New HDPLEX 200W LPS

[LTG2010]

5 hours ago, tboooe said:

The second pics shows each pair of wires from the pcb and transformer going into separate blocks.  

Those are bridge rectifiers in the second pic, the diode circuits, the transformer's AC output rails are converted to DC and passed onto the regulators in the first pic, which regulate down to the  voltages required for the various outputs on the power supply.

It looks like 2 rails from the transformer are used, its not uncommon to use 2 rails and then split them up further, but you can take a closer look at the wires going to the rectifiers from the transformer, it could be 4.

[tboooe]

1 hour ago, LTG2010 said:

Those are bridge rectifiers in the second pic, the diode circuits, the transformer's AC output rails are converted to DC and passed onto the regulators in the first pic, which regulate down to the  voltages required for the various outputs on the power supply.

It looks like 2 rails from the transformer are used, its not uncommon to use 2 rails and then split them up further, but you can take a closer look at the wires going to the rectifiers from the transformer, it could be 4.

Thank you.  I see 4 pairs of wires from the transformer going to 4 bridge rectifiers.  Does that mean there are 4 independent rails?

[LTG2010]

1 minute ago, tboooe said:

Thank you.  I see 4 pairs of wires from the transformer going to 4 bridge rectifiers.  Does that mean there are 4 independent rails?

Yes 4 rails.

[LTG2010]

2 hours ago, Lebouwsky said:

Thanks for that Frederic. Not sure what negative voltage means in dc, but this seems more complex then I previously thought. I’ll wait for Ghent to respond my request first

There aren't any negative voltages on your board, or most boards for that matter that's why I left them out.

I also left out pin 16 PS on - since you cannot switch a linear power supply on or off from your computer / server unless it's specially designed to do so.

[austinpop]

1 hour ago, LTG2010 said:

There aren't any negative voltages on your board, or most boards for that matter that's why I left them out.

I also left out pin 16 PS on - since you cannot switch a linear power supply on or off from your computer / server unless it's specially designed to do so.

 

I’m no expert, but I was also told by a PSU designer that the -ve DC voltages are kegacy, and not used in modern motherboards. The last device he remembered requiring it was an ISA card. That takes you back doesn’t it!

[rickca]

18 minutes ago, austinpop said:

I was also told by a PSU designer that the -ve DC voltages are kegacy

You mean legacy ... kegacy is something Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh knows about.  Anyway, I think you're right.

 

Apologies about the in joke to our non-American users.

 

 

[austinpop]

4 minutes ago, rickca said:

You mean legacy ... kegacy is something Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh knows about.  Anyway, I think you're right.

 

Apologies about the in joke to our non-American users.

 

 

 

“I liked beer. I still like beer.”

[Lebouwsky]

4 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

There aren't any negative voltages on your board, or most boards for that matter that's why I left them out.

 

Negative voltages.... the pc’s reverse gear to power the “undo” button perharps?

 

Couldn’t resist, cheers.

[bobfa]

On 1/10/2019 at 10:26 AM, bobfa said:

I will also take that homework assignment!  My HDPLEX 200 should be here tomorrow.  IT will be powering my NAS and my Roon Server.    

 

On 1/10/2019 at 10:28 AM, austinpop said:

 

Love it!

I ran the power supply for 24hours on the bench just loaded down with a small NAS and a NUC.  I then put the supply on my Sonic Transporter Server.  After another day I started listening on the small system in my office and found some interesting changes.  This afternoon I was able to "borrow" some time to sit down and listen on the Living Room system.  WELLLLLLLL,.....

 

The power supply is worth it to me.  It increases the server cost from $2000 to $2500.  The whole experience is better.  A couple of the BT tracks I use for reference show more detail and are more "open/relaxed".  The sound track to The Lord of the Rings; The Return of The King feels more "alive".  The choir vocals stand out better. The Billy Boyd vocal sounds more like you are in the hall listening to him sing.  The music is more moving.  Annie Lennox feels more present singing "Into the West" . 

