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PicoPSU floppy drive power

Started by bobrocks95, May 01, 2024, 02:54:58 PM

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bobrocks95

Think I'm almost fully sorted on getting all my X68k ducks in a row, but one thing I wanted to check on- some older threads recommended not powering the floppy drives via the ATX connector from a PicoPSU? One person selling units on another forum recommended not using a PicoPSU if you're using floppies since LEDs would start to flicker on disk read?

I'm not sure how the power rails are built on a PicoPSU, but I have a 120W one with a 4-pin molex, SATA power, and 4-pin floppy drive connector pre-attached. I could pull out a multimeter to check for continuity, but I guess I should ask, is the 4-pin floppy connector (which should be +5V, GND, GND, +12V) actually different than just using those pins from the ATX connector?

Since my drives have the 3-pin +5V, GND, +12V connectors I was going to splice the original wires to the PicoPSU either way, it's just a matter of where to connect them.

Thanks!

HIggy

I've not had an issue (done it 3x now) powering from PicoPSU (remember there are copies out there!!).

I use a 24 to 20 pin ATX short cable and then cut off the plug and just wire the wires to the correct side on the X68000.

On my Expert 2 I did use the SATA connector with an adaptor to plug into my internally mounted BlueSCSI V1.

Not noticed any LED or other issues.

Pretty sure e.g. 5v rails are all connected together. So does not matter which you use.

bobrocks95

#2
Quote from: HIggy on May 05, 2024, 06:05:09 AMI've not had an issue (done it 3x now) powering from PicoPSU (remember there are copies out there!!).

I use a 24 to 20 pin ATX short cable and then cut off the plug and just wire the wires to the correct side on the X68000.

On my Expert 2 I did use the SATA connector with an adaptor to plug into my internally mounted BlueSCSI V1.

Not noticed any LED or other issues.

Pretty sure e.g. 5v rails are all connected together. So does not matter which you use.

Thanks, I'll confirm with a multimeter they're connected together, which I figure they would be.  Comments came from leonk in one of the original PicoPSU adapter threads: https://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=6510.msg45156#msg45156

EDIT: confirmed all 5V, 12V, etc pins are all connected together, including on the peripheral output jacks. Other than concerns of pushing a certain wattage through a single connector pin I don't see how there'd be any difference. Just going to use whatever connectors are most convenient then.

If I had to guess I'd say the problems are from people not using a powerful enough PicoPSU (I got a 120W to have plenty of headroom), or just the general number of clones there are of them. Going to measure my voltages on all the pins as well when I have it in