[monty9991]

Originally Posted by ST7677

I was thinking of this, but for a 120W PSU that would be 10 AMP load and for a 360W PSU (which I have) that would be a 30amp load, will this thing be able to take that much load? Agreed I will not be pushing it that much, but asking this from Safety viewpoint.

well it served me for about 2 years. it should work for you also.

[ST7677]

I checked up a similar plug at home, it was rated at 10A, so I guess it is fine up to 120W.
I have a 360W PSU and I might end up driving many things from the regulated 12V power supply out of the PSU, so to be on safe side I need something which can handle 30A Current.

use automotive connector 4 pin one or more as per requirement, which has a lock on one side.

Gigy, do you have any pics of Automotive connectors, where can I get one which can handle 30amps? (or worst case 2 of 15A each).

[ST7677]

Originally Posted by monty9991

well as per my view the HDD should be in standing position. it avoids the skipping of the HDD.

I was researching this topic, specially on MP3car.com. And found no conclusive evidence for either side (mounting Horizontally or vertically). Most people stick to one of the two side and defend it without any scientific data. Some say it just doesn't matter, some say discs should be parallel to the wheels...

Meanwhile I did a small experimentation at home, nothing scientific, but more experimental. My laptop has a 3d harddisk monitor which uses 3d accelerometer to show realtime 3d view of harddisk and also shows when the harddisk enters protection mode (hard disk spinning stops and the heads move out of platter). I enabled this feature and slightly rocked the laptop with HDD in horizonal position to see how much it can take and then repeated the same experiment with HDD in vertical position.
As expected HDD could take more shock when in vertical position than when in horizontal position. But the difference appeared to be very minute.


Also, note that there are 3 settings for sensitivity. On setting 2 (medium) or 3 (high protection) even a minute movement would freeze the HDD, in either position, which would render it useless in car like environment. In setting 1 (lowest) only I could do some experimentation.

So have decided to remount the HDD vertically on some thick rubber foam cushion.

[gigy]

Got hold of the connector i had used in my setup.

[ST7677]

Thanks Gigy.

After looking at the Opus connector in detail, I have decided to retain the Opus connector as main connector itself. It looks somewhat like what you have posted and provides very neat way to decouple:
Power
Ground
Power On signal (accessories line in)
Amp delay turn on and
Regulated 12v

from a single connector which can easily be connected and removed without opening the case. Of Course I will have to cut open a hole in the case for this connector to be exposed. Will post pictures later once I am done.

This weekend the case will undergo a slaughter house to
fix HDD on the case vertically
Drill 120 holes for HDD ventilation
Fix Opus PSU - this is going to be a tough one due to space constraint
Cut open a window for power & misc connector discussed above.

[DerAlte]

HDD wouldn't need ventilation - too little power dissipation, and temperature inside case is unlikely to go above 40degC.

[ST7677]

You are correct. The HDD itself may not produce a lot of heat, but the other components in the PC may do so, and from what I am reading most HDD failures are caused due to heat (improper case ventilation).

[m4ugr8]

Interesting project, My civic Car-PC project is also nearing completion. Really liked the double din integration.

[ghpk]

Laptop HDD does gets heat up, one need to check the temperature and then arrange a better ventilation or other measures to make proper Air-flow.
try SpeedFan to keep an eye on cpu + HDD temperature.

[ST7677]

Need help with OPUS PSU wiring / settings...

Most of the setup is complete and my carPc is in the final testing stages. It is working fine at home through the domestic 220V PSU.
Last night I decided to test it thru OPUS360 and therefore connected it through my inverter at home. Since it is a dual battery setup so I changed the OPUS jumper for 24V input. The measured voltage on batteries was 27V.

Scenario 1
Now when I connected CarPc thru Opus, I noticed a funny behaviour when the accessories line was switched on - Both the fans (CPU and case) start spinning, PC light glows constantly, USB lights glow constantly and nothing happens (pc does not boot up).
I wait for few minutes and still nothing happens.
Then I disconnect the accessories and the Pc starts booting and PC light starts blinking (showing HDD activities), but few secs after accessories wire is removed OPUS does a hard power cutoff and PC gets abruptly powered off.

