a few questions on pwr supplies, phones and electricty

[keldon]

I am starting to design a mod and am sorting out all the little ins and outs and have run into a few road blocks. When wiring speakers the signal degrades over a length of wire but with current you have no degrading, correct? I want to mount the power supply externally and will have to lengthen the wires in order to reach. Any thoughts on how to do this. My simple way is cut the wire and just use wire connectors. There may or may not be a window. I haven't decided yet. I am leaning towards no window or a very small one. The wires will be covered prob in some sort of dark mesh or heat shrink tubing so if the connectors are small enough you shouldn't see them very easily.

The next thing is I may want install a phone with an answering machine in this mod. The phone -non portable- I believe runs on its own current supplied by the phone line but the answering machine and caller ID screen will need seperate power? The answering machine and phone will be hardware not intergrated software. I want it them to work without powering up the main system. I can wire in seperate switches for this or do I need seperate power suppllies. I thought that the power supply was turned on and off from the computer mobo or can you do it manually.

I am sure I will have many more questions thanks for the help so far.

[richmandudeus]

Welcome to the modding world!!! :D

Because of this site, i became an expert :p on power wiring and routing from power source of the psu. You can have both the phone and the answering machine/caller i.d. wired into the psu without having to power it up. If you don't mind going into the psu and connecting a couple of wires, then now you have a power source for those items. One thing that i learned from this forum is that, yes the psu does need to be turned on by the mobo. But the psu needs to get power in order to give power. Connect the wires to where the psu is getting power, and now you have a wall jack in your computer. Don't worry if the psu needs to be turned off or not cause the source is independant of the psu so you wil always have power even if the psu is off. :D "sweet!" :D Here was my forum for that particular problem.

http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=896

Hope this helps you out. If you have anymore questions or that the forum post isn't that descriptive enough, let me know. :)

[crazybillybob]

Keldon,
Current does degrade over distance in wires (actually that's what happens with speakers). What happens is the wire has some very low resistance but when you start to get to long your resistance gets higher, connectors, solder joints all add to this resistance. When power is applied the resistance robs some of that power (current) and converts it to heat. To over come this you use larger diameter wires (lower resistance), In car stereo’s they run 4-8 gauge wires and the like (I have jumper cables that are 4 gauge to give you an Idea of the size) for most guys that's over kill, but I digress. DC Electric motors (the 100w kind found in electric scooters run on 10-12 gauge (so does most of the outlets in your house)). For PC's I'd use 14-18 gauge for most things heavy power bus related.
First off how far away are you talking? 12"-18", 2'-5'? At some point your going to drop to much voltage/current over the run to be practical. Larger towers have 24"-32" Power cables. Also your going to want to make sure that the power cables are routed away from signal cables, in the perfect world the two should cross @ 90degrees (perpendicular) to one another, to cut down on interference it's hard to do but as many little this as you can do will help.

I don't want to scare you with all this just give you some back ground. I would put the pc parts together test it make sure it works, extend my psu cables, test it again...If it works cool, if not use heavier wire, test it If that doesn't work ...adapt your mod ...maybe only extend the Power for the Drives As there not as picky as motherboards and Procs.

Good Luck,
If you need more info/help just ask we'll give it to you!

Crazybillybob






I am starting to design a mod and am sorting out all the little ins and outs and have run into a few road blocks. When wiring speakers the signal degrades over a length of wire but with current you have no degrading, correct? I want to mount the power supply externally and will have to lengthen the wires in order to reach. Any thoughts on how to do this. My simple way is cut the wire and just use wire connectors. There may or may not be a window. I haven't decided yet. I am leaning towards no window or a very small one. The wires will be covered prob in some sort of dark mesh or heat shrink tubing so if the connectors are small enough you shouldn't see them very easily.

The next thing is I may want install a phone with an answering machine in this mod. The phone -non portable- I believe runs on its own current supplied by the phone line but the answering machine and caller ID screen will need seperate power? The answering machine and phone will be hardware not intergrated software. I want it them to work without powering up the main system. I can wire in seperate switches for this or do I need seperate power suppllies. I thought that the power supply was turned on and off from the computer mobo or can you do it manually.

I am sure I will have many more questions thanks for the help so far.

[The Grendel]

Here was my forum for that particular problem.

http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=896

Hope this helps you out. If you have anymore questions or that the forum post isn't that descriptive enough, let me know. :)

What he said.

-Grendel

[keldon]

I am gonna take some pics and post them along with some drawings of the case in a new thread. That way you guys can take a look at what I kinda have in mind and maybe offer me a few suggestions.