Frugally Powering A Heated Bed

Hindsight says I should have picked a power supply with 20+ amps to power my reprap from the start, but since I'm using RAMPs - it's really easy to use a separate power supply for only the heated bed. For me, a 203W X-Box 360 Power Supply has proven to be a functional, cheap solution for powering the heated bed or the electronics (~17 amps is not enough for both). This guide might help whoever is brave enough to try it:

Materials:
  • 203W X-Box 360 Power Supply ($15 from Craigslist, remember to make sure it's 203W!)
  • 2 Short Lengths of 12AWG Stranded THHN Wire ($0.37 a foot from Home Depot)
  • 2 12-10AWG Butt Splices (~$2 for a package of 15 from Home Depot - Link)

    Instructions:
    1. Ensure the X-Box 360 Power Supply is unplugged and fully discharged.
    2. Cut off the connector which goes into the back of the X-Box 360 (as close to the connector as possible, or just before the magnet).
      3.  
    3. Peel back the cable's shielding to expose the 4 yellow wires (12V), 4 black wires (Ground), 1 red wire (5V), and 1 blue wire (Standby I assume).
    4. Strip a small amount of the red and blue wires and connect them to each other (optionally solder). This will prevent the power supply from staying in stand-by mode after you give it power.
    5. Strip and twist the ends of the yellow wires together, then strip and twist the ends of the black wires together (possibly solder these and the yellow wires as well).
    6. Place the yellow (remember these are 12V) and black (ground) wires into their own butt splices, crimp, then crimp the 12AWG wire into the other side of each of the butt spices. It will help you to remember which one of these is ground by splicing black wire to black.
    7. Put some electrical tape around the connections.
      8.  
    8. Power up (you should see a green light on the power brick) and test with a voltmeter. If everything seems to be working, you're ready to attach the leads to your electronics. (below is a picture of the leads attached to RAMPs 1.4 electronics)
     

    6 comments:

    1. AnonymousFebruary 25, 2012 at 12:03 PM

      I assume that the yellow wires are +12V and the black wires are ground. This is what I have measured however I think you should mention this before people start connecting the wires in the inverse polarity!

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. PawlMarch 19, 2012 at 6:30 PM

        Thank you for your suggestion. I modified the instructions a bit to note what you said.

        Delete
    2. UnknownOctober 17, 2014 at 10:42 AM

      So once you have done this you connect your heated bed to D8 and thermistor to relevant connector.

      ReplyDelete
    3. UnknownDecember 1, 2014 at 5:20 AM

      Thank you for the tutorial. But 17Amps seems enough for both the heatbed and the hotend? Or not?

      ReplyDelete
    4. UnknownFebruary 29, 2016 at 10:30 PM

      I followed your show to make the Xbox adapter to use for my lighting, first of all I see the indicator light turn green that's mean the power is good (before I did that the light is yellow : standby) but when I connect to my light which is 12 of 10w Led, the set use only 120w far below the capacity of the adapter, the light just come up then off right away and the indicator light turn back to red means faulty. I don't know how to make it stay on. Will you help me.
      Thank you very much

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. DiLoSoLiDMarch 16, 2017 at 2:02 PM

        i had a problem where the Printer was randoly restarting i just
        disconnected the thin black wire and that solved my problems and is working great now 203w xbox psu

        Delete

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