[ARC5] Computer Power Supplies

[Robert Eleazer]

Speaking of power supplies, I ran across something interesting the other day.

A trip to the airport dumpster revealed that someone had thrown out a PC. It was not worth anything, but the power supply they had removed and dismantled was interesting.  What is unusual about it is that it uses a separate module that features an AC power connector, a full wave bridge, some torroid inductors and an open frame inductor (transformer with only two wires).  Output is in the form of 3 wires leading to the rest of the power supply.  There are no caps on it.

When powered up those three wires have 208 VDC across the outer two and about 118 VDC from the center connector to the outer two.

I don't know how many computer power supplies are like this one, but I think that feeding the output of that module into a few caps might produce a useful HV DC power supply at little or no cost.    Any comments?

Wayne.