 

It was hard to go back to work.  I really like this kind of homework.

 

 

[austinpop]

1 hour ago, bobfa said:

 

I ran the power supply for 24hours on the bench just loaded down with a small NAS and a NUC.  I then put the supply on my Sonic Transporter Server.  After another day I started listening on the small system in my office and found some interesting changes.  This afternoon I was able to "borrow" some time to sit down and listen on the Living Room system.  WELLLLLLLL,.....

 

The power supply is worth it to me.  It increases the server cost from $2000 to $2500.  The whole experience is better.  A couple of the BT tracks I use for reference show more detail and are more "open/relaxed".  The sound track to The Lord of the Rings; The Return of The King feels more "alive".  The choir vocals stand out better. The Billy Boyd vocal sounds more like you are in the hall listening to him sing.  The music is more moving.  Annie Lennox feels more present singing "Into the West" . 

 

It was hard to go back to work.  I really like this kind of homework.

 

 

 

Bob,

 

With what default PSUs are you comparing the HDPlex to?

 

 

[bobfa]

10 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Bob,

 

With what default PSUs are you comparing the HDPlex to?

 

 

Rajiv, My Sonic Transporter i7DSP came with a Dell-branded 90W "Laptop Brick".    

Here are a couple of pictures.

 

 

This is my first real test into improving the server and network side of things.  

 

**** I am sorely tempted to move the server and power supply into the LR and put a "good" ethernet cable between them or put a wireless card in my NUC.  So many options.  (but that is not part of this thread!!)

 

[Lebouwsky]

This weekend I pulled the trigger and ordered the hdplex 200w. Instead of a 12 and 19v fixed output I’ve asked Larry to install 2 fixed at 12v and 2 variable outputs. My plan is to use 3 rails to power the motherboard’s atx without the dc to atx converter. It needs 12, 5, 3.5v for atx plug and the 4th 12v output to separately power the cpu. Last but not least a rather complex cable like @LTG2010 suggested (thanks again for that).

 

My X10SBA motherboard is now powered by one 12v output of the Sotm sps500 using a 4 pin molex connector. The Sotm usb card is powered externally at 7v by a Teradak 30 linear power supply

 

I will first test it with just 1 rail of the hdplex to power the motherboard with the 12v molex and all it’s internal voltage regulators. This way I can compare the hdplex with the sps500

 

Second step will be powering the mb with all 4 rails of the hdplex without the sps500 and bypassing the voltage regulators.

 

Third I will change one of the 4 hdplex’s rails by the sps500 to power the cpu and see if this makes a lot of difference.

 

If not I will go back to the 4 rails of the hdplex and use the sps500 to power the Sotm Usb card externally.

 

I even might sell the sps500 if the difference is small and buy a second hdplex to power ssd, Sotm sclk clock and Sotm usb card. This way I still have a rail spair for something else, who knows what.

 

I think it will take a few weeks to get all parts and another few weeks to test. 

 

[rickca]

47 minutes ago, Lebouwsky said:

I think it will take a few weeks to get all parts and another few weeks to test.

Looking forward to your feedback.  Your project is a lot more ambitious than my 200W LPS/400W DC-ATX setup.  I'll be doing a writeup once I've finished testing a few more ideas.  I don't get into DIY cabling.

[tboooe]

3 hours ago, Lebouwsky said:

This weekend I pulled the trigger and ordered the hdplex 200w. Instead of a 12 and 19v fixed output I’ve asked Larry to install 2 fixed at 12v and 2 variable outputs. My plan is to use 3 rails to power the motherboard’s atx without the dc to atx converter. It needs 12, 5, 3.5v for atx plug and the 4th 12v output to separately power the cpu. Last but not least a rather complex cable like @LTG2010 suggested (thanks again for that).

