Battery PSU

[dpeterson3]

I want to run an old CPU mainboard off of a battery. I have been wanting to build an autonomous submarine for years. Last summer, I actually got a start on it, but never got to finish. I was going to use a Basic Stamp 2, but it just does not have a lot of the capabilities I want such as camera interface, processing power, or support for several sensors and still get some power out of it. I thought a CRIO would be perfect for what I want, but as you all know, they are very expensive. I looked around on Ebay for one, but could not find eny. However, I found quite a few old IO cards, relay cards, etc. cheap. I also have quite a few old mainboards lying around (people dump their old computers on me). I could easily turn one into a robot controller by using something like a Puppy linux distro on a flash drive. The problem I run into is power supply. I need to run the board off a battery. I have batteries that can handle the power draw, but I have no supply. I was thinking several voltage regulators would do it, but the ones I have (from Radioshack) only handle 1 Amp a piece. Can I put them in parallel to get more amps out of them or is there some better way to do this? Any ideas?

[RyanN]

Something like this? http://www.powerstream.com/mini-itx.htm

If you already have a small 120V PSU lying around, you could get a small and cheap power inverter to step up the voltage, however, the efficiency will suck.

I also believe it is fine to parallel voltage regulators. Don't quote me on this though, but I believe this is how they do it in regular power supplies, but they may also put diodes on the output.

[jcatt]

You might want to concider buying a power supply for a "Car Computer", they are designed to power a motherboard and hardrive from an unregulated 12v input. Here is just one company I found while doing a simple Google search.

http://www.mpegbox.net/products.html

There are many company's offering PSU's like this but this is has the highest wattage from my searching.

[EHaskins]

I've heard good things about http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.13/.f, but I've never had an excuse to use one.

[dpeterson3]

Thanks guys. I am suprised I didn't come across these while looking for building instructions. I like how cheap they are. I was expecting $100 or more for the cheapest one.

[Uberbots]

if you are looking for some decent processing power, you could try a gumstix processor paired with a robostix board. Those are small, relatively low power, and youd just have to voltage regulate from 12vdc to 5vdc

[RyanCahoon]

We used this power supply last year. It's designed for car computers, and as such to be able to sustain output voltage even though the input power may be dirty or prone to brown outs. We had no problems with it at all and I highly recommend it. You have to be careful about using just any power supply with the same battery connected to motors, as starting current for the motors can cause voltage drop outs.

--Ryan