Food

Living

Outside

Play

Technology

Workshop

Easy Benchtop Power Supply

by b1tbang3r on March 8, 2015

Table of Contents
Easy Benchtop Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Intro: Easy Benchtop Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 1: Gather the Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 2: Breaking Open the Brick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 3: Prepping the Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 4: Start Piecing Things Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 5: Making the Faceplate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 6: Wiring Things Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 7: Closing the Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Step 8: Enjoy Your New Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Related Instructables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Advertisements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

Author:b1tbang3r
I am currently working as a computer and network tech, where I fix and build networks and computers. I love learning and figuring out how things work. I've
also done work in construction, elecrical work, plumbing, and small engine repair. Pretty much a jack-of-all-trades.

Intro: Easy Benchtop Power Supply

This is a very simple way to make a pretty decent, but cheap benchtop power supply out of mostly old PC parts.
I work for a pretty small computer company, and we end up scrapping a lot of old PCs with tons of still working parts. Getting 'old' power supplies and hard drives is free,
as they are typically considered trash. So, finding myself in need of a power supply, I figured this would be a fun weekend project and would put those old parts to good
use.

Step 1: Gather the Parts

Things you'll need:
Working ATX PC power supply
Large laptop power brick or project box about the same size
6 banana jacks
Switch
Green LED
100 ohm resistor
Strong double-sided tape
Velcro with sticky back
Heat shrink tubing or electrical tape
Hotglue gun (w/ a glue stick)
Soldering iron (w/ solder)
Drill
Set of drill bits
Saw or dremel
Razor knife
Phillips and regular screwdrivers
Wire snips
Wire strippers

Step 2: Breaking Open the Brick

If you decide to go with a project box, this step can be skipped.
Start with clamping down the laptop brick and cutting the cords off.
Next, cut along the seam all the way around.
Then pry the two halves apart and pull the insides out.
Finally, drill a hole where the wires for the power supply will feed through.
I live in an apartment with neighbours, so power tools like my Dremel are out of the question. I went at it with hand saw and a miter block.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

Step 3: Prepping the Power Supply

Unscrew and open up the PC power supply.
Snip off all of the plugs.
Separate the wires you'll need plus a couple of spairs from the ones you don't need.
I needed five ground (black), one 12V (yellow), one 3.3V (orange), three 5V (red), the Power Supply On (green), and one extra of each.
Trim back the extra wires. Trim as many as you can level with the pcb. The others you'll have to leave some length to tape or heat shrink.
Close up the box and screw it back together.

Step 4: Start Piecing Things Together

Now, make sure things fit and all of your holes line up. If there are extra tabs hanging off the power supply, like mine has, drill a hole to match in the brick to help hold it in
place.
Stick your double-sided tape on the power brick half with the hole for the wires.
Thread all of the wires through the hole in the brick and press it firmly to the power supply. (Glue or screws could work here, too!)
If you had any useable tabs and did drill a hole, put a screw through it to hold it on.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

Step 5: Making the Faceplate

Use a pencil or marker to mark the holes for the banana jacks. I had two sets of four, which made things pretty easy to line up. Also be sure to leave room on one side or
the other for the switch, wires and any extra parts you want to add later.
Drill all of the holes for the jacks and fit them in place. You could glue or screw them in place if they're like mine. I actually melted the pegs on the back of the jacks to the
holes in the brick.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

Step 6: Wiring Things Up

Solder the green wire from the power supply to one lead on the switch and one of the black wires to the other lead.
Next, solder the resistor to the lead on the flat side (negative) of the LED.
Solder one end of a scrap black wire to the other lead of the resistor, and the other end of the wire to the lead on the switch connected to the black wire of the power
supply you solder previously.
Now solder one of the red wires from the power supply to the lead on the round side (positive) of the LED.
Finally solder in the rest of your red, black, orange, and yellow wires from the power supply to the back of the banana jacks.
Plug in the power supply and test all of your connections. When you flip the switch, the LED should come on and all of the jacks should have power/ground.
Hot glue all of the connections and tape or heat shrink all the wires.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

Step 7: Closing the Box

Now, cut a few pieces of the Velcro tape in half length ways and stick them on either side of the brick, so they follow the seam.
Holding the two halves of the brick tightly together, take strips of the Velcro the same length as the last few and stick them over the cut ones to hold everything together.
You could glue or screw the two halves together, but I'd rather always make things that I can take apart pretty easily.

