Minis 3: Tiny Mini-ITX Power Supply

Sept. 8, 2006

Compact motherboards like Mini-ITX do need power, but not much. ITuner Networks’ picoPSU delivers plenty of power in a very small form factor.

William G. Wong

There is not much to the $49.95 picoPSU (see the figure) from ITuner Networks. It plugs directly into the ATX power connector found on most small motherboards such as the Mini-ITX form factor boards used in one recent project (see “Building A Multimedia Home Control Center, Part 1,” ED Online 13330).

Normally, the case for such a motherboard includes a small DC-DC converter board that must be mounted somewhere in the case. The picoPSU incorporates all the circuitry into the module that plugs directly into the motherboard allowing the case to be made even smaller. The picoPSU still requires an external DC power brick that all the other solutions use as well but this is normally found near the power outlet away from the motherboard and case.

The picoPSU-120 delivers 120W of power. It requires a 12V source and it can handle the 20-pin and 24-pin ATX power connectors. The cable harness includes two additional power connectors that are typically used for an optical drive and a hard disk drive. With a 96% efficiency rating, it is targeted at fanless systems. A 60W is also available.

Related Links ITuner Networks
www.ituner.com

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

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