I am trying to setup a garage stereo and have a bunch of car audio laying around so I figured this would be easier route to go. I was curious if I can run a car deck and amps off a computer power supply (s)?
I know the deck draws around 15 amps max and I have a power supply that has 15 amps on the 12 volt rail. so i think this would work.
My question is the amps draw a lot more and no power supply has 1 rail that puts out enough. Can I either:
A) run two of the rails in parallel to get more amps? or
B) Run two power supplies in parallel?
Also any assistance with the wiring would be great.
Thank You
The radio has a 15 amp fuse, it will pull nowhere near 15 amps under normal listening conditions. If one supply does not cut it, use one to power the radio and a separate supply to power the amplifier. Connect the grounds of the 2 supplies together. Do you know how to get the supplys to power up? If they have 15 amps at 12 v, I am assuming that they are ATX supplies, is this correct?
I think yellow and black is are the 12V rails in the PS....... I have gone inside and taken all the yellows and all the blacks and soldered them respectivley to a deans connector. I then take that to what ever I need to power. I havent given much thought to whether they are additive in terms of over all current or if they will see an equal load...... but mine works. If it is a new style PS....... you will have to have a jumper to turn it on. I just use an old style with a plunger switch on it, dosent need to be hooked up to a motherboard to turn on.
If you run two different power supplies you may run into some issues....... Ground reference with the two units may be at a different potential.
One PS should do the trick........
Licto
These are ATX power supplies getting them to turn on is not an issue as I am a computer guy. I don't think 1 power supply will cut what i'm trying to do since I want to run 1 deck and 2 amps so I am thinking I need 3 power supplies but all the new ones split the amperage capability over multiple rails so I need to bridge these together so I can get a higher amperage capability if I remember correctly simply running these in parralel should do the trick but i'm not sure.
Yes - running in parallel will combine (add) the various current capabilities.
Whether the PSUs handle it or not is a different issue - but your are the PC guy.... (IE - how will they current share, or will 12.01V fight 12.03V etc...)
Yeah I don't know that much about these to know if they will accept it or not. I guess I have to sacrafice one or two but it sounds like run the rails in parrallel and then if needed run two power supplies in parrallel also. Would the best be be to run the rails in parralel between the two PSU's or run the entire PSU in parrallel?