Is there any interest in new Amiga 3000D and 4000D power supplies?

[x56h34]

A local Amigan/friend of mine and myself are considering designing and producing new replacement power supplies for Amiga 3000 and 4000 desktop version computers. The idea behind this project is to provide direct replacement products of the same form factor of the original PSUs (according to original Commodore dimensions) however with more power than the originals provide...probably somewhere in the area of 300W, or perhaps more. The internals would actually be an ATX power supply that would be small enough to fit inside the original case dimensions.

The complete, final product would look externally exactly the same as the original Commodore power supplies.

Installation of it would require the user to simply swap the new PSU with the old Commodore one (by removing just a few screws). We would also review options on providing a more superior airflow (especially in the case of A4000 PSU) so that hot air could be sucked in from the inside of the case and blown outside more efficiently, compared to the original Commodore PSUs.

Please keep in mind that the status of this project is extreme work in progress. At this time we are basically gathering information on whether or not there would be enough interest in such a product so that we could justify investing into its development. There is no deadline or schedule of any kind yet. :-)

Any comments, suggestions, price range ideas, etc. would be appreciated. :-) Please post them in this thread for everyone to see and discuss, rather than sending PMs. Thanks.

[x56h34]

The PSU would definitely be able to power any A3000/A4000 system with an accelerator card in it (CSPPC or not) + tons of more expansions.

It would most likely be universal, 110V/220V 50/60hz switching PSU, rather than locked to a particular region's voltage.

The A3000 version would have to have some sort of built in tick signal circuit. AFAIK, this would not be needed for the A4000 version.

A500/A600/A1200 PSUs of higher wattage are not planned at this time. I think that http://www.montek.com still sell some AT PSU to Amiga (500/600/1200) conversion cables. These would do the trick with very little effort, other than producing a more expensive custom made PSU altogether.

[x56h34]

koaftder wrote:
Are you going to fabricate your own chasis for the device, or will you require a core?

New chasis would be made according to the same dimensions of the original.

I cant immagine there being much profit for yall making powersupplies. You most likely wont sell thousands of them, and if you did you would have to outsource the pcb production and probably the assembly, as you wouldnt have time to solder all thoes diodes and caps and other things.

We are both aware of that. Realistically looking at things, we'd probably be looking at around 100 sales, if that. I guess if we could break even in the end, it would be worth doing it.

Even if you did setup shop in your garage and made your own pcb's, what would you do with all thoes gallons and gallons of waste ferric chloride? You have to pay to dispose of it properly.

We would buy internals of existing ATX power supplies that could fit into the A3000D or A4000D chasis, and simply rewire them to work with A3000D and A4000D style power connectors, and neatly secure the PCBs inside the chasis so that the entire job looks clean. We would definitely not make our own internals of the PSUs from scratch. That would be too expensive.

[x56h34]

amigadave wrote:

I can't imagine why you didn't like my idea of using existing "REAL" Amiga PSU housings, unless you think finding the cores would be too much trouble and don't think your buyers would supply you with their existing PSU's for a source of cores.

The original chasis for both A3000 and A4000 could certainly be improved as far as airflow holes are conserned. We figured that a completely new arrangement would be in order, thus the idea of reusing existing original chasis would not provide for a clean solution, as a lot of custom cutting would be required and we are not equipped for that sort of thing. The design of the new chasis would be done by us and the actual manufacturing would be done by a 3rd party contractor. As soon as we design the chasis and find a fitting ATX PCB, we will look for the best option on 3rd party manufacturing. The idea is to have all the parts ready for a simple assembly by the two of us, testing, and finally sale.

Other than fitting the ATX PSU's into the Amiga PSU housing, fitting the fan properly and switching the MoBo connectors, what PCB are you talking about?

I think that A3000 motherboard requires tick signal to be present, and some sort of a solution would have to be provided in order for our idea to work with A3000D system in mind.