2. After reading the summary, I thought he had somehow hacked the power supply to produce different voltages (which would be crazy-usefull btw).
Simple and practical either in any case.
Posted at 1:30AM on Jan 27th 2008 by Wolf
4. If I was in such a situation, I'd be a lot more interested in using an ultra efficient power supply rather than a 'free' power supply. However, I confess this is a new obsession of mine and I have only recently replaced all of the power supplies I use to > 93% efficient units. The way I figure it, the power supply is one of the most important links in the efficiency chain. The significant drop in fan noise is also a benefit.
Posted at 4:25AM on Jan 27th 2008 by Bhima
5. had a friends monitor power supply burn up in a fire, easy enough, tap into the 12 volt from one of the drive plugs and drill a hole in a blanking plate to accept a plug, then a matching plug from her old monitor power supply(best if you use all the same size plug, so it doesn't matter which way the cord goes) this is assuming the monitor is a DC monitor. It is still in use and has the added advantage of coming on with the computer. I've built a second one but didn't need it, i'll take a few pics and submit them but never considered this a hack, just a necessity at the time.
Posted at 9:06AM on Jan 27th 2008 by aztraph
6. I picked up a 17 inch monitor with a blown inverter board about a year ago... I replaced the inverter with one of those CFL kits for cars. I simply connected the monitor CFLs to the inverter output and then tied into a switched power on the PSU. The thing works great and the only thing I lost was brightness control.
It is a great garage monitor
Posted at 9:42AM on Jan 27th 2008 by computerwiz_222
7. yeah i got an lcd screen here with a bad power supply and cant get the part i need to fix it.
to bad the powerboard also puts out 470Vac for the back lights :s might have to get some leds...
nice hack. i think i'll just use the psu in my pc though... PSUs used to power the monitor back in the day so no reason not to do it again.
Posted at 9:45AM on Jan 27th 2008 by HeBD
8. Personally, I would have modded my PC to have a 12, 5 or whatever necessary outputs on the back (like in an empty expansion slot bay, I would add a socket) and then run the LCD off of my PC. It would make the setup more portable, too, of course it would need to be with THAT PC. Either that or you'd have to supply an appropriate power brick.
Posted at 10:55AM on Jan 27th 2008 by Emon
10. @andrew
my old power brick for a viewsonic 17" says 1.3A@12v. Looking at the box for the current PSU in my computer its able to supply 36A@12v. Most people will be fine.
Posted at 12:55PM on Jan 27th 2008 by Chupa
11. Very nice, and free solution. Even if it is as ugly as hell, it's still free! :D
Posted at 1:06PM on Jan 27th 2008 by Jordan Horwich
12. I think the problem with powering the LCD from the computer PSU would be that normally equipment draw extra ampere at the moment you turn it on. This could be fixed with a little cicuit board with a delay, a simple capacitor and a relay.
Posted at 5:34PM on Jan 27th 2008 by Morten Agnor
13. Andrew, given that mosts lcds are powered by 12v 3A~4A max at the inverter/power brick, and thats a buffed up number, a pc with a decent powersupply should be able to do it. One of my thin client says it needs a 12 5a ps, but I can run it off 3a with no problem.
Posted at 5:43PM on Jan 27th 2008 by cde
14. I power my 12 volt 19 inch lcd screen from one of the 12 volt rails from my PC power supply (the supply is in the PC - I tap off 12 volts from one of the hdd connectors, like suggested above). I thought it would overload the psu or put too much electrical noise into it, but everything seems to work fine even under load.
Posted at 8:43PM on Jan 27th 2008 by O Mattos
15. no. 12: That may be the case, yes, but also most power supplies have big capacitors to deal with short spikes in power use way above their rated power output. Those same capacitors are what keeps some PC's going for a few secs when you unplug them. (other PC's don't seem to do that which is a bit odd, I guess they must power off the supply as soon as the AC input is lost/bad as a protection)
Posted at 8:47PM on Jan 27th 2008 by O Mattos
16. anyone wanting to debate the workability of my suggested, "tapping off the PC's power supply" a little more background info about the monitor, the original power supply was 12vdc and 1 amp max output, at these levels i think anyone could see that this particular solution was viable for this particular problem, but as in hacking anything, all situations are different, we all know this so lets look for all the different problems, and come up with as many solutions as possible. lets make a new category.
Posted at 10:43PM on Jan 27th 2008 by aztraph
17. @wolf: You can do that - change the voltages on a computer power supply. I have a computer power supply I turned into a workbench powersupply adjustable from 2.5 to 16 volts. It's a fairly simple matter of changing the voltage divider on the sense input to the regulator IC. Unfortunately you can only change the voltage on one line; the other lines will all move up or down in voltage in proportion. The ratios of the voltages to one another are determined by the windings in the power supply's transformer, and only one output is actually regulated; the rest just follow it.
Posted at 1:16AM on Jan 28th 2008 by Dennis Ferron
18. For just plain keeping stuff running I think it's great!
As for running your monitor from your pc's power supply while the pc is using it, well that's a great way to find out why they aren't doing that already.
Posted at 7:47AM on Jan 28th 2008 by strider_mt2k
19. Far out. Man; that is what having a DIY frame of mind is all about.
Posted at 5:37PM on Jan 28th 2008 by Doug
20. Nice timing. The power supply just went out on my old Viewsonic last week, so tonight I replaced it with a new 24" Samsung. Good thing my wife doesn't read hack a day.
At least now I won't throw away the old one.
Posted at 1:04AM on Jan 29th 2008 by jaded
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