Moving ATX (SFX) PSU into a Mac Pro PSU cage

[spence4]

Probably should have asked this at the beginning, but are the dohickies that I am concerned about preserving already inside this little Apple plug that I have? If so, are they Apple specific and there I should use the ones from the SilverStone PSU? Now that I have already cut the cable, should I proceed? Will having two sets of dohickies cause any problems? If dohickies are the same across PSUs should I just go with my original though and clip the whole Silverstone plug off and just attach the three wires to this Apple plug?

I bet no one anticipated this would be such a complicated thread....

 

[chaosdesigns]

Probably should have asked this at the beginning, but are the dohickies that I am concerned about preserving already inside this little Apple plug that I have? If so, are they Apple specific and there I should use the ones from the SilverStone PSU? Now that I have already cut the cable, should I proceed? Will having two sets of dohickies cause any problems? If dohickies are the same across PSUs should I just go with my original though and clip the whole Silverstone plug off and just attach the three wires to this Apple plug?

I bet no one anticipated this would be such a complicated thread....

The Apple ones are probably on their circuit board. It really depends on the design of the power supply. Keep your dohickeys (so technical!!) with your power supply. Dont worry about having two sets. And, yes, they are usually taylored to each power supply.

 

[chaosdesigns]

ha ha, I see your cube in the background! LOL

chaos

 

[spence4]

Nice eyes Chaos. Did you notice the blue glow at the bottom? That is from my Dell power brick going straight into the Intel DH61AG. Big thanks to Neihart on spotting that board. I am tempted to upgrade to IB and the Intel Q77 board with the same form factor, but it seems silly to spend the dollars for about 1500-2000 Geekbench points when it will not be the primary computer once my Mac Pro is done. Only thing left for me to do on the Cube is slap an I/O plate on the bottom and get wifi to work somehow - I think my full size mini PCIe slot is messed up. I also may try to get that new Noctua Cooler in there. I think 37 mm will just fit. Although last time I tinkered with the Cube the touch sensor got messed up and required a few hours TLC to get back online.

I'll do some soldering in the next day or so and hopefully get the original socket working.

 

[chaosdesigns]

I am midway through my first cube mod and I am using the DH61AG as well (Thanks Neil, MiniHack, Eelhead, Einsteiniac, Sonicseamus,and others!) I have already got my DQ77KB for my next cube mod. I think I may need my head examined!

 

[minihack]

Good grief this thread was not here when I went to bed and I wake up and there are now two pages. Blimey.

Just to add my 2 pennies. What you do Spence is fine. By this I mean, mains filtering is desirable. I expect that any modern supply from a reputable supplier already has mains filtering and therefore it is not the end of the world if you remove it from the Apple socket. Also it is of no harm and possibly of benefit to keep the filtering from the Mac.

I'm not going to get into which wire to connect where (as if I do the thread will probably run and run to 20 pages).

Anyway good luck with the Pro and feel confident!

 

[spence4]

Minihack, always good to have you chime in. My alternate plan is to lose the filtering bits from the Silverstone and just hope the Mac Pro one is sufficient. The Silverstone is a 450W gold plus PSU but the Mac Pro one was probably a 800W Delta beast. Anyway, I will take a picture of the bits I'm talking about on the Silverstone just so there is no confusion. May have to be in a few hours though as I am in the middle of sleep training my 2 year old- standing guard outside his door!

 

[minihack]

Hi Spence,

I know the Silverstone PSU you are talking about. In fact I have just RMA'd mine (there are two versions, I bought the the modular one) as it crapped out after a month - hopefully I was just unlucky.

The components (if we are talking about the same thing) are on the high voltage side and are the big capacitor (looks like a battery), an inductor (the ring around which one of the mains cables is wound) and probably also a couple of other capacitors.

Function, as I'm sure has been said already, is generally to reduce ripple/block interference. It's not really worth too long worrying about as I am sure Silverstone should have figured this in to their PSU so if you just have their filtering that is fine. That said, there is no harm in doing double (if you want) or, equally if where you are putting things makes keeping the Apple version more sensible there is no harm in ditching the Silverstone version and keeping the Apple ones.....

 

[spence4]

Still waiting on my son to go down. The thing I am taking about is a little black thing that dangles from the plug. There is also a little PCB in there with a clear plastic shield around the whole thing. Shield is an exaggeration as it is flexible. There is also a little wire attached the ground cable which ends in a yellow piece of tape folded over on itself so it is not sticky that sits between a couple cylinders on the actual PSU part. The only thing connecting this plug plus battery plus PCB looking think to the PSU are the black and white wires that are wrapped around a green ring and I assume are the two main power plus and minus.

 

[spence4]

Here it is. Can I just attach those black and white wires to my rust and blue wires on the Apple plug (and of course ground it) and call it a day? Is that PCB and other mess what is contained inside the metal case on my Apple plug? Thanks.