DIY PSU?

dont bother attempting it. To build a good quality PSU you need to know what your doing. Also, not doing it properly (i.e. by a qualified electrician) is most likely going to void your house insurance etc. What do you aim to get out of a custom PSU that you cant get out f a pre-made one anyway? Also to point oit many PSU designs will have components specifically made for that PSU so finding ones which match any curcuit diagrams you find is going to be extremely hard.

If you just want the power you should run off multiple PSU's. If you want to mod a PSU or give it a custom look you can always replace the case its housed in and paint, LED etc. If you do open a PSU up make sure your earthed and the capacitors have no charge in them those ones can store charges for weeks.
 
Not even trained technicians are recommended to take a part a PSU, building one is absurd, safety issues galore not only from building it but using it, how do you know the quality of what you would be building, it could blow up in your face, set fire or fry all your equipment for a start.
 
gurusan said:
However you are going to end up spending a lot.
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This sounds quite likely. Do you know where the cost went?

If the equipment needed to make the pcb & an oscilloscope needed to be purchased then that's several grand gone, but these can potentially be borrowed. Likewise design software is expensive, but may be found in a uni workshop foc.

If the cost was in components, that's not so encouraging.

craig3000 said:
how do you know the quality of what you would be building
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One would hope that the designer learned a few things before assembling it, then tested it.
 
JonJ678 said:
This sounds quite likely. Do you know where the cost went?

If the equipment needed to make the pcb & an oscilloscope needed to be purchased then that's several grand gone, but these can potentially be borrowed. Likewise design software is expensive, but may be found in a uni workshop foc.

If the cost was in components, that's not so encouraging.



One would hope that the designer learned a few things before assembling it, then tested it.
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Several grand?

You can get cheap oscilloscopes (I have one myself, old, but still works a treat!) and as for making PCB's, there are plenty of companies out there that would make one for you. Several grand? No where near.
 
Hadn't thought of getting someone else to make the board, that's probably a very good plan.

You're right, I'm way off the mark for price of a scope. Had 5k + 5k to calibrate it in mind, but don't know where I got that figure from. Cheers
 
i'd start off by building a small linear psu to power a fan or hard drive, then work your way up to a smps. going straight to a smps is like learning to run before you can walk.
 
I reckon this is a very doable project, I would never attempt it, but like you said, at the end of the day, it's just a project board with transistors etc on it and copper wires.

It's not like you said "I want to make my own motherboard" :p
 
I wonder if you could do it with a **** off big transformer with a lot of secondary coil voltages. It would be very stable with big rectififers but would be massive................
 
Terrible units. Over at the purple planet where I used to work, we stocked plenty of these.

Doesn't that say something? :P
 
Gary* said:
Terrible units. Over at the purple planet where I used to work, we stocked plenty of these.

Doesn't that say something? :P
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yes that price does seem too good to be true for a 700w psu!!! i bought my 600w arctic psu at the purple planet not long ago for £70! so feel a bit ripped off after seeing this price! but it is a good quality psu im finding, by quality i mean 'it aint broke yet' :p
i have just spotted that psu today so was wondering what it was like, was going to start a thread about it but decided to land my question here, so you say this 700w is terrible then? in what way?
 
CiT are not good. They're about the cheapest you can buy. The quoted 700W is completely meaningless, it will not output 700W of power within the ATX spec.

You can't save money on the power supply, buying a cheap one initially just leads to it nuking the rest of your hardware which then costs more money than a decent psu would have done in the first place.

I've written a review for that one, to the effect of "don't buy this". A bit unfair as I only have experience (negative) of the 400W version. Strangely enough it hasn't been published.
 
Camoe said:
I wonder if you could do it with a **** off big transformer with a lot of secondary coil voltages. It would be very stable with big rectififers but would be massive................
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add a few smoothing caps and you've got a a linear psu ;) they are huge, heavy and can get a little hot, but it would be interesting how well a computer would work. the only problem is that you need to be 100% sure your mains voltage is rock solid.
 
Originally Posted by Camoe
I wonder if you could do it with a **** off big transformer with a lot of secondary coil voltages. It would be very stable with big rectififers but would be massive................
Click to expand...
add a few smoothing caps and you've got a a linear psu they are huge, heavy and can get a little hot, but it would be interesting how well a computer would work. the only problem is that you need to be 100% sure your mains voltage is rock solid.
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Or just regulate the output voltages.
 
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