Pico PSU adapter question

[silentheaven83]

Hello everybody,

 

I need your help. I just build a MiniPC APU (AMD 5700G) for my nephews and often I have to take it to their house.

 

Since I will disconnect / connect all the cables I bought short "female - male" adapters for HDMI and USB so I won't "stress" the motherboards ports everytime. About the "MiniBox Pico PSU 160" I was looking for something like this:

 

https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B08936YF4C/

 

that is for 5.5mm 2.5mm connector, but it says max 24V and 2A. Isn't it enough?

 

Can you give me another solution?

 

Thank you!

[mariushm]

Eh ... a picoPSU is not a good idea for a system that uses a cpu like 5700g

 

That kind of power supply just takes in 12v from a laptop adapter / external power supply and passes it through unprocessed to the motherboard - the picoPSU only has a couple dc-dc converters to produce 3.3v and 5v from the incoming 12v and some logic to trick the motherboard into thinking it's a regular power supply.

 

The 5700g can peak to around 80 watts ... that's 80w/12v = around 6-7A of current  ... so you would need a laptop adapter / some kind of power supply that can supply at least 90-100 watts on 12v.

The limitation is the thickness of the wires going to the barrel jack connector - the wires used are barely good enough for maybe 100 watts in total.

The product you link to will probably not be suitable - I imagine the wires are very thin and low quality, hence why the current rating is so low.

 

[silentheaven83]

38 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Eh ... a picoPSU is not a good idea for a system that uses a cpu like 5700g

Thank you for your response.

Right now I'm using this combination:

 

https://www.amazon.it/dp/B005TWE6B8/

https://www.amazon.it/dp/B00YXXAG7C/

 

Isn't it enough for the 5700G?

Between the external adapter and the female barrel connector of the PSU I would like to add some sort of "male - female port saver".

[mariushm]

The adapter can supply 150  watts  (12v x 12.5A) , and the barrel jack and the wires to the barrel jack are thick enough so that there's minimal losses. 

 

The picoPSU receives 12v in through that black and white wires from the barrel jack connector. From the thick cable of the power adapter, you're going down to a thinner pair of wires, which is not great, but not much you could do except soldering thicker wires with a good soldering iron. 

Anyway, let's say the wires are fine.  Directly from the point where the wires come in, there's the 4 pin  connector going to power the CPU.  Looks to me like AWG20 wires (thinner) are used, when at least AWG18 or ideally AWG16 wires should be used, to reduce losses in the wires. It can give 80w to the cpu through that 4 pin connector though, but again, it was not designed for such processors, it was designed more for 30-40w processors. 

 

I would not add an extra male-female port saver adapter, any extra connections will add resistance which in turn means less quality, some voltage drop etc. 

 

Personally, I would buy a factory made cable with female barrel jack like this one : https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/tensility-international-corp/10-01094/3507716

I would shorten the wire length (because there's no need for 90 cm of cable, and solder the wires to the picoPSU, replacing the wires and the barrel jack connector it came with.

But if you don't have a good soldering iron and experience soldering, I'd say let it be. Don't add more extensions and "port savers".