getting two psus to start at once

[CCW]

Hi,

As the thread title says Im wondfering how I would go about getting to PSU's to start at once. I have no ideas myself on this. My current PSU is a Q-Tec 550 watt.

Thanks for any advice anyone can give.

Craig :rocker::rocker::rocker:

[TheDude]

You could hook them to a relay switch so they both start with pc power button. Swift tech site has them I think..(to start water pump at same time as PS)...or you could hook both together as one....like this:

http://www.themodfathers.com/article.php?82.0

[CCW]

I think after looking at the Modfather article that Im gonna have to find a relay switch, I will also be going water cooling soon so I think I will need two, do you know where I can egt relay switches from?

Thanks a lot,
Craig

[TheDude]

http://store.yahoo.com/sidewindercomputers/pumrelswitki.html

I think something like that will work, get the heavy duty one. Before you buy..double check with them that it will do what you want it to. I used one with a meanwell PS and it was fine, but I never used one with a regular PS. Radio Shack also has a similar relay.
The 2 to 1 ps mod at Godfathers is not that hard, just sounds like it is when you read it. If you had all the parts in front of you and did it step by step..you would see how easy it is.
If the 2nd PS is to power a peltier or fans or pumps...try the relay and something like this:

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/samam32inpsu.html

[IFMU]

Heres another. (http://www.speedy3d.com/articles/case_mod_p3/index.shtml) The way I did it. Very easy all things considered.
You can get the part from Radio sHACK, its a lil expensive, but doable.
There are like 2 different mods in there, you will want the 2nd obviouslly for 2 ATX PSU's.

[CCW]

what i need is somehting that will allow me to connect a second psu and a water cooling pump as im going watercooled soon so it will have to connect a pump to pus and psu to psu, will these do that?

Sorry, thanks for your help,
Craig

[TheDude]

I would wire the 2 PS together and connect pump with relay..all start at same time.:D

[CCW]

TheDude, wire the PSUs together as in the way they done it on the link you gave me? Can't I use two relay switches becaise ideally I dont want to take any PSU's apart. I have little experience with modding, etc so want ideally the ewasiest way, sorry to keep asking you questions,

Craig

[TheDude]

CCW

I guess you could use 2 relays...PS to PS to pump....I have never done it....just seems a little cluttered with all those relays, but I don't see why it would not work? What is the reason for the 2nd PS? What will it be powering? A peltier? What wattage if so? Depending on why you need 2nd PS, there may be an easier solution.:D

I have very little modding experience also, but was able to connect 2 power supplies. The link that IFMU posted for this looks even easier than mine.

[CCW]

Second PSU is to power my soon to come watercooling kit and Radeon 9700 (which needs alot of power although im sure you know this because you have one!), I have RAID, SCSI, 2x Optical Drives and that PSU even though it has a hig wattage (550watt) is fairly cheap so I dont want to over burden it. I wont be going peltiers just yet, but will after my watercooling kit is set up and im happy with it. I dont really think my cheapy PSU should run all that, especially with the amount of slitters im using at the moment to power all 5 case fans as well!

Thanks,
Craig

[TheDude]

Get a Meanwell dedicated ps for wc..fans..etc
Here: http://www.xtwerkz.com/power_supplies.htm
and a relay
Here: http://www.xtwerkz.com/liquid_cooling_parts.htm
Heavy duty one.
Hook up regular ps as you normally would and everything else to the Meanwell. Problem solved...nice and neat...notice on the meanwell that there is room for several components. I think this is the best possible way, giving you plenty of power. The Meanwell is worth every penny, power is not the place to cut corners and if you may be adding peltiers down the road, you need a dedicated ps.

What do you think?

[CCW]

I think that one mean and meaty PSU, shame about the price though, another one of the PSUs I have now, Q-Tec 550watt would cost me £30. I presume two of these would not be as powerful as that industrial PSU? Also, it says its good for peltiers so if/when I do use peltiers Id already have the power to run them( up to 226watts apparently "Compatibility:
auxiliary power supply for thermoelectric applications (226 W Peltier dervices) ".

Hmmm, what to do! Also looking at it, is it the same size to fit in a 5.25" drive bay? Its 320watts, I know this isnt the most important factor of the PSU but it is less than another cheap Q-Tec.

What do you think?

Craig

[TheDude]

Hi,

It fits neatly in a 5.25 bay. It does not come with a power cord, so you need to take a regular pc cord and strip the female plug off and connect those wires to the Meanwell. Very easy to do. Where will you cram the 2nd full size PS and all the cables from it?

