Amiga 3000D owners, do you want a better power supply?

Hi there fellow Amiga 3000D users,

I am an electrical engineering student and I recently had a serious problem (read catastrophy) with the power supply of my Amiga 3000 desktop.

The original power supply in the 3000D is only rated for 135W and that leaves little safety room for big expansions such as powerful 68040/68060/PPC accelerators.

I recently found an ATX power supply which has physical dimensions very similar to the original A3000D power supply but it is rated for 200watts. see: http://www.sparklepower.com/pdf/FSP200-60SAV.pdf

I intend to adapt this power supply to replace the power supply in the 3000D. Of course, it would be much more worthwhile if other people were interested in having their PS modified (read internally completely replaced) in the same manner.

If you would like to know more then by all means please ask your questions. The first one, of course is pricing... well that depends how many people are interested. These PS would certainly be cheaper if I buy 10 or more at a time.

I will answer all technical details I can.

Added edit:
The real dimensions of the 3000D power supply is 110x63x175mm (WxHxL).
The dimensions of the substitute power supply is
86x65.5x174.9mm (WxHxL).

Same length, very slightly taller, 1 inch narrower.

[Xanxi]

Interesting.
Could you do the same job for the A2000?

Xanxi wrote:
Interesting.
Could you do the same job for the A2000?

I probably could. I would have to check the compatibility of the 2000 with an industry standard form factor. Looks close to AT or ATX.

I have the schematics for the A3000D here so I know what comes out the 3000D PS and on what pin. I would need the same information for the 2000.

[MrZammler]

I was thinking these days to replace the fan on my 3kd's psu.

I assume you will keep the original PSU housing, and just replace the internals? Well, then, yes I'd be interested.

Gimme a reasonable price, 200watts, and less noise than the original and you've got yourself a customer!

[orange]

do you include PCB for TICK generator?

MrZammler wrote:
I was thinking these days to replace the fan on my 3kd's psu.

I assume you will keep the original PSU housing, and just replace the internals? Well, then, yes I'd be interested.

Gimme a reasonable price, 200watts, and less noise than the original and you've got yourself a customer!

Yes, the idea is to install it in the original housing of the PS of the 3000.

The specs to which I gave a link specifies there is a noise killer in this power supply. This power supply is equipped with a thermal fan speed control. However, since I do not have a power supply like that myself, I cannot garantee the exact results.

I suppose it depend how much heat is produced by the additionnal equipment you have put in your A3000.

orange wrote:
do you include PCB for TICK generator?

That is something I will have to decide when I make my prototype.

The 3000D does not absolutely need the TICK generator as it can be replaced by an internal signal with J350.

However, I was told by a retired technician that the TICK signal may be used to synchronise the display refresh rate with the frequency of the mains to avoid wavy variations in luminance in the display when not using the built-in flickerfixer.

I will have to take a look at the TICK signal on an oscilloscope to decide on that.

[Damion]

The only problem is... do you really want to trust your Amiga to a Sparkle PSU?? :-P

-D- wrote:
The only problem is... do you really want to trust your Amiga to a Sparkle PSU?? :-P

I have never purchased any power supply from this company before. However, the fact that they give so many detailed informations about their product (see the PDF in the original post) suggest a certain professionalism.

However, if you have any information, positive or negative, concerning the reliability of their product then I would truly appreciate it if you would post it.

Also, if you believe you have found an equivalent product from another manufacturer that also closely matches to physical dimensions of the original A3000D power supply then by all means, let us know about it.

I just looked at Jameco and they seem to sell this TFX form factor for a fairly low price.

32$/each for one unit

28$/each for 10 units.

I also found a 300W PS of the same form factor for 49$.

See: http://www.sundialmicro.com/silverstone_power_supply_300wsstlc11_1723_492.html

[Damion]

Well, they may be better now, but Sparkle didn't used to have the best reputation, LOL. Silverstone makes a great PSU, I've ran a few of them pretty hard and they've held up just fine. I'm sure either will be better than a 20 year old Commodore PSU, but I'd go with Silverstone over Sparkle.

[Amigaz]

I'd certainly be interested to if you can make 220volt PSU's

I'm just about to replace my fan in my A3000 PSU too....it's too damn noisy  :-o

[Zac67]

eslapion wrote:

However, I was told by a retired technician that the TICK signal may be used to synchronise the display refresh rate with the frequency of the mains to avoid wavy variations in luminance in the display when not using the built-in flickerfixer.

This is not really what it's for. The TICK signal feeds the internal system clock (CIA) which is usually fed by _VSync (Agnus) on the smaller machines.
Running it from the constant mains frequency means your clock is independent from the screen mode you're using - with ECS any screen mode different from the native one will screw up your system clock otherwise.
J350 changes this to _VSync (which I have done on my A3k 3 weeks after buying it since mains TICK was WAY off).

Zac67 wrote:
Running it from the constant mains frequency means your clock is independent from the screen mode you're using - with ECS any screen mode different from the native one will screw up your system clock otherwise.
J350 changes this to _VSync (which I have done on my A3k 3 weeks after buying it since mains TICK was WAY off).

Hey, mega thanks for this information.

This means I have to assume anyone using the power supply also uses it to maintain system clock and therefore, if I make a tick generating circuit it would then have to be based on a crytal oscillator. Probably would also have to provide a jumper for 50/60 Hz mode of operation.