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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: novaburst on September 10, 2003, 03:22:42 PM
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I'm thinking about getting a Viper 1240 or 1260 for my A1200.
My A1200 is not a tower model, it is in original case.
Is the original power supply in the A1200 strong enough to handle the Viper 1240 or 1260?
If not, is there a certain type of power supply I should upgrade too?
I would like to stay with the original case too, so hopefully if I have to upgrade, I can get a power supply that works with it.
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Not really sure if the a1200 psu will handle, i know the little black one is lame tho. AFAIK the most "powerfull" amiga PSU is the old 500/600 white "Bigfoot" PSU.
Correct me if im wrong..but :-)
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The 1260 card is a little less power hungry, but a higher wattage PSU is a good idea for any reasonably expanded A1200.
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novaburst wrote:
I'm thinking about getting a Viper 1240 or 1260 for my A1200.
My A1200 is not a tower model, it is in original case.
Is the original power supply in the A1200 strong enough to handle the Viper 1240 or 1260?
Hi. I used Viper060 with the original PSU for a few days. I had some random lockups but it worked quite fine. Then I took the power connector from an A500 PSU and soldered the power lines needed to an old AT power. I also desoldered the rest of the cables from the PSU to make it prettier (at this point I should maybe tell you about the possible risks etcetc) ;-)
Well, anyways, everything works fine now and I can keep the original desktop case :-)
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I'm currently using a Blizzard 1260 with the black PSU and an internal 2.5" hard drive. It works fine with a 3.5" hard drive, too.
However, I had problems with the original PSU that came with my first A1200D, I had to replace that one with an A500 PSU. This was when I used an Apollo 1240 card with a fan.
Perhaps there are differences between the white A1200 PSUs too, although I'm not sure about that.
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I run this lot (http://www.legolas.com/amiga/myamiga.html) off a standard A500 power supply.
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There is definatley a power difference within the different PSUs. AFAIK the white big heavy ones and the white lighter (500+ / 600) are the most powerfull).
Try it and see :-)
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fragment wrote:
I used Viper060 with the original PSU for a few days.
Oh yeah, the A1200 PSU outputs 3A on the 5V. All my A500 PSUs output only 2.5A. The 200W AT power outputs 20A on 5V.
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Basicly I'd say the original 23W A1200 PSU is too weak to power much else than the the A1200 unit itself. A 50W A500 PSU will give you a margin to power the turboboard but don't expect miracles... it wouldn't power my A1200 with B1260, internal soundcard and scandoubler and an external diskdrive for much more than an hour or two before the PSU was so hot one could hardly touch it. :-D
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I got an A600 PSU here rated at only 25W or something. Pretty crap but it's currently running an A1200D with 3.5inch HD and Apollo 1240/25.
I bet it dies real soon!
One word of warning. Some people I knew expanded their 1200D systems then got a beefier PSU (usually a PC one) and ran into problems later. What happened was the current being drawn was a bit over what the 1200's mobo could take around the power connector.
Anyway, before towering my previous A1200 (which had a hard disk and BlizPPC to feed), I had a PC PSU wired up to feed it. In conjunction with the nornmal 1200 power connector, I actually fitted a molex connector into the back of the A1200 case and used it to attach a secondary power rail from the PC PSU.
This secondary rail powered the HD, floppy and fed additional power into the motherboard via the floppy port.
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Hi,
A while ago, I measured the current my A1200/040 system used and got this:
Device Power @5V Power@12V
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A1200+040 2.5A 0.077A
1.4 GB HDD 0.5A
External FDD 0.7A
Scan Doubler 0.5A
CD-ROM, 52X 1.3A 1.5A
Total 5A 2.077A
The original A1200 PSU can supply +5V @ 3A and +12V @ 0.5A
I doubt your original PSU will be enough.
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I used a 2.5" HD, an Elbox 1230-II@50 MHz and a sound sampler with a standard A500 PSU. It refused to run stable with the standard 1200 PSU, though...
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Ok, very good advice everyone, thank you!
I am also getting a scandoubler, so hearing about that, reminded me of it.
I found the Viper is offered at Softhut. Looks like I definitely need to shop around for a better power supply. I'll see if they have one there when I order the Viper.
