Bench top power supply from old atx?

[tblake05]

I see tutorials all over.... I’ve got a spare from a mediocre old dell circa 2015 so I’m half tempted to try it.

it would be nice if it were variable, which is easy enough. Though I work with voltages higher than 12v DC quite often. As well as some AC voltages up to 36v AC.

do you think it’s possible to convert one to work in my case?

 

[mbbrutman]

It's pretty easy to do. You just need to use a jumper wire or a switch across two pins; the tutorials show you how.

I use an ATX power supply to power an external hard drive connected to my PCjr, and for general hard drive testing on a workbench.

 

[Chuck(G)]

I'm not so certain about the "variable" aspect. My feeling is that to do that would exceed the cost of a cheap Chinese benchtop supply. Of course, if you have a well-stocked hellbox, anything is possible. I threw together a variable linear PSU using a variac, a couple of panel meters that I had kicking around and a big UPS transformer. Looks nice and works well for some tasks, but I'd still opt for a standard bench supply with current limiting.

 

[tradde]

It's pretty easy to do. You just need to use a jumper wire or a switch across two pins; the tutorials show you how.

I use an ATX power supply to power an external hard drive connected to my PCjr, and for general hard drive testing on a workbench.

Yeah, that's what I usually do too. But I ended up using my spare one to power a Linux box I was setting up.