At 08:59 +1100 12/14/2005, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 17:47:35 -0600
From: Jeff Walther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [SM] No Chime.
BTW, if anyone is throwing away a bad PS, I would appreciate the favor of
snipping off the leads and mailing them to me. I would, of course, pay
postage. With the leads off of bad PSs I can build ATX to S900 adapters
fairly cheaply.
Jeff Walther
Jeff, could you run us through the process of how you do the
conversion with the leads from an old SuperMac PSU. Thought that
might be an easier option myself, but never got round to giving it a
try, so tips from a knowledgeable SuperMaccer like yourself would be
handy.
Hi Pete,
You can download the instructions here:
<http://www.io.com/~trag/Umax_ATX_PS_rev_2.sea.hqx> I think that's
a SimpleText files which is a self-extracting Stuff-It file, which is
BinHex'ed. So you'll need something to de-BinHex it, such as
Stuff-it Expander.
This article is also available on Kennedy's support site.
If you're starting with the leads from a Umax PS, you just need to
crimp the pins for the Molex housing onto the wires (remember, one of
the Ground pins gets two wires because the Umax PS has one more
Ground pin than the ATX PS, and yes it's awkward to crimp two wires
on one pin). Then insert the pins in the correct holes in the Molex
housing.
The problem is finding that Molex housing (the one that mates with
the ATX PS connector, Molex part number 39-01-2201). Unless
Digi-Key has picked it up, they're almost impossible to get. The
last time I checked the minimum order was for 100 of them. The Model
name is Mini-Fit Jr. In the first revision of the article, I wrote
that I thought you could use the Mini-Fit BMI housing, but you can't.
I misread the specs.
Ah, just checked again. Minimum order is 1000. They're only 45
cents each that way, or another way of looking at it is the first one
is $450 and the next 999 are free.
Another option is to buy an ATX extender which are fairly common and
generally about $5. Clip the MB end of the extender off and splice
those wires to the wires you cut from your Umax PS. That leaves you
with one end that plugs into an ATX PS and the other end with the
S900 connectors.
The advantage to crimping pins onto the wire and then putting the
pins into a new housing is that there are no spliced wires. Spliced
wires sometimes lose their tape or wire nut and become subject to
shorts, etc. They're less elegant looking and more likely to come
loose causing opens.
The advantage to just buying an ATX extender and splicing the wires
is that it's fast and easy. The extender is easy to find, and cheap.
And there's no finicky pin crimping involved. Just splice the
correct wires and you're in business.
For the truly obsessive compulsive, you can buy the ATX extender and
try to remove the pins from the housing and then use the housing.
There's a little tool that's supposed to make it easier. I think
Radio Shack sells it for about $13.
For a really dirty conversion, skip the ATX plug all together. Just
cut the ATX connector off of an ATX power supply and splice the Umax
wires directly to the ATX power supply wires. This has the
advantages of cheapest and fastest, but if you later need to replace
the ATX PS, you'll have to do the splice job again.
Needing a second ATX PS sounds unlikely, but I'm on my second one.
The first one I got had dodgy disk drive connectors. My drives would
lose power in teh middle of operation with the results you'd expect.
However, I didn't realize the PS connectors were the problem at first
and sent three drives back for warranty replacment, before I figured
out that they were spinning up and down because of bad power, not
dieing drives. It's mildly irritationg, because the first two were
SCSI drives adn WD didn't ahve replacements any more and so was
giving cash or larger capacity IDE drives, and I'd really rather
still have those SCSI drives. I should have tested them on a
different machine.
The details about which wire goes where and all that good stuff is in
the above referenced article.
Jeff Walther
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