Step 8: Enjoy Your New Power Supply

So now that you have a fairly stable and efficient power supply, you can use it to test circuits or power projects. Depending on the size power supply you use, you could
power quite a few projects at once.
It would also be kool to add extra features like an ammeter or a couple potentiometers.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

Related Instructables

12 volt DC solar
set-up by
wiscdoledino

Waterproof
Solar Powered
Boom Box by
noahw

Convert A PSU
Into A Bench
Power Supply
by bhill12

OMVPS - One
more variable
power supply by
abizar

1.3-15V Analog
Power Supply
by braulio777

Simple Plug and

Play LED
Lighting by
Haunted Spider

Advertisements

Comments
28 comments Add Comment

RobertC2 says:

Mar 16, 2015. 4:13 AM REPLY

Love how everything is recycled from old bits...Even the plastic enclosure!
By the way, that 3rd hand device is brilliant! I might steal that idea. ;-)

camfi says:

Mar 10, 2015. 12:15 PM REPLY

nice one!
take a look at my conversion. ;-) I've make this aluminium addon enclosure for atx supply like year ago and I think I will ty to write my own ible about it also..

Tardisrepairman says:

Mar 16, 2015. 4:07 AM REPLY

Very nice! :-)

It's the kind of thing you use every day and sometimes you look at it and think "I made that" :-)

b1tbang3r says:

Mar 11, 2015. 6:22 PM REPLY

very nice and clean looking... I really wanna get into bending and shaping metal more.

chelseabun says:

Mar 11, 2015. 6:43 AM REPLY

You need to mark output voltage to the enclosure

b1tbang3r says:

Mar 11, 2015. 6:21 PM REPLY

Great idea! Not sure whether to paint it on or make little sticker labels haha.

Tardisrepairman says:
Don't try to write the voltages onto the plastic box with your soldering iron! It looks terrible and makes a funny smell ;-)
(It also makes the soldering iron hard to tin! :-)

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

Mar 16, 2015. 4:03 AM REPLY

chelseabun says:

Mar 12, 2015. 8:51 PM REPLY

You should use sticker label

Electrospark says:

Mar 14, 2015. 2:54 PM REPLY

+1

HannesN says:

Mar 15, 2015. 6:47 AM REPLY

You have a potential dangerous power bench here. The capacitors store enough power to give a nasty shock. First before you even open the psu up you
need to ensure they are discharhed by leaving the psu to stand for a few days. Secondly you need to ensure they keep discharged as you work with it. For
this you need atleast a 10ohm > 10w resistor between the neg and pos internal wires of the psu as this will draw the capacitors to 0 as soon as you switch of
the unit.

ac-dc says:

Mar 15, 2015. 8:25 AM REPLY

No, you don't need to leave it sit for more than a few seconds after it has been disconnected from AC mains. The capacitors do not store enough power
to give a nasty shock for longer than that because of two separate factors which both drain them. I have worked with including repair of ATX PSU since
they came out, but #1 below also applies to the older AT PSU.
1) There is a bleeder resistor(s) that drain them.
2) The 5VSB subcircuit tries to keep running when it is unplugged, draining the high voltage caps.
No you do not need to ensure they keep discharged. Sitting disconnected from AC the caps would only build up a very low voltage which even then, is
discharged due to the above.
Regardless, I do agree that caution is warranted whenever someone works on a something known to run off of, or produce a voltage much over 40V.

Bookrestore says:

Mar 16, 2015. 1:04 AM REPLY

my answer? A 500 ohm resister crossed over the contacts in dead short. Rapid drain. This also will remove all built up "charge memory" from old nicad rechargeable batteries that you hung onto in the junk drawer because they cost so much! Pull them out, charge them to their current capacity,
use resistor to drain them to zero repeat and you will have an as-new ni cad battery ready for service....just don't use them in today's discharge ratesensitive electronics. If the device requires 2500mA discharge rate batteries, do NOT use 1800mA or unspecified ni-cad batteries...nuff said.

