Modding a PSU for more wattage?

[michaelahess]

Yeah, I have a set of plastic wrapped mini-drivers that still have a metal core and about a 1/16" of blade sticking out. I need to tweak my NEC FE1250+ every year or so to keep the syncs and focus accurate.

 

[michaelahess]

That's the cheap redneck method I guess :lol:

 

[clue69less]

All i'm saying is your not having any fun moding till you've drawn blood or had a couple houndred volts passing through you. Otherwise what's the point, right?

It's all child's play until someone gets loses an appendage.

 

[michaelahess]

Had a buddy that was a line-man for the electric company, didn't check voltage on a line, grounded himself and lost both arms, not pretty.

 

[306maxi]

All i'm saying is your not having any fun moding till you've drawn blood or had a couple houndred volts passing through you. Otherwise what's the point, right?

Some people get satisfaction from doing things right the first time and not dying.

 

[michaelahess]

But if you do it wrong and DON'T die, you learn a lot more

 

[racerboywonder]

First i'm going to give you the smart answer. No do not attempt to do this. PSU have Large capasitors that can hold a charge of up to 300+v. Any attempt to modify a PSU may result in personal injury and/or death. Not to mention voiding any warrenties.

Ok now that the disclamer is out of the way.

You can sure give it a try. It will be tight and most likely you will run into all sorts of heat issues when your done. But you will have to be very creative. The only real problem you may run into is the placment of heatsinks on the power regulators. they may sit to tall to fit or may not fit due to the shape of the PSU's caseing.

Hilarious...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you REALLY shouldn't do this. Spare your life and get a new PSU or case. Plus, if you muck up the PSU and it blows in this girl's computer, I'm relatively certain she won't like it.

 

[Crashman]

I ran a home-modified power supply for three years! It started out a cheapy that blew caps, I opened it up and saw it had an excellent design with lots of filtration so I replaced all the caps. It lived under an extremely high load during that time, powering an overclocked P4 with lots of RAM, a big SCSI array, and a bunch of cards. One day it started falling out of the case, stripped screw holes, so I put it in another housing: An SPI 230W housing. And people thought I was running all that stuff off a 230W power supply. And they started wondering why it had all the extra power connectors, which I had cut out of other dead power supplies and soldered in.

 

[clue69less]

So no one else here has played with large capasitors.

Not sure where you got that idea. I've built power supplies from scratch, repaired burned out junk and have modded high-current power supplies in scientific instrumentation. For example, I modded the power supply for a VG MM-15 mass spectrometer to allow the mass analyzer to run 30% above its stocck maximum mass. I got to play with large caps repeatedly before finding parts that could handle the load reliably.

Back in high school my friedns and i would have little wars with capasitors in electronics class. nothing big just some 50v electolitic capasitors. We would charge then up and zap eachother with them. Left some nice little marks. It was alto fun to blow the cap off them too.

Tossing a charged cap into the high school locker room shower gets people's attention...

Hey anyone ever make a tazer from the flash cuircut of a disposible camera? :twisted:

Actually, yes...

Spot welded a screwdriver to the contacts of the capasitor with one of those.

I witnessed a rep at the CES bridge the outputs of a high current audio amp with a huge screwdriver - and it melted the screwdriver! Now that was some serious power - dangerous too!

 

[clue69less]

Had a buddy that was a line-man for the electric company, didn't check voltage on a line, grounded himself and lost both arms, not pretty.

I good friend of mine lost his life doing maintenence on 600V lighting towers due to a faulty breaker. It was horrifying - I was on the HS football team and we were practicing nearby and witnessed it. You really don't want to know what 40A of 600V does to a person that's 50' off the ground.

 

[racerboywonder]

Just for future knowledge (no disrespect)...it's capacitors.

 

[Heyyou27]

If you're planning on opening and working on a power supply, I suggest leaving it unplugged for 24-48 hours before work.

 

[Crashman]

I suggest unplugging the system with the power supply connected to the board and leaving it for a couple minutes. Which is probably what you do when you remove a power supply anyway. The motherboard will drain off most of the current through the standyby circuit.

 

[mt_100]

I have an Aria and wondered the same thing about the PSU but never got around to it. I have opened many TVs, PSUs, and other gadgets safely and it can be done, but if you don't know what you are looking at it is best to stay away.

Also, I always love the VOLT VS AMPS argument by people. People always line up to correct someone that the "amps are what kills you not the volts". You are all wrong. The watts kill.

That's right V * A = W and watts are the measure of work done by electricity. Any given voltage can kill if there are enough amps, and any given amperage can kill if there are enough volts. Therefore it makes sense that watts are the true measure of what does what. Had to throw that in for fun.

 

[happy_fanboy]

You don't need the 24 pin, just plug in the regular 20 pin onto the 24 pin socket.

 

[everett]

Just buy a new one, it is not worth your live :?