Connections: The accessories on (turn on input to PSU) Red wire was connected to Battery +ve through a switch. And the wire from Opus power switch (J7) was connected to motherboard power switch socket (where front panel switch usually gets connected). (I tried changing the polarity but found no change). (Front panel switch was completely disconnected in this scenario).

The power consumption at different stages was as below (all on 27V)
o Before accessories line was powered on - 0.005A (0.135W)
o After connecting accessories line before the PC started booting (when all fans were running and lights glowing) - 0.53A (14.31W)
o Immediately after disconnecting accessories line when PC starts booting - 1.8A (48.6W)


All the while the PSU LED behaved as expected (blinks when accessories line is not connected and glows continuously when connected).

Can any one guide me why auto turn on and turn off is not working?

[bhp_maniac]

Originally Posted by ST7677

Need help with OPUS PSU wiring / settings...

Most of the setup is complete and my carPc is in the final testing stages. It is working fine at home through the domestic 220V PSU.
Last night I decided to test it thru OPUS360 and therefore connected it through my inverter at home. Since it is a dual battery setup so I changed the OPUS jumper for 24V input. The measured voltage on batteries was 27V.

Scenario 1
Now when I connected CarPc thru Opus, I noticed a funny behaviour when the accessories line was switched on - Both the fans (CPU and case) start spinning, PC light glows constantly, USB lights glow constantly and nothing happens (pc does not boot up).
I wait for few minutes and still nothing happens.
Then I disconnect the accessories and the Pc starts booting and PC light starts blinking (showing HDD activities), but few secs after accessories wire is removed OPUS does a hard power cutoff and PC gets abruptly powered off.

Connections: The accessories on (turn on input to PSU) Red wire was connected to Battery +ve through a switch. And the wire from Opus power switch (J7) was connected to motherboard power switch socket (where front panel switch usually gets connected). (I tried changing the polarity but found no change). (Front panel switch was completely disconnected in this scenario).

The power consumption at different stages was as below (all on 27V)
o Before accessories line was powered on - 0.005A (0.135W)
o After connecting accessories line before the PC started booting (when all fans were running and lights glowing) - 0.53A (14.31W)
o Immediately after disconnecting accessories line when PC starts booting - 1.8A (48.6W)


All the while the PSU LED behaved as expected (blinks when accessories line is not connected and glows continuously when connected).

Can any one guide me why auto turn on and turn off is not working?

If you are pretty sure about the connection set up, I think the power supply is malfunctioning there. One doubt is since you are using your inverter batteries to power up, what is the stage of the charging system of inverter then. What I mean is if the batteries were connected to inverter at the time of testing and the inverter was charging the batteries, then the unwanted AC component of the charging current should have entered the opus PSU. This might be a reason for the malfunction. So I suggest you to repeat the same set up after disconnecting the battery leads from the inverter. Also, you can try out the 12V set up by using one of the batteries. The combined voltage of 27V is well within the range since a healthy 12V battery can show up to 14V on no load (dual batteries connected in series can go up to 14*2 = 28V). I am also not understanding why opus mentions about the polarity of the switch contact. As far as I know a 2 pole switch doesn't have any polarity.

[ST7677]

You are correct, even I was intrigued by the polarity aspect.

I did another scenario test - Scenario 2
I removed the OPUS power switch connection on MoBO and connected the front panel switch. Turned on the setup and again noticed...

Opus Power light blinks waiting for accessories line signal.
When accessories line is connected the PC does not boot up (this is expected) but again both the fans (CPU and case) start spinning, PC light glows constantly, USB lights glow constantly.
I press the front panel switch and the PC starts to boot up. After the bootup sequnce completes, I push the front panel switch and the PC goes into standby (my WinXP is configured for S3 standby), however the fans keep running.
Then few secs after accessories wire is removed OPUS does a hard power cutoff and fans stop spinning. PC is still in standby mode.

