My Powerlab 6 charge station :)

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Ok so I have had my Powerlab 6 and power supply setup for a little while now. I have slowly been getting everything needed to make it a portable solution, these days off when I got home I started building it and finally finished last night!

I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted too of the process but I got enough to give a basic Idea. It took me about a week to get it finished

 

[Snook Man]

Nice Job...

 

[Greywolf74]

Now that is a freakin work of art right there!!! That thing is absolutely pimp! I wish I had the equipment to pull off a build like that!

Where did you get your server PSUs?

 

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Thanks guys I worked quite a but to get it done, took about a week. I picked them up off ebay. They are super cheap, usually ranging from $25-$30 shipped for a pair. The put out roughly 1100 watts, 46a, 25v wired in parallel. I had considered offering to build these for anyone interested but I'm not sure it would be a smart thing to do...lol It's quite alot of work to make one of these little things.

It's really hard to see the detail on the charge deck but I did a base coat of red, put down the lettering and then a second coat of black while the red was still a little tacky. Once the black got tacky I peeled the letters off and baked it in the oven for about 30 minutes. That made the red create bubbles and surface through the black so it had a speckled look. I then layed about 4 coats of clear enamel, let it get tacky and then repeated the oven process for about 10 minutes. It gave it a textured, crackled look.

---------- Post added at 11:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:24 AM ----------

I have actually considered changing to 1/4" MDF board and taking it to an engraving shop to get it cut out and engrave the letterings.

 

[HPIguy]

That is outstanding work sir!

 

[Greywolf74]

What keywords did you use to search for them on ebay? Also where did you get the voltage screen and the case? Also, where did you find the info on how to wire them up in series? I may end up trying to build something similar to that myself later this year.

 

[Rolex]

That is a totally professional piece of work. Beautiful job.

 

[trax de max]

Awesome work dude, That's the only way to make it portable using two server supplies. I think people just think we carry two about with a charger.

 

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What keywords did you use to search for them on ebay? Also where did you get the voltage screen and the case? Also, where did you find the info on how to wire them up in series? I may end up trying to build something similar to that myself later this year.

The powers supplies are DPS-600PB models made by Hewlet Packard. There are several power supplies you can use, just need to pick what works best for you in your application. In my case I picked the supplies based on the charger, they will nearly allow my charger to max out on a 40a charge

The voltage screen I picked up from ebay, it was cheap..Make sure when you search for them that you click the US seller only tab or you will get a bunch of results from over seas. You can also get a Voltage/Amp gauge but it's a little than just 2 wires to hook up. I picked one up but opted out of using it due to space limitations in the case. That shunt is pretty big :\

As for the information I found....Well I actually found a guy on ebay that sells these already done up (search for Powerlab 6) and that is what initially lead me to more research. I ended up finding a website by a guy named tjinguy that has alot of useful information, along with the needed pins to turn the units on. Other than that I just pulled it apart and wired it up without any sort of specific guide. Now after I wired them up the first go around I stumbled upon a very very lengthy thread on RCGROUPS specifically related to these two power supplies. That my friend has all the information anyone could ever need. You have to weed through the pages to get all the good information but its there, trust me The idea for putting it in a case came from ProgressiveRC, gotta give them some credit, which is where I bought the charger from. Also some of the connections and wire I used came from them aswell...They sell top notch products!

The case I used is a Pelican iM2100

That is a totally professional piece of work. Beautiful job.

Thank you sir! It's so pretty I almost want to stick it on a shelf and just admire it

Awesome work dude, That's the only way to make it portable using two server supplies. I think people just think we carry two about with a charger.

Yeah, a couple of my buddies kind of thought I was weird when I showed up carrying two server supplies velcrowed together and my PL6. They didn't say anything else after I charger a 4s 6000 mah battery in 12 minutes : I can't wait to see their faces when I walk up carrying this....lmao

 

[Racer 1966]

That is a totally professional piece of work. Beautiful job.

I totally agree with the old fart

 

[trax de max]

there going to love this, easy to carry and protected.You'll be making more for your pals and get some decent rc funds doing it.

 

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A little update - The JST plugs I used on the LED and Switch failed after a little bit of use, I pulled everything back apart and re-soldered some Futaba J plugs on. Let it run idle for about an hour and did a discharge/charge cycle, everything is kosher now. Put it all back together and added the two strips of velcrow to the lid so I can strap accessories to it.

 

[trax de max]

dang I'm too jealous, how did you fix the supplies down, are they easy to remove.

 

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Velcrow my good sir, fairly easy to remove. Pull the charger out, 4 screws securing the deck and then you have access to everything underneath. That is the purpose of the futaba plugs, so if and when I need to pull a supply I can leave the hardware bolted to the deck. I'll admit the velcrow is stubborn but once you get a corner up the rest is a down hill slide.

I still plan to add the wiring later on so that I can flip one switch and use a single supply and I may or may not change out the fans for some slower ones.

 

[trax de max]

I needs a different box. The outputs from the supplies i use come from the bottom. I might change all mine out. I had about 4 boxes like yours, but got stole from the man cave a while back.
I'm sure i have an aluminium case somewhere which is a nice size.
Too the drawing board it is. The fans i was using on the tool box was a pci slot blower for the exhaust and to let a bit more air in through the inlet on the other side. Both powered from the 5V output on the supplies. They don't run too fast because of the lower than rated voltage, but lets in enough air to keep cool inside.

Need a finger gaurd still.

 

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Cool, have you checked out Progressive RC? They have lots of goodies!

I willing to be you could tie fans into the 12v source without sucking to much juice from the powersupply, add a fan regulator and you could control the fan speed. Or you could throw a resister between it and keep it running a low speed all the time. I didn't experiment with any kind of fan hookups since the powersupplies and the charger all have fans. As long as I have enough holes for everything to circulate I shouldn't need any extra circulation.

 

[trax de max]

yea i looked at a few things deciding on what to go for. In the end i just went for simplicity. My supplies don't have fans but needed some sort of air flow, I was thinking of fitting a fan to the supply case, But we'll see how this goes. the supplies was only £10 so no biggy if they go. If they did go I'd go with the server supplies.

 

[Greywolf74]

So anyone have a link on how to hunt down the DC ground inside the case and make sure its disconnected? I've found instructions on how to do everything but that. With the exception of one PSU in particular where they give instruction on what do do in order to kill the DC ground but dont really explain how to figure it out on other PSUs. I want to use higher wattage PSUs than they did in that linked walk through. I found the pin out info and all that but nothing on how to kill the DC ground or how to locate it. in order to kill it.

 

[trax de max]

I had some good bookmarks a while back but lost them all on a browser update. I don't think i can remember anything on DC ground, only how to break the chassis ground but that was from a good year ago

 

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Secure the board back down to the case and use a continuity tester on the ground spots bolted to the case. Isolate one foot at a time until you don't have DC ground running through the case. Once you find which foot is DC ground to the case you can score it with a blade and then peel it up. Put everything together and retest continuity. Which supplies did you end up going with?