Normal ATX Power Supply in a ShowVault 3/DCP-2000

[Cody Kish]

This is a continuation of the forum post I made about trying to replace the Barco projectors because the conversation shifted to getting our ShowVault 3 functioning again.

I learned from another post on here that it uses normal PC power connectors internally, so I took it out of the rack and looked and that is in fact true.
Are there any sensors or connectors that I'm missing that would make it unhappy to run with a normal power supply? Because if not, I have a couple spares and I can throw one in today.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Should be fine, just match it with same or better rated power handling and efficiency standard. (Gold Plus etc etc).
Make sure the power rails and connectors are what you need for that vintage motherboard.

[Cody Kish]

It worked perfectly!!
It's hanging out the back and wired through the open PCIe slots, but it's running and ingesting our movies!
No warnings in the OS or anything.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Nice to hear... Yeah, essentially, those servers are just normal PCs. I have no ShowVault 3 here, so it's hard to see how it is connected to the backplane. In many servers, the power supplies are directly connected to the backplane. In that case, you can't just simply hook up an ATX power supply. I guess you could remove the cage that holds the original PSUs, maybe that way you can give the ATX power supply some place inside the server chassis.

[Marco Giustini]

It’s been a while but aren’t those PSUs also providing ventilation to the case with their noisy fans? If the psu lives outside, then what’s exhausting the hot air from the case?

you Can surely patch up a powerful fan somewhere, just don’t forget thermals ?

[Cody Kish]

Yeah I won't forget, I'll figure out a fan soon. There are multiple other rear exhaust fans though. I'll monitor it for now

[Ryan Gallagher]

Oh, I thought it was the same form factor too... I wouldn't have recommended the "hanging out the back" approach, but will probably get you through till a real replacement can be acquired. ;-) Agree on the cooling concerns.

[Cody Kish]

The difficult part is going to be finding a power supply that isn't 20 years old that's vented front to back instead of top/bottom to back.
That's how basically all new ones are and that would be right against the case and that obviously won't help anything.

[Marco Giustini]

ah yes, that chassis had extra fans indeed. Then as a minimum, seal the gaps ?

What is the wattage of the PSU? Take a look at FSP series of industrial power supplies. Or Seasonic's. Don't look at consumer units, look on Digikey, Mouser, RS etc.

[Scott Norwood]

The difficult part is going to be finding a power supply that isn't 20 years old that's vented front to back instead of top/bottom to back.
That's how basically all new ones are and that would be right against the case and that obviously won't help anything.

You want an "industrial" ATX power supply if you need this design. They are usually smaller in capacity (~450 watts or so). They are definitely available, but likely not at your local computer store that caters to gamers who want 1kw+ power supplies.

[Cody Kish]

Oh, okay! I'll look into that, thank you.
(And I WISH I had a local computer store haha)