Power Supplies

Yesterday I took three of the computer power supplies I got the other day for $10 each, and hooked the +5v outputs in series. This created a total of 14v. The lowest rated output of any of the supplies was 25 amperes on the +5v output. But I was not able to deliver that amperage with this setup and the voltage was drawn down to 12.4v and 9 amps. It was very disappointing. I suppose this idea could work with larger power supplies but the ones I have are of the 250 watt vintage and I’m not willing to invest any more into this concept right now. Besides six supplies would make a big power supply box. Seboy2000 on YouTube tells me that he is happy using his 550W supply in the 12v mode.

For anyone who wants to go this route, I did find a site that has 500 watt and even larger power supplies for a very reasonable cost of less than $20 each. Take a look at Geeks.com http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=PWR

And here is a company that sells power supplies for $208 that are rated at 13.6V 30A Continuous. Look for the PST-APS30 power supply listed on this page. http://www.powerstream.com/low-noise-high-power.htm

So I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. I borrowed my neighbor’s Vector: VEC1093A - 2/10/20/40/100 Amp 12V Smart Battery Charger and it worked out very nicely.

I ran it up to 18 amps at 14 volts and got 1.3 LPM. That’s 5.17 mmw. I then hooked it up parallel to two 12v batteries in my truck and ran it for about 15 minutes. The “Smart” charger did not mess up the volts or current.

I’m pretty happy with the performance of this charger. It costs about $120.00 and as an extra bonus it does a lot of diagnosis of the alternator and battery systems. I’m feeling inclined to go this route, but I had hoped to get by with a less costly method.

Bob Campbell
http://www.youtube.com/user/HHO4gas
I love the smell of HHO in the morning.