helio905 Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 I build robots in spare time. But this is my first on board pc. The only way Iknow to power it is a 12 volt car battery and a 12vdc/110 inverter. I wasapperent that you loose alot of power this way. I know the input to themain board must be perfect. Any power saving tips? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ante Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 Hi helio,For every step you lose energy, this is not the way to go. I would recommend only one step conversion to get the highest possible efficiency. Use two smaller (half the size of the car battery) 12 V deep cycle batterys in series (24 V) and buy a new PSU for the PC. Here is one example for ATX PC: http://www.zantech.com.au/zantech/power-supply-atx-24v-dc/I hope I make sense. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helio905 Posted April 3, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2006 Thanks for the advice. And yes I noticed even the car battery does not lastlong whith the pc and drive motors not to mention all the other loads I amruning. I wonder though if I do this like you say, if the overcurrent will shutthe pc down every time my robot runs it drive motors. They use alot of curent. They are powerwheels gearboxes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ante Posted April 5, 2006 Report Share Posted April 5, 2006 If the load peaks is too high for the batterys internal resistance the voltage will drop and the computer might shut down. You should consider larger capacity batterys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony_Stoynov Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 Hi,why you used a standard PC board, why you dont use some industril on board PC. Many of them use only 12 or 12 and 5 V. Something like a Arbor EmCore 615, this is Via based PC. Has a many other company that produce this type of board, they is not very big, used only one power suuply, n some case two, and is mre reliable. The ony one disadvantagem the price is higer :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ante Posted April 8, 2006 Report Share Posted April 8, 2006 Depending on the length of the surges from the motors the PC can be protected from shut downs simply by adding a diode and a capacitor to pick up the slack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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