I’ve made more progress on the adapter but then hit another roadblock.
It appears that my method of boosting the current on the 5V line with a buck converter is not safe and may cause lots of issues down the road. And I want my adapter to be as save and reliable as possible.
This means that I will not be able to use the PicoPSU and have to search for a substitute that will be capable of providing enough current on the 5V line by itself.
My search led me to AliExpress where they have all kinds of PicoPSU clones but for some reason don’t list the specifications or capabilities of any of the rails.
Anyway, I bought one claiming to be a 300W PSU hoping that maybe it will be capable enough.
At least it looks pretty cool:
On the other hand, I’ve been working on a PCB that would simplify the process of hijacking the Power and Eject button signals from the front panel and here is the result:
It is designed to be installed into the front panel connector of the motherboard and the cable from the panel to be plugged into it. This allows to hijack the signals with no modifications to the console:
It works well and is very easy to install. But the matching connectors a very hard to find and are also expensive, which may eventually affect the price of the kit.
Currently, I’m also looking into another approach with the adapter. The idea is that since there may not be an appropriate ATX PSU to put into the console, why not just use an external 5V power supply with plenty of Amps? In such case, I can use buck/boost converters for any other voltages needed (12V and 3.3V so far) and there should be no issues at all. I only need to find appropriate converters for my tests and probably make them built into my adapter. Again, I want everything to be as safe and reliable as possible, so I won’t use cheap 50-cent junk from AliExpress and instead build proper converters using original chips and high-quality components. That’s not going to be cheap but it should work well.
The only potential issue with this approach I see is that a regular power brick is dumb and would supply voltage into the system at all times, even when it is powered off. I’m going to look into it and see if that is a real problem.
At the moment, I have ordered a bunch of converters and a 5V 16A power supply. Everything should arrive within a month and I will hopefully find some free time to play with it and make a new update. So see you then!
