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Hi
I have an unusual question, and I am not sure how to figure out what I need to know. I have a small server running in a Chenbro ES34069 case. I am a big fan of this case, but the cable routing is very difficult. The main problem I have with it is the routing of the ATX 20 pin plug. I have included some pictures of the case below.
This image is before the motherboard tray in installed. You can see the power board on the bottom part of this image.
Motherboard tray is installed, and the power cable comes up through the hole at the top.
RAID card installed, things are getting pretty cramped.
As you can see, with the RAID card installed, this setup gets pretty cramped. To fix this issue, I have been playing around with the idea of routing the power cable above the motherboard tray. I have another picture showing where I would route the cables.
Where the cables would come out, I would dremmel the grating off that section, and mount a custom PCB that has sockets for the various power plugs. From what I can tell, the power supply produces three main voltages: 3.3V, 5V and 12V. In order to minimize the number of cables that I have to route, I was thinking of combining all of the individual wires carrying the same voltage, with exception of the 5V standby, which will need its own wire. However, I assume the reason there are multiple wires is to make sure that the current never exceeds the maximum allowable for whatever gage wire is used for the ATX wire harness. In light of that, I did a quick calculation to see the maximum possible amperage that can be put down any of these voltages:
3.3V - 36A
5V - 24A
12V - 10A
This calculation is based solely on the wattage of the power board (120W) assuming 100% of that power is put on each rail. If I go by this assumption, that means that for the 3.3V rail I need to use roughly 12 gage wire, which is kinda big. Is there any rule-of-thumb on how much each rail is utilized? I am under the impression that the majority of the power in modern systems comes from the 12V rail. If this is the case, I can probably reduce the thickness of the 3.3V and 5V wires safely. I dunno if it matters, but these wires will be powering:
A worklog of sorts for this build can be seen here if anyone is interested.
I have an unusual question, and I am not sure how to figure out what I need to know. I have a small server running in a Chenbro ES34069 case. I am a big fan of this case, but the cable routing is very difficult. The main problem I have with it is the routing of the ATX 20 pin plug. I have included some pictures of the case below.
This image is before the motherboard tray in installed. You can see the power board on the bottom part of this image.
Motherboard tray is installed, and the power cable comes up through the hole at the top.
RAID card installed, things are getting pretty cramped.
As you can see, with the RAID card installed, this setup gets pretty cramped. To fix this issue, I have been playing around with the idea of routing the power cable above the motherboard tray. I have another picture showing where I would route the cables.
Where the cables would come out, I would dremmel the grating off that section, and mount a custom PCB that has sockets for the various power plugs. From what I can tell, the power supply produces three main voltages: 3.3V, 5V and 12V. In order to minimize the number of cables that I have to route, I was thinking of combining all of the individual wires carrying the same voltage, with exception of the 5V standby, which will need its own wire. However, I assume the reason there are multiple wires is to make sure that the current never exceeds the maximum allowable for whatever gage wire is used for the ATX wire harness. In light of that, I did a quick calculation to see the maximum possible amperage that can be put down any of these voltages:
3.3V - 36A
5V - 24A
12V - 10A
This calculation is based solely on the wattage of the power board (120W) assuming 100% of that power is put on each rail. If I go by this assumption, that means that for the 3.3V rail I need to use roughly 12 gage wire, which is kinda big. Is there any rule-of-thumb on how much each rail is utilized? I am under the impression that the majority of the power in modern systems comes from the 12V rail. If this is the case, I can probably reduce the thickness of the 3.3V and 5V wires safely. I dunno if it matters, but these wires will be powering:
- Mini-ITX Motherboard w/ Intel GMA950 Graphics
- Intel CoreDuo Mobile Processor
- 2GB Memory
- 120GB Laptop HDD
- Laptop DVD Burner (not used very often -- if at all)
A worklog of sorts for this build can be seen here if anyone is interested.
