Using DC power supply for powering ITX mainboard

[MrGrommel]

Hello,
fist of all I am sorry for my English. But it is not my mother language, I am from Germany.

For my new project, I want to build a robot with a full desktop computer on it. The problem is that I will have to power the whole system with a bunch of batteries. I found a power supply for 12V DC input online: http://www.amazon.de/PicoPSU-150-XT-DC-DC-Netzteil-power-supply/dp/B0045IXKTQ

Now, my question is: Can I use it to power a ssd , an intel itx mainboard (http://ark.intel.com/de/products/39682/Intel-Desktop-Board-DG41MJ) and a pentium cpu with it? Has anyone used such a power supply before?
Thanks for your answers! 😀

 

[Someone Somewhere]

A battery isn't going to always be right on 12V - if you're looking at lead acid, it could be 11-14.5V or more.I'm not sure how much that would affect the motherboard, but it's about a 20% difference when the ATX spec says it must be within 5%.

Unless you really need a full desktop PC, I'd grab a laptop (and remove the screen if you need to). Built-in battery, smaller/lighter, and better battery life.

 

[molletts]

I second what Someone Somewhere said.

If you really want to use an ITX board rather than a laptop (seriously, though, why not use a Raspberry Pi - it's much more suitable for robotics), you'd be better off using a 24V source (two 12V lead-acid batteries in series) together with a power supply that can work from, say, 20-26V. The battery current will be much lower and you'll get better running time because the system will be able to continue working when the battery voltage starts to drop off.

 

[sizzling]

A 3 cell lithium polymer battery used for model aircraft would be far better suited and will work well in the limits of that power regulator/supply you have found. It will also be much lighter and able to be charge much more quickly. The downside is it will be more expensive. Look up 3S lipo in google

 

[Someone Somewhere]

3S LiPo is going to go down to 9V when empty. That's not going to work for a motherboard. 4S would be ~40% overvoltage - again, not good. Motherboards are not intended for battery power.

Get a laptop.

 

[MrGrommel]

If I got something like http://www.ebay.de/itm/like/330865113735?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=106 ?
I think, it is "fixed voltage regulator" in English 😀.
But if I use one of these, I think the voltage won't drop so dramatically so that the mobo can't work anymore. Am I wrong with this?
By the way, thanks for your really fast answers. 😀

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Looks like a linear voltage regulator. You'll need a minimum input voltage of about 2V more than your output, so ~14V. So you'll need to use a 5S LiPo, or you might be able to get away with 4S if you don't heavily discharge it and stay above ~3.4V per cell.

It's also going to get super hot - those are normally max 1-2A, with a heatsink. Your PC is probably going to take 3-4A.

Why can't you use a laptop/the guts out of a laptop?

 

[MrGrommel]

It is because I am a youth scientist, and I don't get so much money from my institution. Right now, I am working on a real performance needing artifical intelligence robot software and for it I will need more than a raspberry pi. The only thing I have laying around is this damn mobo I have no use for. So I started this thread to just ask you guys whether it is possible to power a mobo with such a thing. But now I am really thankful that I didn't buy this power supply, because I am believing you that this wouldn't make much sense. 😀 So thanks to all of you 😀

 

[Someone Somewhere]

You can buy the Raspberry Pi 2 - same price as the old one, ~4x the processing power. I think it wouldn't be too far behind a Core 2 Duo.