SGI: Hardware

Announcement.

After many months of development (not to mention over 3 years since the initial pre-prototypes which I still use), I present you…
The snap-in ready-to-use Fuel ATX power supply adapter.

It’s a two-piece design - the main 24-pin converter and the 12V piece (it’s simply more efficient with PCB manufacturing).

It provides self-generated PSU FAN signal - roughly 1800 RPM which is well above 1600 RPM warning level.
It converts all necessary signals to use an ordinary PC ATX PSU in a SGI Fuel.

Availability - currently I have 3 fully assembled and tested PCB prototypes, those are available for sale at a promotional price of $60 plus shipping from Japan (should be roughly $5-$9 worldwide). Payment via Paypal (preferred) or EU bank transfer to Poland, bitcoin is also possible.

Users in the Bay Area - I will be in SF between Nov 17th and 30th - pick up in person possible, the beer is on you

The prototypes have the ATX socket mounted on the underside of the PCB - that means the board is at a certain angle and the ATX plug kind of leans on the CPU module’s debug connector. This is expected and I’m debating addressing that in the future.

Those 3 are on a First-come first-served basis.
One of the three is braced with more wire for increased current carrying capacity and has fully latched plugs - if you use 800MHZ+ CPU, V12 with DCD and many other peripherals or keep the Fuel in a moving environment I recommend that one. Otherwise I will assign the adapters to orders at random - https://xkcd.com/221/

All adapters are made in Japan by my very own self, fully tested and verified electronically to match maximum current capacity that ATX cables themselves can supply (hence very wide PCB traces and lots of solder all over).


If there is more demand I’m open to a larger production run - the price will then be $75 a set.
The earliest availability date for the next run will be mid-december at the latest, all orders placed beyond 3 prototype pieces will be considered up for the production run. A chance that *you* will have yours by Christmas


For the reference - the thread that started it all is here: http://forums.nekochan.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16725574&start=45

Please be sure to read - it contains useful hints on how to buy an appropriate ATX PSU - it’s not that easy.

The easiest exclusion criteria is that it should provide at minimum 30 Amperes on each of 3v3 and 5v rails, most high-power supplies provide much less - those will likely not work. I recommend at least 500-550W total power.


Side note 1 - this is NOT an open source design at the moment and the schematics/PCB design will not be available.
If you want to make your own - all the information you need is on the thread above.
If you want a ready-made adapter - my offer is for you, you’re paying for a fully working and tested device and hundreds of hours spent on development and safety (believe me it was not easy), and obviously you're saving many hours yourself that you don't have to spend building your own.

Side note 2 - this is a new product and I will provide warranty for the workmanship and potential malfunctions within one year.
What the warranty DOES NOT include is:

• Bad ATX PSU choice including bad voltage regulation, the 3v3 sense line stays connected at the plug level not at the socket level - this may or may not result in variations in 3v3 voltage supplied by the PSU.
• Wrong installation
• Potential incompatibilities with *your* Fuel - it is possible that certain L1 or PROM versions detect PSU signals in a certain way that the adapter may not be able to subtitute. The adapters are tested on a L1 version “Firmware Image B: Rev. 1.24.11, Built 10/29/2003”

Obligatory screenshot (this was a test using 400W PSU on my designated motherboard for this kind of experiments, without GFX), not enough as you can see - the voltages are a tad too low.




And some pictures:

no offense, but this looks fragile and ugly.

Fuel is fragile and ugly - perfect match, and besides, it's not built for the looks but rather out of necessity to save all those poor Fuel's from extinction.

If you look carefully (assuming you have a Fuel) - this is designed to fit into *VERY* cramped case of the Fuel (especially the plug area), there were a ton of compromises I had to make, such as the 12V module has to make room for the black front panel connector (hence the "L" shape), the main big board has a 45 degrees cut on the right because it has to go around 5.25 inch cage etc etc.

If you mean the assembly itself - I'm not sure if you realize how big currents ATX can produce - at full power that could even mean 5 cm thick traces - that's rather impossible - hence solder to ensure enough current capacity.

A word of praise is in order.

Nice work and i am glad to see that someone took the time and effort to come up with a solution for maintaining a working Fuel without having to go through hard-to-find replacement parts. I honestly don't know if there even is a replacement market available for Fuel PSU's. I guess if there were, kubatyszko would not make the PCB in the first place

dexter1 wrote: A word of praise is in order.

Nice work and i am glad to see that someone took the time and effort to come up with a solution for maintaining a working Fuel without having to go through hard-to-find replacement parts. I honestly don't know if there even is a replacement market available for Fuel PSU's. I guess if there were, kubatyszko would not make the PCB in the first place

Thank you!.

Market for PSU's - probably not but there must be a graveyard somewhere...

If I didn't have a couple spare Fuel systems with PSUs I could raid, I would definitely buy this.

From what I've heard in the past, yes there is a market for something like this. Ian mentioned some time back to me that the reason all his Fuel systems skyrocketed in price (very shortly after I bought mine from him) was that he ran out of spare PSUs, and a company offered him many hundreds of pounds for one (I think it was around £800), resulting in him dismantling a working Fuel just to sell the PSU from it.

Hence, a method like this of using a normal ATX PSU - especially whilst being able to leave Environmental Monitoring enabled would be great for none-professional users (and maybe even some pros that don't mind a jury-rigged adapter in their systems).

Put it like this, if my Fuel PSU pops, I'm going to have serious trouble finding one out there which I can afford. This adapter helps solve that, so you get a thumbs up from me!