Your Q-Tec 550watt ps (gold fans?) is known as a good ps for the price, better than most other cheaper power supplies(30a). I know of people who have used 2 regular power supplies to do what you want to do with no problems. Bottom line is it's your $ and your call...But from looking at your other hardware, you have pretty much all top of the line stuff. I would suck it up and spend the extra bucks on the dedicated ps. It should last you for many years on many different machines. If cash is tight right now, you can search the net for other similar rated dedicated ps and probably find one quite a bit lower in price.

I don't see why 2 of your 550s would not work, but I would not go that way personally. With all your components and talk of adding peltiers, I would be careful. If you end up pulling a lot of amps, you could fry that ps.

[CCW]

Hi,

Cool, it looked about 5.25" size. I was thinking of buying a second case so I could keep everything tidy, an identical case and take sides off and thread cables through. This would then give me plenty of space for watercooling stuff and so i could move all drives to the second case and route the cable round for increased airflow. That PSU looks good though...shame about cost, im gonna have a look arourd tonight although my search earlier of industrial power supply units didnt come up with much.

My Q-Tec is a Dual-Fan Gold, yup, got it from work for £30. Thanks, SCSI is out at the moment, RAIDs going strong, the 8RDA+ is a fab board, kingston is reliable, case is excellent, and my optical drives work well, most of it is good kit (except graphics card, cooling and proc), new card will be ordered this week I think then its on to saving for watercooling! I dont mind saving up as long as I get my moneys worth, my saturday job gives my £36 for 8 hours (£4.50) an hour. I often do callouts for work at £20 per hour. Last week I had two call outs that took an hour, this is a good way to get a bit of extra cash and i usually have a few each month. Around Christmas I was on £100 a week. It all depends but Im guaranteed £35 a week (£140 a month) - £5 per week for lunch on saturdays so £120 a month. I think the dedicated PSU might be wise, especially with its peltier support ( i know nothing about peltiers though) and 25A 12v specs.

Thank you very much for the help youve given me in this post.

Craig

[TheDude]

Your most welcome Craig, hope it helped some. One of the regulars here (can't remember who right now) did exactly what you plan with 2 cases side by side and it turned out real well. I will post a link to it here if I can find it. Definitely will give you lots of room, which will be nice with all your components, especially if you use 2 PS. Do me a favor and post some pics of your rig once you get going on it. Have fun with it, sounds like it's going to be a real nice rig when you're done.:D

I just noticed your sig...you are 15? Man...I wish I had been that much on the ball when I was your age! :toast:

[Marci]

My rig features the meanwell psu... few shots below (see www.over-clock.co.uk/marci/ for the full set of shots)

http://www.over-clock.co.uk/marci/casemods/2003rigGallery/images/DSC00024.jpg
The meanwell is positioned in the drive bays, and is the silver thing girectly under the black thing across the top (my 3x120 rad)

I've moved it down a bay now (don't have pics at mo) but it is slightly smaller than 5.25" and slightly bigger than 3.5" In width. In height it's just taller than a 5.25" so you will lose use of 2 bays in terms of being able to fit a CD-Rom drive above, but something panelly such as a fanbus or lian-li thermometer could go happily...

My case is a Chieftec full tower, was hoping it would be a bit roomier so now I'm gettin me a LianLi fulltower cash willing!

Unfortunately the Meanwell PSU can only cope with 1x 220w TEC.
I've been running all my fans off it too recently, until the TEC decided to melt thru it's own + wire cos it wasn't happy about the situation. Moved the fans back to PC PSU and all is fine again now (after a quick stripdown, reseal and rewire on the TEC side of things cos I thought the TEC had popped as well.... fortunately not! *phew*)

http://www.over-clock.co.uk/marci/casemods/2003rigGallery/images/topofcase.jpg
When I initially built the system, the pump and TEC psu were hooked up to a junction block, and then fed from one plug. Was a bit too much for a 13A lead to cope with tho, got a bit warm. My plan was to have the pump, TEC and Rad Fans all on one plug so if anyone forgot to switch em off it wouldn't damage anything as the rad cooling would still be active. Need to rethink this now tho as the TEC PSU / TEC doesn't like it....

