Project ideas for Old Junk SMPS 5Vdc @360Amps

You could make a jumongous electromagnet...

That could be an attractive idea.

-- John

Interesting, but short of rewinding it to 12 V and making a battery charger .......

You could make enough Brown's gas to run a small very high temperature torch (suitable for welding platinum or other refractory materials), if it doesn't blow you up in the process (make a *small* explosion-proof gas generator and install suitable arrestors in the outlet hose). Might make a good safe supply for a hot-wire (or hot-band) cutter for styrofoam). Lots of things..

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Get 2 more and power up a flux capacitor :-) or use it as a footwarmer in the winter, under the workbench

martin

Electroplating? I don't remember the voltage, but you're in the right current range for some commercial plating.

Could make a lot of potassium chlorate (or perchlorate with more expensive electrodes).

Sodium and other electrolytic metals are a little high, they usually run up to 10V.

Electroplating for sure, generally all sorts of big scale (360A is a pretty good coulomb flow) electrochemistry.

A small spot welder perhaps (with current limiting resistor!). Compact (i.e., one turn heating element) resistance heater of some sort.

Etc.

Tim

-- Two pieces of cheese the same size and shape are con-gruyere-ent. Website:

I know people use (used?) these sort of supplies to defrost the water pipes in the winter. I have a couple of such PSUs lying around as well, but I think I'll just toss them away.

You can go to 100MHz if you use ECL chips, but the PSU is probably not adequate to power such a beast :-))

There's been about 2-3 articles in "Silicon Chip" about rewinding them for 13.6 volts and also for a 400 volt tube PSU.

See

I have used one as a bench PSU, cheap ($0) and easy.

I know at least one person who has run a couple in series as a hot-wire foam cutter supply.

Barry Lennox

Power a 1 KW ham transmitter?

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 20:42:15 GMT, "Homer J Simpson" Gave us:

Seems it would require several downstream conversions to supply such a device correctly.

Plans like these can also be found for free with Google.

Still, old computer PSUs like the one the OP has, have extensive fail safe mechanisms. I doubt there is much room to alter the output voltage more than a few volts if you don't want to change the entire low voltage part. Besides, obtaining spare parts can be a problem. These supplies need a regular change of output caps. If the PSU smells like cat pee, toss it away.

You could power 40,000 LEDs or so LED's are FUN!

Dave :)

martin

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:28:03 GMT, "Homer J Simpson" Gave us:

So? One would not use all of the available power if one had one's head on straight.

Actually, such a supply might be useful as a high current source to calibrate shunts or test small circuit breakers under DC conditions. If you can rewire the reference to a series resistor, you might be able to make it operate in a current regulation mode, which would be ideal for these purposes. Another possibility is a ground integrity test set, which reads voltage drop between various parts of a safety grounding system in substations, although these usually require about 30 Volts. A related item would be a DLRO, or digital low resistance ohmmeter, which is used to test contact resistance of bus bar connections, circuit breakers, and switches. You basically add a digital panel meter wired in ratiometric mode: it reads voltage on the sample as compared to the current applied.

Paul

Testing high current crimped lugs such as those used, on high current PREN aircraft cables. The standard test requires up to about 200Adc through the cable, and a measurement of the millivolt drop between the rear edge of the lug and its palm. Testing sample dummy cables regularly is a required part of the quality assurance for the crimping machine.