Bookrestore says:

Mar 16, 2015. 12:56 AM REPLY

when this is your life and you can't wait days for every job.... You buy a discharge absorbing tool for about $30.00 (I'm sure there are reliable Chinamakes for less) and touch it to the possible offending circuit making sure you, your tool etc is grounded properly. Waiting out built up unknown charge
is.....well...unnecessary when you are aware of your options.
NOTE!: If you do not understand electronics well you SHOULD NOT!!! go poking around in open boxes! It takes very little research, tooling and
understanding but most rank electronic experimental amateurs can grasp these needed basic concepts quickly.
If you're an expert...go make a 'Life Hack' video on You Tube! Get more people interested and safe in this wonderful hobby!

pmshah says:

Mar 15, 2015. 10:56 PM REPLY

I am 1 step ahead. I have an old - non ATX - but perfectly working power supply that I pulled out of n old PC where I had changed the cabinet. After almost
15 years of service it is fully functional, with DPST power switch AND short circuit / overload protection. In fact I can also run some 12 V battery powered
tools off of it.

riff.master.7 says:

Mar 15, 2015. 1:09 PM REPLY

I bought a very easy plug and play board to do this that worked well:
http://www.mysticengineering.com/atx.adapter
They also sell kits... and the site has schematics if you just want to build your own from scratch.

chestersgarage says:

Mar 15, 2015. 12:25 PM REPLY

Nice build, clean and compact. Since you have 4 output possibilities, you should bring out the -12V rail to one of them so you have +12V, +5V, +3.3V and 12V. That negative rail will be useful in the future, especially if you do anything with amplifier circuits.

c_fish says:

Mar 15, 2015. 8:23 AM REPLY

I had the impression (and please correct me if I am wrong) that you are supposed to add a minimum load to each voltage output according to the power
supply's specs so it won't burn out. Not being able to find those specs on an old power supply of mine has kept me from doing one of theses myself

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/

jimdkc says:

Mar 15, 2015. 10:01 AM REPLY

Some (mostly older) computer power supplies need a minimum load on just the +5 volt supply. And it is not to keep it from burning out... They are
designed to not tun on unless there is a load attached. Typical value used is 10? 10W.

c_fish says:

Mar 15, 2015. 11:45 AM REPLY

Mine doesn't specify any. On this http://www.instructables.com/id/Convert-an-ATX-Power-Supply-Into-a-Regular-DC-Powe/ the load is on the 12v
line. On this one http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Ultimate-ATX-Power-Supply-Mod-With-USB-Chargin/ it has on every line. I wish I knew what
was the deal with mine

nfrith says:

Mar 15, 2015. 9:23 AM REPLY

I have an old PC power supply on my workbench, and I made custom connectors using molex hard drive power connectors, but never thought to do this.
Thanks for the idea!

DG6 says:

Mar 15, 2015. 6:28 AM REPLY

Good idea...What's the Banana Plug size you used?

dcastor says:

Mar 15, 2015. 5:58 AM REPLY

Nice job... First I've seen with the outputs mounted in a separate box. It gives me the idea that you could leave the wires longer and mount the brick remotelty
from the power supply. This would save workspace for your future projects.

maniacse says:

Mar 10, 2015. 6:48 AM REPLY

Thanks for ible, mate! I always use old ATX power supply for powering car radios and head units due to reworking or repairing, but I just solder ISO power
connector to cables. Your idea comes realy handy comparing to my first planned solution. Thanks again!

b1tbang3r says:

Mar 11, 2015. 6:29 PM REPLY

banana plugs are amazing! Definitely a life saver.

russ_hensel says:

Mar 9, 2015. 7:03 AM REPLY

Just a note to let you know I have added this instructable to the collection:
Encyclopedia of ATX to Bench Power Supply Conversion
>> http://www.instructables.com/id/Encyclopedia-of-A...
Take a look at about 70 different approaches to this project.

b1tbang3r says:

Mar 11, 2015. 6:27 PM REPLY

Thanks Russ!

pieterg says:

Mar 9, 2015. 4:46 PM REPLY

Just wondered, some time ago i was looking for a power supply for a project involving a car radio (aka lots of amps, peaking current when switched on etc. ).
when researching this alot of focus was on the ATX automatic powering off due to peak currents.
Is this an issue with tour power supply?
(my project stranded when my wife liked the radio and wanted the it in her car.... ).

b1tbang3r says:

Mar 11, 2015. 6:26 PM REPLY

I guess it depends on the power supply. Some cheaper ones will let you pull as much current as you want till you burn them up. Others have little reset
switches that pop out when overdrawn.
There are also tons of choices on wattage, so it's best to shop around for the one you like.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Benchtop-Power-Supply/