The power consumption during manual S3 standby (when accessories line is off and fans are off) is 0.092A (2.48W). Other values same as scenario 1.

Why do fans start running and the PC does not start, aren't CPU and Case fans to be controlled by the Mobo? Here they seem to get turned on and off depending on whether accessories line is on or not, even when configured for manual switch on and off!!! Moreover with Domestic PSU, I did not have any such issue of fan continuing to spin.

[bhp_maniac]

Originally Posted by ST7677

You are correct, even I was intrigued by the polarity aspect.

I did another scenario test - Scenario 2
I removed the OPUS power switch connection on MoBO and connected the front panel switch. Turned on the setup and again noticed...

Opus Power light blinks waiting for accessories line signal.
When accessories line is connected the PC does not boot up (this is expected) but again both the fans (CPU and case) start spinning, PC light glows constantly, USB lights glow constantly.
I press the front panel switch and the PC starts to boot up. After the bootup sequnce completes, I push the front panel switch and the PC goes into standby (my WinXP is configured for S3 standby), however the fans keep running.
Then few secs after accessories wire is removed OPUS does a hard power cutoff and fans stop spinning. PC is still in standby mode.

The power consumption during manual S3 standby (when accessories line is off and fans are off) is 0.092A (2.48W). Other values same as scenario 1.

Why do fans start running and the PC does not start, aren't CPU and Case fans to be controlled by the Mobo? Here they seem to get turned on and off depending on whether accessories line is on or not, even when configured for manual switch on and off!!! Moreover with Domestic PSU, I did not have any such issue of fan continuing to spin.

I think the following is happening

Case 1 - MoBO powered by opus:

Opus system is checking for the ACC supply only and not the command from the MoBO switch connectors. You can confirm this by pulling out the PSU connector from the MoBO and checking for the supply voltage when ACC is ON and switch connectors are left unconnected. In this case I believe irrespective of the power switch state, opus is supplying power to the MoBO. But the MoBO design is in such a way whenever a supply is available it will charge up the electronics on it, but NOT boot up the system. There are some models that follows this logic. It all depends on the BIOS logic.

Case 2 - MoBo powered by normal ATX SMPS:

Normal ATX SMPS only charges the output line based on the status of the power switch pins(pins 3&4 in the connector). As SMPS is strictly following the commands from the MoBo power switch, it will not supply any current until and unless MoBo switch is in ON state. As a result there is no supply coming to MoBo when the switch is in OFF state.

Meanwhile, regarding my first doubt i.e. whether your batteries are connected to inverter or not?
However, as a workaround we can introduce a simple circuit between the opus and MoBo which will control the ACC based on the MoBo switch operation in such a way that the ACC supply will gets to opus only when MoBo power switch is ON.

[gigy]

i would suggest recheck all wiring.
dont experiment with non normal setups. hope noting is blown in the psu. do you have your previous psu , may use it to isolate the psu.
take a 12v battery inverter or car one and connect as per diagram and check operation.if fans are coming on automatically before powering the motherboard then something can be wrong. are the fans powered fronm psu or through motherboard connector? if direct from psu check if it is in 5v line or 12v line.
is there any jumper settings on the psu?
when you remove psu accessory power its doing a shutdown, is normal.

first manually activate the power switch and see if its starting.
then use the psu input.

[ST7677]

Thanks for your responses, will try these out tonight and update.

My inverter was connected and charging at that time. All fans are connected through the mobo only PSU only connects to the Mobo and HDD, Sound card and nothing else. The setup continues to work perfectly with domestic PSU.


Meanwhile, the good part from above test was that the PC consumed max of 49W during bootup (do note that my soundcard and other perpherals were not connected for this test, but LCD was, thru OPUS) and only 2.5W during standby. So I can basically put my PC on standby and leave it instead of switching it off or even hibernating. It takes less than 1s to come out of standby.