Is anyone using a power supply splitter?

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Chuntzu

Active Member
Jun 30, 2013
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I have looked at these before, never pulled the trigger. I have recently revisited this idea with a boat load of Intel nucs and single or dual supermicro powersupplies. They have a DC direct input on the motherboard. But things like the picopsu dc-dc power supply and tap the 12v from the power supply. I believe you have some pics psus, perhaps that would work?


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Patrick

Administrator
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Dec 21, 2010
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Here is the thought process, these Atom C3000 series boards use well under 100W for the entire system. For power testing we have a standard power delivery setup, but there is really no reason they need to do benchmarks in that setup. While we only have three or so C3000 boards in house now, looking ahead 3-4 weeks I expect that number to explode.

Likewise, if you were mining on Ryzen 5/ Ryzen 7, you could do two barebones a 400W PSU easily.
 

Marsh

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May 12, 2013
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I had used such power supply splitter in the early 2000.
In 2000, PS manufacturer was like arms dealer , bigger and more PS is better.
I ended up with lots 750w or higher PS.

Now with Ebay, I am able to purchase 10 x Seasonic 350w for $10 each shipped.
Also Seasonic 300w SFX at $10 each.

The only advantage using 1 PS for 2 boards is saving physical space.

Seansonic 350W or 450W PS is just perfect today, efficient and quiet
Most dual E5 v3 miners machine consume less than 200w while mining.
But I need to use EPS 12v splitter to power dual CPU board.
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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@Marsh - that is a good idea. I was also thinking it would be more compact but that is something to think about.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Splitter does come with a downside - unless you are comfortabe hot-plugging MB power you'd have to power down both systems to add or remove a MB.

I'd just go with using picopsu. And all the SM C3000 boards can run with just 12v direct fron a brick. Not really much call for the splitter.

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Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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Bricks are a good option for sure but maybe a nice 450w platinum psu powering 2 systems is actually more efficient ?
 
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Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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What class VI bricks are the best for higher and lower 12v use ?
 

Michael Hall

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Oct 9, 2015
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I was working on something somewhat similar to this, for a OpenStack cluster based on 6 AMD AM1 nodes. The plan was to use a 12V 720W lighting power supply feeding a PicoPSU in each board. I only ever got as far as hooking the power supply up to a home-made load tester and accidentally momentarily shorting the negative output (which was mains earth referenced, with no GFCI) to the hot wire coming in. Whoops. After that, the PSU's efficiency dropped from 60-something% (which was already disappointingly low) to 30-something%, so I think I probably damaged something. Never got around to opening it up and having a look, though.

I've since decided to just go with a dual-Xeon system, so a lot of the parts are for sale over here.
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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No. power supplies are cheap. Rats nest wiring is a pain. I tried it early on with bitcoin mining and gave up.
On the other hand they take space and consume more power. I don't actually use a splitter as I tried to run as much as possible on class VI power bricks either direct or picopsu but I can certianly see the attraction.
 

K D

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Dec 24, 2016
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I tried this model when I built a 2 mitx in 2u system a few months ago. All I can say is that it worked without any problems. I ended up returning it though because I couldn't fit it properly in my 2 u case.
 

i386

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Mar 18, 2016
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Are these adapters/splitters "safe" to use? I read a lot of horror stories years ago in different magazines and can't tell if that was just fud so that people buy special psus/cables/what ever.
 

K D

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Dec 24, 2016
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This particular one is designed for use in one of the Phanteks cases(can't recall which one) that supports one EATX and one mitx motherboard. I'd trust this over others as its from a decent brand and certified to work with their case.
 

abq

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May 23, 2015
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What class VI bricks are the best for higher and lower 12v use ?
Hi Evan,

Did you ever get a good response on Class VI Power Brick efficiencies? ...I did not find good info for 'most efficient' low or high power 12 volt or 19 volt bricks, other than obvious Class VI specs.

Cheers, ABQ :)
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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