as 120mm fans. :D

[MaxxxRacer]

The dude: One word.... dude.....

[texuspete00]

Most 226watt TEC have Vmax of 15 or 16v so a PSU from a comuter is no use for them.
I have a 172watt 12v TEC, that would work on a PC PSU.



:slobber: Man I been looking everywhere for a TEC like that. Yours a 50mm or a 40? The 172's & 40mm I see are 24v pelts. Everything with power and 40mm seems to be high volts. I have a mean well 12v to power a graphics card pelt but as my other thread states, I thought I might have to find a 24v supply. I wish I could find something like that.

[saaya]

maxxracer, actually cheap psus dont compensate for a loss on any of their rails at all, they dont have a feedback mechanism to check how high/low their rails are actually running so they cant adjust it.

and most cheap 400W psus cant really power a 227W tec, cheap high wattage cpus usually have a very weak 12v rail. i think 15/16A is the average and thats rather over rated.

but yeah, interesting idear...

and dale, wth is there a coin taped to the tec? :stick: :lol:

[Holst]

:slobber: Man I been looking everywhere for a TEC like that. Yours a 50mm or a 40? The 172's & 40mm I see are 24v pelts. Everything with power and 40mm seems to be high volts. I have a mean well 12v to power a graphics card pelt but as my other thread states, I thought I might have to find a 24v supply. I wish I could find something like that.

I think its one ofthe drift type ones.

Came from russia originally (or somewhere obscure like that)

[TheDude]

The US quarter is on the TEC just to help give a frame of reference as to its size. Keep searching Ebay...maybe one will turn up again. I wish I had bought several when I had the chance. It is 12v for sure as I have had it running to make sure it worked. If I run across more of them, I'll give you a heads up. :up:

MaxxxRacer...I didn't mean to jack your thread man...sorry.

[MaxxxRacer]

The dude: Its cool, this tec thing is interesting.. besides it makes my thread look bigger... :p:

Saaya: I know that cheap psus cant sense the voltages. What im saying is that the company that makes them sets the idle voltages high at the factory so that twhen there is load they dip down to the right level. its better to overvolt a little than to have it dip below exceptable levels and have the comp crash...

I also know aobut hte amperages. When I looked at this psu i didnt even bother lookign at the wattage, i went straight for the 12volt rail. this one says 14amps. Looking at th the stickeron the psu, it says their 400watters do 16amps on the 12v and the 500watter does 20amps. Funny stuff. my 350watt enermax does 26watts on the 12v.

[saaya]

you mean 260 i hope ^^

[MaxxxRacer]

i meant amps...

[saaya]

wow! 26amps? :eek: my enermax 353W only has 16A or 18A or smthn like that :/

[texuspete00]

Thanks for the info guys. Anyone have any links or info about wiring up PC power supplies in series to get 24v? I can't find a thing. These guys had good luck with it... http://www.overclock.net/overclock.php?file=articles/dominator-pro-4.htm

You know in the interest of making the thread longer :p:

[MaxxxRacer]

Saaya, like i said, this is the most underated (by enermax) psu known to man.. I have thrown everythign I can at this thing and the rails are steady and there are no problems with it.

tux: take 2 power supplies and do what I did to mine.. then take the 12volt rail from one and connect it to the ground of the other.. now you are left with one ground and one 12volt +. Now you have 24volts. But you have to make sure that you disconnect all other wires.. you want nothing else coming out of that psu, or into it. The reason is that now the ground on the one has 12volts going into it. It will mess with all of the other rails. I dont know how safe this would be, but its the way to do it...

[MaxxxRacer]

saaya refresh the page.. i know you are looking at me!! btw an average of 17.5 posts a day over 3 years is disturbing man...

[saaya]

i think its a bit more complicated maxxracer, no? i posted a link to a guide on how to run 2 at psus in series to get 24v, but it also works for atx psus, just search the forum and you should find the link :)

and you dont have to remove all the cables like maxxx did :P :D hehe

you should use two identical psus though!

[saaya]

saaya refresh the page.. i know you are looking at me!! btw an average of 17.5 posts a day over 3 years is disturbing man...

waddayawant? :D

i usually post more than 17 posts a day, there are just some times when i dont post at all ^^

[MaxxxRacer]

lol... i just wondered how much posting it would take to get almost 13 thousand posts.. u have the most posts of any person on any forum that I have ever seen in my life.. and ive see alot of forums... you have as many posts are as in most of the sections of this website... disgustingly xtreme....

Anyway, back on topic.. its really that simple. but it is still highly suggested that you remove all of the wires, or if u dont, for god sakes dont start pugging carp into the 3.3 and 5volt rails... all hell will probably break loose if you do.

and identical psus would be a good idea, although the two would be inherintly load balancing due to the hook up of the wiring... so highly suggested, but not deathly neccesary...

[MaxxxRacer]

you freak..... god forsaken 30 second limit... and you say most of ur posts are not spam... pish posh I say to you sir!

[saaya]

dont think theres a 30s limit for mods :D

and i wouldnt remove the wires as its easy to accidently unsolder something or solder some contacts together that shouldnt be and kill the psu :)

[MaxxxRacer]

well if you are careful u wont fudge anything up... but i did.. i accidently unhooked the trip wire (green one) and forgot which wire it was... i was in a fenzy of unsoldering wires....

but if u take ur time then all shoudl be well.. alot cleaner too..

[saaya]

and yeah, true, better airflow as well... but then again, some if not most psus need a load on the 5v rail so its a bad idearnto unsolder those wires :D

oh, and i do know people with a high postcount than me ;) highest ive seen was 32.000 :D

[MaxxxRacer]

I didnt experience the 5 volt rail thing... i dont know if it was just this psu or in general but i didnt have problems...

[saaya]

i think some psus derive the 5v rail from the 12v rail, or at least they depend on each other and same some parts i think. yours seems to be a good one wich dedicated circuits for each rail, or maybe the 3.3v and 5v rail are coupled.

only antec and fortron have psus with totally independent circuits for each rail afaik, not sure about the ocz psus :)

[MaxxxRacer]

saaya tyou should have edited some of the posts instead of deleting them... ohwell.. some had good info..

Anyway, i hooked up the psu and got 11.92 on the volt meter with a high power 200cfm fan, a 80mm 80cfm fan and a mid range 120mm fan... i have 4 more extra sanyo denkis sitting here that i can try if i want to get ambitious... but i would need to take out my reheobus to hook them all up...

[saaya]

i only deleted one of my posts and it was saying "post already! i can see you watching this section" or something like that :D

[texuspete00]

So where's this link you talk of saaya? I cant find it and if it's a comprehensive guide, I'd like too. Problem is "series" means quite a few things.

From some things I read, it looks like you might not want to do this with PS's that don't have independent 12v lines. I thought even with identical supplies you want to be sure they are tuned to similar voltage levels to avoid feedback. Kind of why I'd like to see a guide. They may cover topics like loading the 5v and such.

[saaya]

hmmm i cant find it either.

but heres another guide :)
http://www.pureoc.com/eXtremeCPUOC_3.asp

[MaxxxRacer]

*cough* that is exactly what i told him to do *cough*

i just didnt provide pics as i dont have two spare psus to screw with. But i suggest atcually soldering this stuff together or your going to be in for some fun if one of those wires falls out.. lots of fun... lol.. like time to buy a new cpu fun.

[saaya]

i know that its the same thing, never said it wasnt :P
but yeah, like you said it has pics and is just the "comprehensive guide" he was looking for :)