One PSU, multiple systems

[Machupo]

I know that at one point Phanteks made a one-PSU-two-motherboard power isolation circuit/splitter thing, but it seems to have gone out of favor.

Anyone doing something like this?

I've got a few lab systems that draw 50-120W (3x Supermicro X10SDV-6C+-TLN4F's) and I'd like to get rid of the power bricks in my rack cage. I'm currently using pico's on all three, but have a platinum 500W rack psu that could replace all three and simplify my setup. All three systems share a 2U chassis, so this would just make it a plug and go.

 

[Jandor]

I'd rather do the opposite for safety.

 

[Machupo]

I received a short note back from Phanteks (bluf: not making it anymore, no sourcing possible).

I am just curious what kind of "isolation" this thing does so I can just make one myself at this point, lol.

 

[toast0]

Could you power all the PicoPSUs from your one PSU, and get rid of the power bricks? The big things to think about are: will your PSU be ok with only 12V loads? And will the PicoPSUs pull too many amps through the PSU cables or connectors? You probably don't want to pull 10 Amps through a single molex pin, for example. But you'd get a bit more isolation and a lot smaller wire bundles that way.

 

[Tsumi]

My guess is a combination of relays and diodes. I could probably sketch up a circuit that would allow isolation. Let me know if that is a project you want to tackle.

 

[Machupo]

Well, digging into the X10SDV manual a bit more, turns out it doesn't need to run off of the 24-pin ATX power plug at all -- it can run off a 4-pin 12VDC input only (through the PJ1 plug, limited to 18A).

The FSP 500W can do more than that on each 8-pin 12VDC connector so it seems I can do this entirely without pico's.