critic my power hookup..

[JoeB]

Here's what I've done, and I wonder what you think of it:

I've taken an old power supply from a PC, and took it apart and used the parts from it to feed power
to my Mame arcade.  

The actual plug harness from the power supply has a build in line filter. The live wire from it goes to a fuse, and from the fuse to a switch, and lastly to a distro block.  The neutral wire goes out of the plug harness (the one with the build in line filter) straight to the switch, and lastly distro block.  While ground connects everything together.

The fuse is rated at 5A and is one of those pop fuses, that if it blows, it pops out and you have to press it back in  (pulled from an old power supply).

This circuit has to run a monitor, PC, power inverter and marquee.

Sounds good?

[JoeB]

Here's a picture of it.  It's a modified version of what www.therealbobroberts.com has for non-MAME machines.  (Go there for great arcade advise!)

[BobA]

5A maybe too small to handle the surge of all your plugged in AC components.  Make sure your monitor is powered via an isolation transformer if it is an Arcade unit and needs one.  

If your PC is powered via the switched power it must restart after power loss.  This is usually a bios setting. If it does not have this you will still have to manually push the power on button on the PC if it is a newer PC.

BobA

[JoeB]

I spoke to Bob about this, and he wanted me to put in a 3A fuse!  That's why I decided to go with 5A.. handle a bit more juice.

As far as the PC power.. the machine I'm using uses an ATX MB and hence the power button is really a momentary switch.  Behind my coin door is a maintenance button.. I'll wire it as the power button for the PC for "emergency".

Apart from that, the motherboard is set in BIOS to start up after power loss, and I tested it outside the arcade and found it to work perfectly fine.

This of course only works with DOS.. if you shutdown Windows, it will turn off the PC, and you'll need a seperate push button for the PC since it shutdown normally, and not power loss.

[Brax]

Bob freely admits to be limited in his knowledge about Mame cabinets. I'd feel alot better with a fuse in the 10-15 amp range if you'll be powering everything from that power supply.

[JoeB]

Brax:

I guess the the fuse required can easily be calculated:

1) Monitor, according to WG, the 7000 series one uses 85W max.  At 110V, this comes out to about 0.8A

2) 350W power supply in PC, 110V voltage, hence current should be 3.2A max

3) 110V -> 12V power converter.. not sure.. I know it's ~10A at 12V.  But since the input is 110V, the actual current draw should be much, much lower.. 10 folders lower at least!  so max of about 1.1A

4) Marquee.. Not sure..  assume 60W bulb, hence 0.6A

TOTAL:  0.8 + 3.2 + 1.1 + 0.6 = 5.7A

Is this right??

My only concern is that the monitor is only 85W !?  

[BobA]

On startup any electrical device can easily draw 1.5 times their operating current.   The PS for the computer will probably not be loaded to max but since you are so close to 5A you should probably look at least 8 amps.  You could use a 5A if you got a slow blow unit which will allow for surge currents without blowing but will blow at a constant 5A.

BobA

[grafixmonkey]

Brax:

I guess the the fuse required can easily be calculated:

2) 350W power supply in PC, 110V voltage, hence current should be 3.2A max

TOTAL:  0.8 + 3.2 + 1.1 + 0.6 = 5.7A

Couple things to consider...  how much can you draw through your wall outlet?  Better to have your cab fuse pop before your house power fuses do.  (less distance to walk to turn it back on.)

Also...  350W power is what it supplies I think, right?  It's not 100% efficient, it'll draw more than that from the wall outlet.  Check the back, next to the plug, it should have a real number for what it draws from the wall.