Have tidied cables up recently and added further fans to remove the hot air from the rad (Rad fans pull air in thru the top of the case, and when there's 3 of em Ambients soon get into the late-30s), can see em in this shot...

http://www.over-clock.co.uk/marci/casemods/2003rigGallery/images/DSC00029.jpg

they're the two 80mm's you can see round the window, and a 92mm mounted on the exterior of the case on the back plate. The opposite side panel is a direct mirror. Same window and fan positioning. Since I did this ambients sit at 24, northbridge temps are lower etc etc.

This rig cools everything on one loop, with only the cpu TEC'd
http://www.over-clock.co.uk/marci/casemods/2003rigGallery/images/caselowersection.jpg
(again, I've tidied the cables since!!)

I also run a Rad9700 Pro... well, a pretty power hungry system altogether (13 fans in total!) alongside a heavily oc'd 2400+ but manage fine running all fans and lighting off my Enermax 431w PSU... In total it runs 13 fans, 4 LaserLED clusters, 2x 80mm Round ColdCathodes, 1x 300mm RGBColdCathode, 2x Seagate 80Gb's, CDRW, DVD, and Fanbus. All rails look fine... 5v at 4.92, 12 at 12.22... overvolts slightly on CPU & AGP, but a good thing in my mind... gives me that extra bit more for oc'ing...

http://www.over-clock.co.uk/marci/casemods/2003rigGallery/images/DSC00031.jpg

So there ya go... a fellow Chieftec full tower owner, hope this helps!! Personally I'd consider a bigger case if I were you cos this is a bit too cramped for my liking... but otherwise, go with the Meanwell and stick with yer QTEC fer yer system and everything will be just dandy!

[TheDude]

Damn Marci! Where have you been hiding that case? That's one of the Finest looking cases I have ever seen! Nice job!
When you get the new LianLi fulltower and want to sell that case...let me know!


:toast: :toast: :toast:

[CCW]

TheDude, yes, I am 15! No lie! I got my job a year and three months ago from today! When I first got my job I bought myself a humble P3, fast at the time. In May on my birthday I upgraded to a 266 board, XP1800+, 40gb hdd, dvd, riva tnt 2 (wow, the power!), later i got the raid card and another 40gb, the gf4 mx440 because it was cheap and would keep me gaming until i could afford a decent card (now!) since then upgraded and upgraded! I noticed Marci's case on his page on www.over-clock.co.uk, its b***** great! I think I read the thread with the guy putting two cases together. I think the dedicated PSU will be best, I have enough for the 9700 card so I will order that this week, then I will buy the dedicated PSU they on to Over-Clock.co.uk for water cooling!

I was lucky to egt the job, well not lucky, skill...here though your all far more advanced than me but hell, ive got plenty of time to learn (touch wood).

When I got the case, i thought it was massive, as soon as I bunged my gear in it I was slightly disappointed, dont get me wrong, I love the case! Excellent build quality, worth every penny spent but more space needed!

Anyways, gotta go to school soon, thank you all for your help,

Craig

[CCW]

OOPs, I have some pics of my comp but the lighting wasnt good so Im gonna stick a 60watt bulb in, take the shade off and re-take em.

Cheers,
Craig

[TheDude]

Craig,

Like I said, I wish I had known as much as you do about computers at your age, but when I was your age, they hadn't been around long. I have a 9 year old nephew who is amazing with computers. You are quite mature for your age also...I didn't know you were 15, until I happened to notice your sig!
Anyhow....post a pic of your PC when you can. You are gonna love that 9700 for gaming! :D

[Marci]

Dude... that case will be up for sale in the near future... how much of the rig do ya want leavin in it?? lol

Just posted it up in the General Hardware > Cases sectiony bit...
Only finished Thursday night last week... was a very rushed emergency mod-job due to a LAN that started Saturday just gone, and up until Thursday morning it was just a plain old silver Chieftec Full Tower...

[Marci]

Take it you haven't seen sloffie's ALIEN case here - http://www.over-clock.co.uk/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST&f=19&t=49 ??
Now THAT's a casemod at it's best...!

[CCW]

WOW, that Alien mod is absoultely fantastic. Looking down the page has inspired me to turn my Chieftec into a work of art!

Thanks TheDude, its a mainly adult forum so I try to post in a pleasant manner especially as I want to stay on these forums. They are easily the best by far of all the forums Ive been on, people are helpful and patient. I hope to be a member here for many more years to come. Hopefully in a few years time it'll be me working out all the new volt mods etc!

Cant wait for my 9700. Havent ordered yet, my dad is gonan order and im gonan give him the money.

Thanks,
Craig