Introduction: DIY ATX Wood Lab Bench PSU

About: I like electronics and building crap, yeah.

So you been needin that high quality power fam? I gotchu.

In this Instructable we gonna build a lab bench PSU for powering all your edgy af projects. The PSU will have 3.3V, 5V, 12V and -12V rails for all your electrical needs. On a serious note, messing with AC power and large capacitors is very dangerous and can seriously hurt or kill you so it aint my fault if you turn yourself into french toast while doing this. Video above is steal wool + 12V, please dont try this yourself its very dangerous and gets plenty hot to light anything it touches. It almost gets as hot as my mixtape.

Step 1: Components and Wood Enclosure

For this project were going to need a number of things, though the main ingredient is obviously an ATX PSU from an old computer or other source. I got mine from a sketchy friend of mine, we gonna call him "TimOthye". Your also going to need the following:

Binding Posts - Got mine from Radioshack, though there a rip off so order them online.

AC SPST Switch - Also got mine at Radioshack...

DC SPST Switch - Ordered a pack of 5 on eBay for $2 here.

Couple LED's - If you dont have spare LED's laying around, then why are you building this.

12V Fan that can fit in your enclosure (Optional)

Misc wiring - I used 22AWG for switch connections and 14AWG for AC terminals.

Will to live - Got mine off craisglist™(Contact your local priest for pricing)

Wooden Enclosure:

The enclosure I built is made of 1/4" plywood. To cut out the pieces I used my library's Epilog Laser printer, which is a godsent. You probably wont have a laser printer accessible for you to use, so you can just cut the pieces out with a jigsaw you peasant. Once you've cut them out, its time to glue them together. I used some generic wood glue and assembled it on a Patent Pending No®-Mess©-Paper卐-Towel™. Once its assembled you can use various objects to hold the pieces upright while it dries. Let it dry overnight or until the wood glue is completely dry and the enclosure is ridged enough to finish assembly. To speed up the drying process by %666 just let the piece dry in your local satanic circle, usually found underneath a preschool.

Corel Draw File for the wood pieces can be found below (Yeah I know Corel sucks)

Step 2: Electronics

First off your going to need to disassemble the ATX PSU from its original metal case so that we can transplant it into the wooden one. To remove the AC female ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) socket you'll need to de-solder it from the AC input board it is connected to. Remember to take plenty of pictures of all the connections before you desolder or cut any wires so you can PROPERLY re wire it. Once the AC socket is out remove the screws holding the main board in place and lift it out. FYI I left the main ON/OFF switch on the case in it and just cut the wires because I wanted to use my pretty red light switch instead :)

ATX PSU's are Swith Mode Power Supply's (SMPS) which require a small load to keep them running. Were going to use a couple power resistors as a dummy load to keep it running. I used 3x 10Ohm 5W resistors in series to give me a total of 30Ohms and draws about 500mA. Next, not all PSU's have this but mine did, you'll need to find a brown wire in the cluster of other colored wires and connect that to a 3.3V wire. This wire is similar to the green wire we will be using for the switch to turn the unit on and off but I just solder it together and use the green wire for on/off. For the STANDBY and ON LED's well be using the purple standby wire for the you guessed it, standby LED and the grey PGS wire for the On LED. I used a 160Ohm resistor for my LED's, just cause I had a bunch of them though I would recommend using whatever resistor works well with your type of LED. For the fan I just cut off the original connector from the 120mm fan because it was to big, and connected it to this smaller fan I had. Next step will be assembling everything into the enclosure.

Note: Not all PSU's have the same color coding for the wires. Please check your PSU to make sure you use the proper wires. Usually on the main board it will say the voltage or the name next to the wires i.e. "PGS", "12V", etc.

"WHERE ARE THE MEMES IN THIS PARAGRAPH!11!!!!!!1!1!11!!"

Oh crap right, um...

*GENERIC DODGE MEME*

*GENERIC ANNOYING ORANGE MEME*

*PEPE MEME*

*DAT BOI MEME*

*EDGY AND OFFENSIVE MEME*

PLEASE LOVE ME NOW

Step 3: Assembly

ARIGHT, now were going to assemble it all into the wooden box. First of all mount the binding posts, switch's, and the AC socket. Next were going to need to re wire the AC socket and the AC switch which is a little complicated because I didnt take enough pictures of how it was wired previously... Next connect the binding posts to the appropriate wires. I recommend taking 3-4 wires and soldering them together so you can draw more amperage. Next connect the green wire to one terminal of your switch and a ground wire to the other terminal. When the switch is on the green wire is grounded and the PSU outputs. Next glue the LED's into the appropriately labeled holes...( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Next its time to drop the main board into the box so we can finish mounting it and finish it up. Once its in you can glue the fan somewhere in the enclosure so that it blows on the heatsinks to assist in cooling. I know the fan wont help all that much because its a closed system though, it should help a little and keep air circulating. once its all wired up you can try plugging it in and testing it out. I turned it on and it worked on the first try, THATS A FIRST LIKE LITERALLY EVER. Then get out your multi-meter and make sure all the binding post are outputting the correct voltages. Once everything is working well its time to close it up! I used some small nails to close it up though make sure to drill small pilot holes or else the wood will bulge out or split apart.

AND ITS FINISHED! Thanks for checking out my build I hope you like it. Please favorite and share it, IM DESPERATE. Also check out my previous build here, http://bit.ly/IAMDESPERATE

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Go on 9gag you hoe

Below is a vid of me connecting a 22Ohm resistor straight to 12V