I also just placed the identical order.  I already down the HDPlex 400W ATX linear power supply that I will continue to use with my server.  The 400W lps has good noise characteristics at 2-3mv ripple.  I plan on using the high quality variable output of the 200W lps for my  switch and NAA pc.  I will use the fixed 12V output for my wireless bridge and possible to energize the the LPS1-2 I also have.  

[Lebouwsky]

Please correct me if I'm wrong. DC always has a + and - wire. Earth or drain (or ground?)  is the 3rd cable for current leakage to flow away into the earth / drain / ground. This is very confusing to me. It seems that the terms "negative", "ground", "earth" and "drain" are not always used the the same. In the xlr pinout figure, nr 1 is called ground, which I interpretit the same as "earth" or "drain". But in the atx pinout I believe the black "ground" pin is used here as negative. Is that correct?

 

 

Second confusing thing for me, most DC plugs only have 2 wires: + and -, like the standard barrels of a laptop power cable. My question is, how to properly use the 3rd earth/ drain wire (out of the hdplex 200w for example)  when powering the motherboard. When powering my supermicro x10sba by the 4 pin dc plug for example (which is basicly a double + and a double -) the earth or drain is not used at all. Yet, the manual of the motherboard says:

 

 

"Although a chassis may have both plastic and metal mounting fasteners, metal ones are highly recommended because they ground the motherboard to the chassis." This implicates that the motherboard is connected to the chassis, and the chassis must be connected to the 3rd earth or drain pin.

 

 

Third, for what it's worth, my supra ply 3.4s speaker cable has a sheeld around the + and -, the sheeld must be attached to the earth or drain of the amplifiers in order to float away the garbage that this shields picks up. Same goes for mains cable supra lorad 2.5, which has a sheeld wrapped around +,- and drain. This shield should be connected to drain at the inout side of the cable. Is this “picking up and floating away” of garbage also implemented in the JSSG 360?

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LTG2010]

Hi Lebouwsksy,

On your 3 pin schematic we need the red positive and black ground for our DC. No negative.

From your DC power supply there will be only positive and ground. On a 3 pin connector only 2 pins will be connected.

From your DC power you will connect + 3.3V, 5V, 12V to the corresponding connections, You will connect a ground from each DC supply to the Ground on the motherboard, since the grounds are common they can be connected together or individually.

Connecting the DC ground to AC earth or an earth block for emi drain off is viable and will reduce some HF noise, you can connect 1 end of your shield to ground. Because all the grounds are common, and as is probably the PC case, you can just take one ground point to your earth block.

[LTG2010]

Out of interest, here's a pic of the rear of the supply showing pin 3 as 'not connected' so the barell connector at the other end has positive and ground.

[Lebouwsky]

On 1/22/2019 at 3:41 PM, LTG2010 said:

From your DC power you will connect + 3.3V, 5V, 12V to the corresponding connections, You will connect a ground from each DC supply to the Ground on the motherboard, since the grounds are common they can be connected together or individually.

Connecting the DC ground to AC earth or an earth block for emi drain off is viable and will reduce some HF noise, you can connect 1 end of your shield to ground. Because all the grounds are common, and as is probably the PC case, you can just take one ground point to your earth block.

Thanks for the great info again. Do I understand you correctly that if the motherboard is connected to the pc’s chassis, that the atx cable’s ground is indirect connected to the chassis and that connecting the chassis to the ground is sufficiënt?

 

I have a 15 meter long dedicated metal rod drilled in the ground. It has made a HUGE improvement soundwise, going from a straat shared rod. That’s why earth or drain has gotten so much attention.

 

Btw, the atx cable that is made contains 6 starquad 21awg silverplated wires, all jssg360, 4 xlr plugs and one 4 pin molex.  Really looking forward to the results. Unfortunately the lead time for the custom hdplex 200w is 4 weeks.

