Monday, January 14th 2019
HDPLEX Unveils the 800-Watt DC-ATX Power Brick: Convert Idle PCIe Connectors to Power a Second PC
HTPC case maker HDPLEX unveiled the DC-ATX 800W, a nano-ATX form-factor power-converter. This accessory, roughly as big as a power brick, takes in 6-pin PCIe, 8-pin PCIe, and 8-pin EPS connectors from your main rig, and depending on how many connectors you plug-in, puts out up to 800 Watts of power through a 24-pin ATX, and three downstream PCIe/EPS connectors, with the unit itself handing DC-to-DC switching of 12V to 5V and 3.3V voltage domains. This accessory is ideal if you have a high-Wattage power supply with multiple vacant EPS and PCIe connectors, and want to power a second mini-ITX machine, while saving a lot of space on the side. It uses some pretty high-grade components to ensure 24x7 operation, including Sanyo Japan-made solid-state capacitors, Infineon-made MOSFETs, Würth Elektronik inductors, and controller chips supplied by National Semiconductor and MPS. Available in the coming weeks, the DC-ATX 800W is priced at $190.
Source:
FanlessTech
16 Comments on HDPLEX Unveils the 800-Watt DC-ATX Power Brick: Convert Idle PCIe Connectors to Power a Second PC
I mean, why would you need a secondary PSU that powerful?
If you are building two systems in a single pc, than i can think of only one scenario. First one is a workhorse/gaming rig, and second one is NAS. You only need like 50W for super powerful NAS that beats every QNAP and alike.
For the price of 190 USD, i would rather buy a second case like mini ITX, a gold certified psu and i would have some left over money for MB at the minimum.
Some might say, but hey, this must be good for a second workstation. Then again. You wont fit a second workstation in a single consumer case, so you will have to buy another case, unless you are building the case yourown, or just screwing everything to a wall or something. Still makes this thing pointless.
There it fits well, the marketing did a miss.
It's a DC-to-ATX PSU, like the previous models (250W, 300W, 400W), taking a wide range of DC input voltage (16-63V in this model, much wider than the previous models). The main use of these units is in ultra-compact SFF cases, mostly the crowd-sourced ones, because they are the ones pushing the limits, nothing from the big names comes close in terms of density.
Anyways, how this works is you put this in your case (and connect all the wires to the mobo, GPU, storage, etc.), and supply DC voltage to it by using an external AC-DC brick - let's say a 330W gaming laptop power adapter (@19.5V) (or a modded 500W version of it), or the 400W AC-DC adapter HDPlex are offering, for example. Or even 6S LiPo batteries - great for a DIY VR backpack PC!
So this 800W unit is essentially two of the older 400W units slapped together on one PCB (with all the engineering challenges, of course), requiring two DC inputs, as seen in the diagram. But the larger physical size, compared to the previous units, will reduce its usability in the existing SFF case designs, and I think its main target are different usage scenarios (as stated on their site) - autonomous cars, AI...
www.hdplex.com/hdplex-800w-dc-atx-with-16v-63vdc-input.html No mention of powering up a secondary PC from an ATX PSU or anything of the kind. Diagram only shows 2x6-pin input connectors, and it's a wide-range 16-36V input. I'm sure it's not gonna work correctly if you plug in a 12V source, like a PC power supply.
It will work perfectly from a 24V truck battery or this 350W power brick:
P.S. Once again, good f@#$ing job on writing front page news.
But the yea... Well kinda harsh, but all we want is TPU to excel and provide better and quality articles. All for good.
They only say "outputs are disabled if input #2 not plugged in". Like @Zerofool said, it's basically 2xHDPlex PSUs smashed together.
If it was a passthrough, pretty sure they would mention that Vin #2 is 12V only.
What it does: accepts power from 1-2 AC-DC power supplies in the supported voltage range, and converts it to the required voltages for ATX-standard PCs, with appropriate outputs.
Check your sources, please.
i am ISP
before I had an apc UPS, which uses two 12v 60A batteries in series giving a total of 24v.
this UPS powered 2 pcs plus telecom equipment that worked at 24v and these equipments had a source that converted 90 ~ 240 ac to 24v. in the absence of ac power the UPS converted 24v to ac ~ 110. hence the devices converted ac into "atx" for pcs and 110 in 24v novamenge, a waste. these batteries using this configuration lasted an average of 2 hours.
I now use a UPS source, which has the second configuration, AC input 90 ~ 240 DC output 24V and connection for batteries. in the absence of ac voltage the source switches directly from the battery terminal to the 24v output, without any conversion and with voltage control so as not to completely exhaust the batteries and daficalas. on pcs I use a solution like this of the material and for equipment that works on 24v I call directly.
how to convert from 24v to "atx" requires components much more efficient than a transformer, and without conversion for 24v systems, battery autonomy now lasts many hours, at least 5x more ...