ATX motherboard running a Robot.

Dec 31, 2003 3 Replies
J

I want to make a mini-itx motherboard run my robot. The motherboard will be running linux and use USB to do wireless network and a 3-axis controllable web cam. ( I plan on having some PIC devices do a lot of the motor control ( lower functions ) and using the linux PC to do some of the AI / Higher Control stuff )



I'm having problems figuring out how to power this from a battery source. I have a DC-DC converter that takes a



12volt input and produces the correct ATX power requirements. I'm not having much success at getting this to run off of a
12 volt UPS battery. The DC/DC converter wants a narrow, input range and my UPS battery has too large an input range. I'm looking at different ways to fix this.

There is a opus solutions SFX-12-25 DC/DC converter, but it is around $200.00. I am hoping for something cheaper.



Before I burn up anything or spend $200 on hat opus DC/DC converter, I thought I'd check here to see if there was anyone else doing something similar that has solved this issue?



Thanks - jack


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E

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some nifty DC-DC converters that work good. If I remember it cost about $70 US.

You can also roll your own using a National IC chip and a transformer. But it costs more than to use the Ituner own above. I used to use two 12v batteries in series, and voltage regulators to break down the +/-12v nd +/-5v needs. But you still have to trick the ITX board into working with it.

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J

Thanks. The ituner place has someting called an ITPS that should help the input voltage ( changes as the battery state changes ) be what the DC/DC converter needs ( steady 12.2 volts ) I've ordered that... we'll see how it works once I get it.

jack

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S

Thanks for the link, just what I was looking for as well!

So if I read their specs right, The input voltage can be anything from 10.2 to 13.8 volts and at max load will draw 6 amps from the battery (Model: PW-70-MINI-ITX)?

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