Do they make 12 volt DC power supplies

[george41407]

Do they make 12 volt DC power supplies to run a desktop computer off a
car battery? Or is an inverter required?
Of course I know an inverter would still be needed for the monitor....

I'm just looking for a way to run a computer when I am at a cabin
without electric service. Maybe it would be better to get a laptop,
but thought I'd ask....

George

 

[John Doe]

Do they make 12 volt DC power supplies to run a desktop computer off a
car battery? Or is an inverter required?

I think it's possible because of things like voltage doublers. I vaguely
recall maybe seeing posts about them. If so, they were not mainstream,
but you could guess that.

Of course I know an inverter would still be needed for the monitor....

Or maybe get a generator and some good filtering.

I'm just looking for a way to run a computer when I am at a cabin
without electric service. Maybe it would be better to get a laptop,
but thought I'd ask....

I would ask in other groups too, like maybe (sci.electronics.basics).

Good luck.

 

[Rebecca]

Do they make 12 volt DC power supplies to run a desktop computer off a
car battery? Or is an inverter required?
Of course I know an inverter would still be needed for the monitor....

I'm just looking for a way to run a computer when I am at a cabin
without electric service. Maybe it would be better to get a laptop,
but thought I'd ask....

Laptop.

 

[Frank McCoy]

In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt "Rebecca"

Laptop.

Definitely laptop is much preferable.
The load alone running an inverter to power "standard" hard drives,
monitor, the computer itself ....

Besides, inverters are quite noisy things electronically; and usually
not that well regulated.

 

[DaveW]

No they do not. You need a laptop; that is the situation they are designed
for.

 

[Paul]

Do they make 12 volt DC power supplies to run a desktop computer off a
car battery? Or is an inverter required?
Of course I know an inverter would still be needed for the monitor....

I'm just looking for a way to run a computer when I am at a cabin
without electric service. Maybe it would be better to get a laptop,
but thought I'd ask....

George

They make such things. This one is rated at 160W, which may not be enough
for a high powered system. There are some mini-ITX designs, at the 50W
level. There was also one ATX motherboard with a C7 processor permanently
soldered to it, that would easily be powered by one of these. But for
regular desktop systems, this is too weak.

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/m2_atx
http://www.logicsupply.com/pub/docs/M2ATX_spec.pdf

5V @ 8A
3.3V @ 8A
5VSB @ 1.5A
-12V @ 0.15A
12V @ 8A

Note that in these charts, only a few of the entries are "wide range".
The picoPSU-60-WI, the M1-ATX and the M2-ATX. They would be most suitable
for the project, because they regulate all rails (i.e. battery 12.6V is
converted to a regulated 12V output). The other ones take a regulated 12V
input, so the other ones don't actually locally generate their 12V output.

http://resources.mini-box.com/online/comparisation-chart/comparisation-chart.html

So if you want to build up a computer to run off battery, you start with the
power supply, and build around it. At least, until you can find someone making
a design suited to a power hungry PC.

This is an example of a socket 479 motherboard (N4L-VM DH) (out of stock).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131007

These are the processors that board will take.

http://support.asus.com.tw/cpusuppo...type=1&name=N4L-VM DH&SLanguage=en-us&cache=1

This is a T7600 34W processor, for socket 479.
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL9SJ

An article evaluating T7600.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2808&p=1

The toughest part of the project, is buying the right kind of
processor, so it fits in the socket There seem to be
several options, and it would take some digging to figure out
which one is right.

Forum for the motherboard.
http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.asp...model=N4L-VM DH&page_size=100&page=1&count=93

Someone who has built a machine with the M2-ATX supply:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...d_id=1&model=N4L-VM+DH&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

The N4L-VM has integrated graphics, so you don't need a video card.

Paul

 

[Zopilote]

Do they make 12 volt DC power supplies to run a desktop computer off a
car battery? Or is an inverter required?
Of course I know an inverter would still be needed for the monitor....

I'm just looking for a way to run a computer when I am at a cabin
without electric service. Maybe it would be better to get a laptop,
but thought I'd ask....

George

I use one of these to run my desktop and 19" lcd screen.


http://www.autobarn.net/vector-inverters-750w.html

You can buy them at Wal-Mart and run very well. I have a 6 battery agm pack
that charges from wind power, and it keeps up . My Kill-A-Watt tells me that
it pulls 160 watts on average to run. That's a draw of about 13 amps from
the battery, so don't expect a long run on one deep cycle battery.
If you run a generator I'd advise that you plug a battery charger into the
generator and use the inverter to run the computer. Generators are hard on
power supplies when they dip down in voltage when some thing else gets
turned on and the engine takes a moment to come back up to speed. The
battery helps clean up those spikes and dips.
Ive got just under two years of running my desk top this way and have had
no problems.

Tinker