Quote from: PulsedMedia on June 27, 2011, 11:51:15 AM

Quote from: rb1205 on June 09, 2011, 11:01:50 AM

Quote from: Uzza on June 09, 2011, 10:56:42 AM

Quote from: gigabytecoin on June 09, 2011, 10:50:44 AM

I don't know much about electricity yet... but it sounds like a pretty simply job.

That's the last phrase of someone gunning for the Darwin award.

Seriously, playing with electricity that contains enough amps to kill you outright is NOT something that is recommended, unless that is your job and you've got education to back it up.

Not at all, ampere don't kill you. Even heard about someone being electrocuted by a car battery? I guess not. And you can easly get hundreds of Amperes out of them

Electricity starts to be harmful at about 50 Volts.

BTW, PSU are not transformer, they are AC/DC switching units (note the plural). You can't just connect some of them together, you'll just end up frying all your hardware.

PSU is both a transformer and AC/DC switching unit. First you need the transformer to get to proper voltage, then you put in a transistor bridge, few diodes etc. and you got yourself DC. I also would recommend a regulator and few small capacitors and low Ohm resistors, and a heatsink for the regulator(s). The combination of regs, capacitors and resistors should filter everything out

Working with high amperage low voltage is safer than high voltage low amperage IMHO, because the electricity does not "jump" as easily. High voltage is needed for being able to go through highly resistive materials (see Tesla coils for example. That's also why engine spark wiring insulation is such an important factor). My hobby used to be RC cars, and i had 7.2V 400A peak battery packs... I was more worried about getting them pierced while driving (and resulting explosion & fire) than getting a shock.

Here is how you can build it:
http://engknowledge.com/power_supply_design.aspx

I would design it to be quite parallel, meaning multiple transformers, multiple bridges, multiple capacitors etc etc.
So that any single component has smaller impact if it fails on operation, or is otherwise flaky. I would design regulators, capacitors etc. well beyond required spec to reduce risk of failure.

Also, doing it from this low level you could add some basic electronics to handle backup power, see for example: http://www.dreamgreenhouse.com/designs/12v/index.php (links to their UPS project), http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/super_ups , http://1wt.eu/articles/alix-ups/

Last one is the most intresting one infact

Google is your friend, but i wouldn't suggest trying this with no past experience on the required scale....

I accidentally shorted out a li-po.... Fortunately, it iddn't explode, because the wire got so hot that it failed! Into salt-water it went... Sad

A waste of ~2BTC!