Addictronics

I desperately needed a bench power supply and knew exactly what I would do. I have several computer power supplies lying around my room and chose an old 400watt to sacrifice for this purpose. I cut all of the connectors off except for one strand which I left intact. It has on it one floppy connector and two molex. The rest of the wires I separated into groups and I completely cut off any wire that wasn’t a 3v, 5v, 12v, ground, or the power wire. I cut them all off right at the circuit board so they would not short out. I used the existing grommet hole for a rocker switch which turns the unit on and off. I cut two of the vent slits out to make a hole to pass the wire through. Then I regrouped the wires again, and cut a piece of plywood the same size as the top of the power supply. Then i added 5 bolts through the board that i use as terminals. One for each voltage and two for ground. Then I insulated the underside of those bolts and attached the plywood to the top of the psu. After a quick coat of paint ( I know its not the best looking thing ever, but it works great) and some wire management I was done.

Here is the psu from above, showing the 5 terminals, power cord, and power connectors (1 floppy, 2 molex).

The rocker switch is placed in the preexisting grommet hole. Also the wires coming out the vent hole work as a great handle for lugging this around.

I used some duck tape to insulate the bolt heads from grounding out on the case.