one power supply to rule them all
Vlad Conut wrote 03/17/2016 at 12:18 • 1 pointA bit of background: behind my TV in the living room there is one raspberry 2, one cubietruck, one switch/AP and near the TV there is a clock - so basically 4 power bricks which all have different sizes and shapes that need to be plugged into the power strip and i would like to change that.
Now the question would it make sens to use a single power supply to power all of them ?
As long as i estimate the correct power usage and get a dual output powers supply since the cubietruck and the raspberry want 5V and the switch/AP and the clock 12V, but other than that i can't see a problem. Do you ?
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I'd get usb cables and use an externally powered unit as the one in this link
http://www.cableleader.com/5-ports-high-speed-usb-wall-charger-built-in-smart-ic-40w.html?gclid=CjwKEAjwlfO3BRDR4Pj_u-iO2U0SJAD88y1S3j1xAlP_8V-KMeTJ7PUXr0EYDGRPvc93M-pM2hwEmBoCMmrw_wcB
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I would not venture in doing that. See, all those devices assume that their individual power supply is isolated from all others. This means that things like ground loops don't form when there are cables connected between them. It may or may not work.
Other things to consider is that the ATX power supplies will be very inefficient at such low loads and you might end up wasting money on electricity...
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I'd either take an ATX PSU (desolder some Molex connectors from motherboards/hard drives or even cut some IDE-to-SATA cables). Otherwise, a beefy 12V PSU and a XL6009-based DC-DC from China - the XL6009-based are good, LM2596-based on eBay most likely have fake LM2956 and heat up much more.
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I took 24V 2.5A power supply and used cheap DC-DC boards that you can buy from China. Now I have 2x5V and 2x12V outputs, but it can be whatever you want. Only need some plastic box to put everything inside.
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that was my first thought but i had some bad experiences with DC-DC, at least some that were bought from ebay, sure they are cheap but if the budget allows i will try to stay away from them. Though i haven't tried this yet http://www.ebay.com/itm/331593803946?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT it looks promising but shipping from china takes a while
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Totally makes sense! Find a micro ATX power supply or similar. The question is how to neatly get that power from the molex connector output to micro USB, DC power jack, etc that the other devices require.
I've cut and spliced cords to do that, but it kinda sucks and I really wish I could find a factory solution.
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microATX is a bit bulky for what i had in mind, i was thinking of getting the RPD-75 or the PD-65 and a custom pcb with some usb connectors and some pluggable terminal
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i have a PSU like these, but it comes from a medical equipment company. I have no idea how to turn it on and the data sheet is a joke. Surprisingly, the supply does not smell like a disaster...:-)
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Digikey or Mouser has EVERY kind of connector and probably any inductor and 2596 you could think for rolling your own buck convertor.
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