[cwwozniak]

Here is quick picture diagram I put together in Photoshop that should give a pretty good idea of were to solder in the capacitors and the wires.

EDIT: As I mentioned before, the metal tray that is supposed to hold the hard drive can be used as the heat sink. You shouldn't need to electrically isolate the tab from the tray when you bolt it in. You just need to maybe bend the 7805's leads away from the tray a bit so that they short to the tray.

Once you confirm each assembly is working correctly, you could put a blob of RTV over the 7805's wiring to keep everything in place

[Koot]

Originally Posted by wacor

Hey Koot I see you are retired. Were you an electrical engineer??

And how big of a Ham operater nerd are you?? If you were/are an obsessed Ham I bet you have had contact with an old buddy of mine.

Yes I am retired, but my profession was in something far different from electrical engineering. However, I suspect I could pass the unlimited electrical licensing test.

I was first licensed when I was 12 years old. I've been in and out of the hobby over the years, but haven't been active recently. I used to design and build some of my equipment, mainly big linear amplifiers. The hobby offered me a lot of fun and allowed me to learn a lot about electronics and electricity. I also enjoyed joining a large group of friends on 75 meters during the evening hours and contest on weekends. I've even won a few worldwide contests over the years. Ham radio used to be much more active and fun than it is now. Golf has always been my number one hobby since childhood.

Here's some pictures of a linear amplifier I designed and built.

[Koot]

Here's a picture of what some of my Ham radio station equipment looked like, but my main hobby has always been golf... Don't ask me about sports cars!

How about you wacor - what kind of nerdy hobbies do you have?

[wacor]

Originally Posted by Koot

Here's a picture of what some of my Ham radio station equipment looked like, but my main hobby has always been golf... Don't ask me about sports cars!

How about you wacor - what kind of nerdy hobbies do you have?

No nerdy hobbies unless you consider golf nerdy.

my buddy built his own rigs. Heathkit as I recall was the make. He moved up into northern part of the lower penninsula in MI. Put up a tower that i think is 40' tall. Rarely see him anymore but he was consumed by it. he would even take his mobile unit and rig up a mobile antenna on fishing trips.

[Koot]

Originally Posted by wacor

No nerdy hobbies unless you consider golf nerdy.

my buddy built his own rigs. Heathkit as I recall was the make. He moved up into northern part of the lower penninsula in MI. Put up a tower that i think is 40' tall. Rarely see him anymore but he was consumed by it. he would even take his mobile unit and rig up a mobile antenna on fishing trips.

Yeah, Heathkit used to make kits for transmitters, receivers, amplifiers, etc. that included all the parts and you just followed the instructions. I preferred designing and laying out my own circuitry and obtaining the necessary parts. It was much more gratifying that way instead of buying a kit that included everything you needed. I've built a number of high-power amplifiers using parts that were not available in kit form or from the equipment manufacturers. Years ago when I lived out in the country with a large number of acres I had towers and beams, but I now have properties inside city limits.

[n2gun]

Nice station Koot

[Koot]

Originally Posted by n2gun

Nice station Koot

TX Jerry, 73

[Koot]

MRGromPro - Let us know how your project is going.

PS - Sorry for getting off-topic a little...

[MRGromPro]

IM BACK!! :-)
...and still unable to get the Enlight unit I pictured in my first post to work via wall socket power. I haven't had time to mess with it (or the 7805 item) you all tried so much to help me with till now. But since I acquired a 5V 3A power plug I thought I would try an easier way to fire it up and then maybe mess with wiring up a 7805.

Ok so I have the 12V 1A box plug wired to the yellow 12V wire and a ground,.. Also a 5V 3A box plug wired to the red and a black ground and low and behold the thing fires right up when I plug them in! Temp sensors work too, buuuuuuuut when I plug a fan into the unit the LCD goes blank and gives me a sick repeating beep. The fan does fire right up though, Ha!
You can set the Enlight to monitor fan RPM or not. If I tell it not to, basically tell it no fans are hooked to it all the fans work and the LCD as well. Soon as I tell it monitor a fan RPM's though it goes dead and starts beeping.
I know I got the right volts to the right wires this time around so my only other thought is I have too many or not enough amps?

The device works fine if I hook it to a PC so can anyone tell me how many amps a PC's 5V power supply pushes?

[cwwozniak]

Originally Posted by MRGromPro

Soon as I tell it monitor a fan RPM's though it goes dead and starts beeping.

The device works fine if I hook it to a PC

Just to confirm, it works fine with fan speed monitoring enabled when powered from the PC?

Originally Posted by MRGromPro

so can anyone tell me how many amps a PC's 5V power supply pushes?

A typical 350 watt PC power supply can put out maybe a total of 20 Amps on the +5 VDC outputs and maybe a total of 23 Amps on the +12 VDC outputs

[MRGromPro]

Yes it works fine and monitors fan RPM's when hooked to my PC.... and I have an update,... now it works fine and monitors RPM's when hooked to a wall socket if I use a 5V 2A box plug. Doesn't like the 5V 3A plug, works with the 5V 2A. Explain that to me if a PC is giving it as much as 20A, LOL

[MRGromPro]

Although everything is working like it's suppose to, like if it were hooked to a PC, I'm not really getting the max CFM and in turn air flow from the three fans I have hooked up. The 2 exhaust fans are restricted a bit what with them blowing through a thin carbon filter (for odor control), there running at 2000-2100 RPM's,.. and the intake fan is running at 2200 RPM's with no restriction. I guess I cant complain them being rated at 2500 RPM max.

[cwwozniak]

Originally Posted by MRGromPro

Doesn't like the 5V 3A plug, works with the 5V 2A.

It could be that the 5V@3A adapter is bad or it may be a simple unregulated power supply whose voltage drops to much too keep the controller happy as the load increases.

[MRGromPro]

5V 3A dropping below 2A though? I was thinking 3A was too bookoo but if a PC gives it 20A christ who knows. Is there any way to tell how regulated the power is coming from one of the plugs? I have a multimeter but I'm not real knowledgable at using it. Here is a pic of it.

[cwwozniak]

Assuming you have typical test leads that go with the multimeter, plug the black lead into the bottom jack of the meter marked "COM" and plug the red lead into the next jack up marked "Volt-Ohm-mA". For testing 5 and 12 volt supplies, set the meter's knob pointer to 20 in the DCV section.

Work out your power supply and load (Fan controller unit) cable connections so that the meter can stay connected to the supply while you can connect and disconnect the load.

Connect the meter's red lead to the positive (+) output of the supply and the black lead to the negative (- or ground) output of the supply.

Measure the output voltage with no load connected. A regulated supply should measure pretty close to its rated voltage. A simple unregulated supply may output almost a 50% higher voltage.

Connect your load. A regulated supply's voltage should not change as long as you are not drawing more than its maximum current limit. An unregulated supply's output voltage will drop under load. An unregulated supply may also have show a large amount of AC ripple voltage under load that may not be that easy to detect with your meter.