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novaburst wrote:
Ok, very good advice everyone, thank you!
I am also getting a scandoubler, so hearing about that, reminded me of it.
I found the Viper is offered at Softhut. Looks like I definitely need to shop around for a better power supply. I'll see if they have one there when I order the Viper.
@novaburst-
I've ordered a bunch of stuff from Software Hut, including that A1200 scandoubler, good company! Unfortunately, every time I ask they never have any A1200 power supplies (this was just a couple weeks ago). Their solution? Put it in a tower. :-( ... Methinks not a bad idea 'tho, actually, as that scandoubler especially gets very hot!
@Karlos -
Any more details on feeding additional power in through the floppy connector?
Thanks,
Mike
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@Oldsmobile_Mike
Sure, but first take not that messing around with PC power supplies could fry your computer or worse yet, yourself!
For the record, I really reccomend getting a decent tower conversion rather than what I am about to describe for a desktop machine.
Even My A1200T is still rigged this way internally (using 2 power feeds, I mean) supplying power from the cases PSU to the motherboard in 2 places.
Back to the 1200D
Like many of my friends, I had an old PC kicking around with a spare 200W AT PSU. First and foremost, the PSU needs to be in working order. A duff one could ruin your machine at the flick of a switch.
Next check that the main power switch is either
1) Physically mounted into the PSU itself (ususally round the back of the PC).
Or
2) Is on the end of a cable (ie the power switch is mounted in the front of the PC's case somewhere) but explitly connects only the low voltage DC side!
Whatever you do, don't go playing with any PSU that uses a power switch on the end of a cable that carries mains voltages. You could get electrocuted!
Such PSUs are fairly rare but I have seen a few them. The power switch connectors ususally have heavy insulation on the lugs.
If you are in any doubt, you are probably best of leaving the PSU in the PC case.
There are aminet files explaining how to connect an A1200 power cable to the PC's PSU. I wont go into detail here (principally because I can't remember the basic amiga power cable pin out and don't want to give you ill advice), but basically you need to source +5V, +12V, 0V and -12V on the PSU for the 1200 power cable.
-12V is the only one not part of any ot the normal PSU disk power connectors. You will find it on the main PC mobo power connector - it's usually colour coded blue, but check thouroughly on the PSU's legend.
Assuming you have your basic 1200 power cable connected up you now have plenty of juice available.
So far, all this has been the normal stuff to get a beefier PSU.
In order to prevent current damage to my 1200 mobo (as happened to my friend) I decided to add a secondary rail to my 1200D as I explained earlier.
I took a spare 1200 power cable and chopped the connector off the end and the old brick off the other. I then used this cable to simply extend one of the PC PSU's drive power connectors (just the 0/+5/+12VDC) such that it would reach my amiga.
I fitted the male version of the same connector to the hard drive / floppy drive power cable inside my 1200 and mounted it on the back of my amiga case.
This basically meant that the hard drive and floppy drive were now powered directly from the PSU and not via the amiga motherboard anymore, thus reducing the current flow through it.
Eventually I took this one step further and used the motherboard floppy power connector to feed 0/+5V/+12V into the motherboard via a standard floppy power connector. Even without powering the drives, the 040 card still drew some current.
The pin configuration for the 1200 mobo floppy power connector is +5V, 0V, 0V, +12V from left to right, looking at the motherboard as it would be normally inside it's case (and in front of you).
I still use this configuration in my 1200T, using a spare floppy power connector to feed the motherboard there and also via the original power cable.
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When the 1200 and 4000 were built, Amiga was already brain dead..............
try a Big Foot Power Pak for a 1200, they run about $90.00 US last time I checked . There is nothing so aggravating as a Amiga with an anemic power supply ... I forget what the factory 1200 desktop came with ..but it was little if any ... any SCSI device will suck it off....I think the Big Book of Amiga Hardware or better yet try.. Vesalia Computer in Germany has a ton of hardware for Amiga 1200...lets see they ... i think it's ..."www.vesalia.de"
the neat thing is that they have all kinds of fun stuff for Amiga ...and good links too...a positive hit for sure ...