[LTG2010]

34 minutes ago, Lebouwsky said:

Do I understand you correctly that if the motherboard is connected to the pc’s chassis, that the atx cable’s ground is indirect connected to the chassis and that connecting the chassis to the ground is sufficiënt?

 

Yes that's correct, if you use metal screws without washers to connect the board to the chassis the screw holes are ground points, in effect the case becomes 'ground', you can check for continuity with a meter.

Connecting to your earth rod from any ground point on the PC, or on the case will 'ground' the entire PC including power supplies attached.

I can hear a definite reduction in noise when I connect this way, but only when using pretty thick earth/ copper cable (from PC to ground block) - lowest impedance seems best.

Looking forward to hearing about the results.

[frederick184]

200W HDPlex sold out in US until end of Feb.

 

Colin

[rickca]

I'm using the 19V fixed rail of an HDPLEX 200W LPS to power an HDPLEX 400W DC-ATX.

 

The 400W DC-ATX is powering both the 24-pin and the 8-pin EPS12V on my ATX motherboard as well as a SATA III hard drive with my music files.  Nothing special about the motherboard, it's a Gigabyte Z170X Ultra Gaming.

 

I used to power this Windows 10 i7-6700K machine with a Seasonic X650 Gold supply.  The Seasonic is now powering only the 8-pin power connector on my GTX 1060.

 

Wow!  This is the best sound I've ever heard on this Windows 10 machine.  It's actually inspired me to try AudioLinux or Windows Server 2019/AO 3.00 beta on it.  I'm pretty sure these OS will respond even better to good power input.  I didn't expect this.

 

Initially I just used the DC-ATX to power the 24-pin and used the Seasonic to power the EPS12V.  This certainly sounded better than powering the whole machine with the Seasonic.  But also powering the 8-pin EPS12V with the DC-ATX made things considerably better.  Much cleaner bass and more depth to the music.  Of course, the HDPLEX 200W LPS gets a bit toasty because I'm running with the Windows 10 High Performance power plan.

 

I use this machine standalone with local audio devices when I'm in my office.  It's also the server I use with my NUC7PJYH/AL endpoint on my main system.

 

I'll do a write up of my experience implementing the 200W LPS/400W DC-ATX when I have some time.  It was worth messing up the neat cable routing job I did when I built this machine.

[elan120]

14 hours ago, rickca said:

I'm using the 19V fixed rail of an HDPLEX 200W LPS to power an HDPLEX 400W DC-ATX.

 

The 400W DC-ATX is powering both the 24-pin and the 8-pin EPS12V on my ATX motherboard as well as a SATA III hard drive with my music files.  Nothing special about the motherboard, it's a Gigabyte Z170X Ultra Gaming.

 

I used to power this Windows 10 i7-6700K machine with a Seasonic X650 Gold supply.  The Seasonic is now powering only the 8-pin power connector on my GTX 1060.

 

Wow!  This is the best sound I've ever heard on this Windows 10 machine.  It's actually inspired me to try AudioLinux or Windows Server 2019/AO 3.00 beta on it.  I'm pretty sure these OS will respond even better to good power input.  I didn't expect this.

 

Initially I just used the DC-ATX to power the 24-pin and used the Seasonic to power the EPS12V.  This certainly sounded better than powering the whole machine with the Seasonic.  But also powering the 8-pin EPS12V with the DC-ATX made things considerably better.  Much cleaner bass and more depth to the music.  Of course, the HDPLEX 200W LPS gets a bit toasty because I'm running with the Windows 10 High Performance power plan.

 

I use this machine standalone with local audio devices when I'm in my office.  It's also the server I use with my NUC7PJYH/AL endpoint on my main system.

 

I'll do a write up of my experience implementing the 200W LPS/400W DC-ATX when I have some time.  It was worth messing up the neat cable routing job I did when I built this machine.

Thank you for sharing this information.

