[SOLVED] Power up a motherboard withoput PSU

[Edi 227]

Hello everyone, I wanna make car navigation using computer components, and usually computer use PSU to turn the AC current to DC current, well the car battery usually use only DC current so I can just don't use a PSU anymore but is there any way to connect the motherboard to the battery?

 

[Eximo]

Plenty of motherboards designed to run on 12V only, there are even automotive class computers you can buy. And there is the new 12VO ATX standard put forward by Intel, not many boards using it yet outside of the OEMs, and most of them are still using a proprietary format.

You could also take a regular PC power supply, bypass all the circuitry up to the point it outputs 12V and connect a battery there, the rest of the circuitry should still work.

You can get a 12V to 5V DC DC converter, and a 12V to 3.3 DC DC Converter (which is what high end power supplies use internally these days) and build your own supply.

Plenty of devices for vehicle navigation cheaper than a PC. Old smartphone or tablet with a 12V to USB adapter for example.

 

[USAFRet]

Why not just a tablet?
Smaller, faster to boot up, easier to build into the car, almost certainly cheaper.

But for just nav, there are dozens of standalone GPS units.

 

[hotaru.hino]

There's also the issue of getting a GPS module for computers. They're not exactly in high demand. Though you could probably get a standalone module that communicates over a UART.

But yeah, if this is not a hobby thing, why not just get a standalone unit?

 

[Cj-tech]

Hello everyone, I wanna make car navigation using computer components, and usually computer use PSU to turn the AC current to DC current, well the car battery usually use only DC current so I can just don't use a PSU anymore but is there any way to connect the motherboard to the battery?

Aside from individual GPS units, I think it would be simpler to use a single board computer for this task. The Raspberry Pi is a great solution for projects like this - and it will cost a lot less than all the components of a normal PC (unless you already have the parts in hand). It runs on Raspbian (a customized version of Linux). There are multiple ways to do what you want, but most of them (like this project) will require extensive setup.