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Battery powered Desktop PC !!!! — Parallax Forums

Battery powered Desktop PC !!!!

WarrlokWarrlok Posts: 77
edited 2007-04-03 20:41 in General Discussion
Hey Guys,,,
anybody know how to power a Pc from a 12v battery,,,I already thought about a·UPS and a converter·but that seems so inafficent to convert 12v to 115 and then back to 12 v ,,,there has got to be a better way,,,it seems like u could tap in to the voltage regulator on the pc,s power supply to smooth out the 12v maybe add some caps ,, anybody know for shure i,m trying to build a "Hero" type bot with the basic stamp handling the sensors and drive and the PC handling networking and vision using roborelm http://www.roborealm.com/·its awsome and its free

·well thinks in advance·if anybody knows how to do this u guys do and i could get some use out of all these 500 and 700 mgz computers i have junking up my room

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Problems are the "roads" of life,
solutions are only "onramps" to the next problem



············································· "Brad Smith"
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Comments

  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2007-04-02 14:17
    Since there are negative voltages on the PC as well it won’t be a simple as smoothing out a 12V battery supply. Not to mention that the current demands on various voltages (especially 5V) are quite great.

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    Chris Savage
    Parallax Tech Support
  • Robert KubichekRobert Kubichek Posts: 343
    edited 2007-04-02 15:02
    They MAKE power converters for "car" pc's called "picoPSU-120 12V DC-DC ATX PSU" that run off of a 12v power supply.

    Here is a manual; www.mini-itx.com/store/information/pico-psu-120-manual.pdf

    They come as large as 120w and are very small in size!!!jumpin.gif

    Bob scool.gif
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2007-04-02 15:11
    Robert,

    If only a desktop PC would run on only 120W…

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    Chris Savage
    Parallax Tech Support
  • Robert KubichekRobert Kubichek Posts: 343
    edited 2007-04-02 16:08
    I have a very nice mob using a C7 processor ( laptop cpu ) that with one laptop DVD rom and HD, will easily run less than 60W and has 512m ddr2 ram
    in a mini atx formfactor....

    There are others, using solidstate storage that use a lot less...
    Linux is the OS of choice, although a stripped down version of 98SE, or XP works fine as well..


    Bob
  • crgwbrcrgwbr Posts: 614
    edited 2007-04-03 18:59
    Anyone know a good source for old Motherboards like the one's Warrlok mentioned?

    Thanks,
    Craig

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    Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

    Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paper clips."
  • Robert KubichekRobert Kubichek Posts: 343
    edited 2007-04-03 20:41
    crgwbr said...
    Anyone know a good source for old Motherboards like the one's Warrlok mentioned?

    Thanks,
    Craig

    Have you tried EBAY.. idea.gif

    you'd be surprised at what you can find there.. hop.gifjumpin.gifhop.gif

    Bob scool.gif
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