 

How much improvement would you say when using NUC7PJYH/AL endpoint?  I been thinking about doing the same as well, but not sure how much impact this change can have when using NUC/AL.

[frederick184]

16 hours ago, rickca said:

I'm using the 19V fixed rail of an HDPLEX 200W LPS to power an HDPLEX 400W DC-ATX.

 

The 400W DC-ATX is powering both the 24-pin and the 8-pin EPS12V on my ATX motherboard as well as a SATA III hard drive with my music files.  Nothing special about the motherboard, it's a Gigabyte Z170X Ultra Gaming.

 

I used to power this Windows 10 i7-6700K machine with a Seasonic X650 Gold supply.  The Seasonic is now powering only the 8-pin power connector on my GTX 1060.

 

Wow!  This is the best sound I've ever heard on this Windows 10 machine.  It's actually inspired me to try AudioLinux or Windows Server 2019/AO 3.00 beta on it.  I'm pretty sure these OS will respond even better to good power input.  I didn't expect this.

 

Initially I just used the DC-ATX to power the 24-pin and used the Seasonic to power the EPS12V.  This certainly sounded better than powering the whole machine with the Seasonic.  But also powering the 8-pin EPS12V with the DC-ATX made things considerably better.  Much cleaner bass and more depth to the music.  Of course, the HDPLEX 200W LPS gets a bit toasty because I'm running with the Windows 10 High Performance power plan.

 

I use this machine standalone with local audio devices when I'm in my office.  It's also the server I use with my NUC7PJYH/AL endpoint on my main system.

 

I'll do a write up of my experience implementing the 200W LPS/400W DC-ATX when I have some time.  It was worth messing up the neat cable routing job I did when I built this machine.

Thanks for posting this.  This is what I plan to do when I get my HDPLEX 200W LPS and HDPLEX 400W DC-ATX in March.  I currently power the PC with a Seasonic Platinum SS-460FL.

 

I have an Asus Z270 motherboard with an i7-6700K processor.  I run Win 2016 server core with AO on an Intel Optane 950P.  The only other board in the PC is my Startech 4 port USB 3.1 PCIe board.  I plan on powering both the motherboard and the Startech from the HDPLEX, so this post is very timely.

 

I look forward to your updates.

 

Colin

[rickca]

5 hours ago, elan120 said:

How much improvement would you say when using NUC7PJYH/AL endpoint?  I been thinking about doing the same as well, but not sure how much impact this change can have when using NUC/AL.

I compared

 

NUC7PJYH/AL endpoint standalone running LMS/Squeezelite streaming Qobuz (powered by a Paul Hynes SR4)

to

NUC7PJYH/AL endpoint running Squeezelite fed by LMS streaming Qobuz on Windows 10 server 

 

Although the standalone endpoint sounded great, the latter configuration sounded better.  The server and endpoint are connected using 5GHz wifi.  

 

I also use my Windows 10 server standalone with local audio devices as a secondary system, so that was an additional motivation.  My music files are on the server on a SATA III hard drive powered by the DC-ATX.

[elan120]

11 minutes ago, rickca said:

I compared

 

NUC7PJYH/AL endpoint standalone running LMS/Squeezelite streaming Qobuz (powered by a Paul Hynes SR4)

to

NUC7PJYH/AL endpoint running Squeezelite fed by LMS streaming Qobuz on Windows 10 server 

 

Although the standalone endpoint sounded great, the latter configuration sounded better.  The server and endpoint are connected using 5GHz wifi.  

 

I also use my Windows 10 server standalone with local audio devices as a secondary system, so that was an additional motivation.  My music files are on the server on a SATA III hard drive powered by the DC-ATX.

Good to know server --> NUC7PJYH/AL endpoint also benefited from this power supply upgrade.  I am now wondering how much impact would this have when EtherRegen is released.

 

I am using wired configuration currently between my server and NUC/AL endpoint, and I will think more about making the power supply switch like yours when things are settled down a bit.