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Structure POWER!

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  • Member since
    November 2007
  • 1,089 posts
Posted by BlueHillsCPR on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 10:19 AM
 bob from britain wrote:
Now, about my hair loss...........

Bob from Britain

I'm thinking some of that W.S. grass of the right color and one of those anti-static applicators might be the solution there. Wink [;)]

 

  • Member since
    March 2007
  • From: College Station, TX
  • 675 posts
Posted by Arjay1969 on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 1:32 PM
 BlueHillsCPR wrote:
 bob from britain wrote:
Now, about my hair loss...........

Bob from Britain

I'm thinking some of that W.S. grass of the right color and one of those anti-static applicators might be the solution there. Wink [;)]

 

 

Hmm...model railroading...cause AND cure for hair loss? Laugh [(-D]

Thanks to this thread, our local club now has a nice new (old) power supply to power structure lights on the layout.  Many thanks, Johnny_reb! Smile [:)] 

Robert Beaty

The Laughing Hippie

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The CF-7...a waste of a perfectly good F-unit!

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Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the

end of your tunnel, Was just a freight train coming

your way.          -Metallica, No Leaf Clover

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  • Member since
    April 2008
  • From: Warsash,Southampton, England
  • 19 posts
Posted by bob from britain on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 1:54 PM
Hi, i tried the antistatic approach but now my i-pod wont work. I'll have to treat it like "fallen flags" : just a memory. Anyway the power supply is still working. Best regards Bob from Britain.
  • Member since
    September 2007
  • From: Charlotte, NC
  • 6,099 posts
Posted by Phoebe Vet on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 8:01 PM

 doneldon wrote:
How about a TRS80 Color Computer with 16K RAM and a cassette tape serial drive?  140MB floppies were available, or a 20 Meg hard drive for $2000 ($100/Meg).  Compare that to a current 500 Gig hard drive for $129, $0.00026 per Meg!!!  And then there was the Timex-Sinclair.

The Radio Shack 5 1/4 inch floppy disks were 168KB, not 140MB.

Dave

Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow

  • Member since
    January 2008
  • From: Central Georgia
  • 921 posts
Posted by Johnnny_reb on Friday, April 18, 2008 6:12 PM
 Johnnny_reb wrote:
 Johnnny_reb wrote:

My thoughts on power.

As I began reading an article on how to convert a computer power supply into a cheap or even free bench power for electronics a thought began to creep into my mind. You see I have always been a tinker of sorts, I love to challenge of taking something and making it into something else entirely or taking something broken and fixing it. That is way I see using a computer power supply not for testing electronics but as a power source in general.

I know that there are a few that can see where I am leading. If something brakes you try and fix it before you take it to someone else. You hate to throw anything away, you hate to pay good money for something you yourself can repair. I myself grow up working or playing with every piece of junk or some gismo I had found.

Now if you would like to use and old computer power supply you have laying around or order a new one on-line to use or would rather use wal-warts or buy of the shelve that is up to you. I had a power supply laying around that I had ordered off-line and did not want to just chunk it into the trash. While I did have to open the case to repair the blown fuse in a brand new power supply I enjoy doing this kind of thing.

But with that said, you do not have to open the case to perform the mod needed to use the PC power supply. All can be done from the outside!

I have a working demo unit sitting on my layout bench right now. The mod is very simple to perform. 

Items needed:  

One PC power supply (new or used)
one 1157 automotive bulb,
one soldering iron and solder,
one volt-ohm meter for testing,
one hour of your time.

To begin, lay the PC power unit on a table. Locate the 20 pin connecter that is normally plugged into the motherboard. Next find the sense wire (this should be a brown wire). Local a black wire (this is your ground). Local a red wire (this is a +5 volt power supply wire).

edit: after locating the about wires cut them from the 20 pin connecter.

Solder your ground (black) wire to the bulb case along with the sense (brown wire). Solder the red (+5volts) wire to both contact tips on the bottom of the bulb. By using both elements of the bulb you ensure that you have a current drew the fools the unit into thinking it is inside of a PC and you will have full output voltage to all of the PC power supply power wires. But by using a +5volts feed to a 12volts bulb the bulb itself only gets warm and should not be any problem.

edit: I would however mount the bulb in such a way as to give it breathing room and make it replicable should it ever blow.

edit: On the unit I built I added a chassis mounted fuse holder into my case. Basically because the unit was new but had a blown fuse. But with the low cost of a new unit you may opt out just to replacement the unit instead of doing any repair work requiring you to open the case.

The color code for the wires is: Red = +5V, Black = Ground (0V), White = -5V, Yellow = +12V, Blue = -12V, Orange = +3.3V, Purple = +5V Standby, Gray = power is on (not used), and Brown = Sense wire.

You do not have to open the case!
You do not have to do this mod!
You do not have to use this information!

It is up to you, do as you will.

Photos added

Now a sub- note; 

If you plan to always have a load on the unit the load bulb could be omitted. In short if you will always have your layout lights hooked up or another load hooked up to the unit I see no need for the the load bulb itself. But it is a good indicator that the unit itself is up and running.

Johnnny_reb Once a word is spoken it can not be unspoken!

My Train Page   My Photobucket Page   My YouTube Channel

  • Member since
    February 2008
  • From: Sunny SoCal
  • 423 posts
Posted by Margaritaman on Monday, April 21, 2008 11:33 PM
too cool!  Power supply in my closet collecting dust...

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