tankman1989
Active Member
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Ok, I did do a search so my apologies if this is a repeat but I feel that there is a potential for our industry to serve our clients (especially the larger ones) with this technology.
If you understand how electricity (AC/DC works, skip this paragraph unless you want to help me correct my mistakes
)
For those of you who don't really understand about AC vs DC electricity, AC is alternating the side on which the electron (correct me if I'm wrong) is being pushed or pulled. So if a 60 Hz AC system is running that means that 60 times every second the polarity of the charge changes/reverses so it is a constant "one step forward, one step back" if you get my drift. For DC, the electrons move in a constant direction from a positive charge to a negative "sink". For those who have a difficult time visualizing electricity and it's flow, think of water, either in a stream, river, lake, pond or best of all plumbing. Water flows from high pressure to low pressure (as does our weather systems) which usually means that water runs downhill. The source for the water is either a lake, pond, rain/runoff or a spring (think battery) and the individual water molecules (electrons) flow to the "sink" of an ocean, delta, etc. This is an excellent model of DC electricity flow. IDK how AC flow can be used with water.
Ok, I've done some work with Gov contractors on Gov sites (L3 communications) and at some of their sites they have a large number of servers all running on DC. There is a common DC line that snakes past all the servers as well as a few non-insulated copper grounding lines. The DC wire is green in color and I would think that it was 8-10ga (but A LOT of machines were being run, many with 2-4 chips with 4 cores each) and I think the voltage was 240DC. I know there were MAJOR saftey precautions which I had to take while disconnecting machines from the live line (pretty scary I must admit!), I always had a large, thick/solid rubber mat on which to stand.
So, all of these servers were getting either 120-240vDC directly into their PSU (which seemed smaller and pretty cool) where it was then split to the normal 12vdc and 5vdc (and whatever else those special machines may have required.
This site also had a large bank of what looked like rubber capacitors (told they weigh 300-500lbs each), maybe about 30-45 of them, and I was told they hold enormous charge and were in conjunction with the massive rack of 600lb batteries (probably 50-60 of them) after which they had a multi-fuel (mainly diesel IIRC) generator out back.
Now the power came in as AC but was converted to DC to run all the equipment. This was done and the heat was ported out of the room (this room was 60 degrees +/-. Once this conversion was done, there was no other electricity conversions needed within the machines. This saves electricity in the conversion and the heat needed to counter effect that of the conversion.
Now, I know this wouldn't be ideal for most consumers but I want to know if it is possible to get a DC power supply for a standard home rig. This would be a nice addition to have if I ever have the grid go down for some time but can use DC from solar or other DC power sources.
I know that MANY appliances (anything with a motor) can be converted to DC or purchased in that format.
I was told by the company running these servers that by doing what they did it cut their electricity by over 25% each year and if you are running a server farm like this, that is no small chunk of change!
I'd love to hear members experiences or ideas on this setup. If someone is living off-grid via solar or windmill then they will have DC already. If you have a standard PC rig you are going to convert energy to AC (loses about 10-15% depending upon equipment and generates heat and then from AC to DC within the computer with another 8-15% loss and the addition of heat). Now that addition of heat may not be an issue in the winter or early spring/late fall but in summer, you will want as little as possible I would think. Also, if you have the leaste efficient inverter (DC->AC) and a cheap PSU (AC->DC) then you might be losing 30% of the energy you are putting into the system, and THAT IS A LOT in ANY type of setup!
If you understand how electricity (AC/DC works, skip this paragraph unless you want to help me correct my mistakes
)For those of you who don't really understand about AC vs DC electricity, AC is alternating the side on which the electron (correct me if I'm wrong) is being pushed or pulled. So if a 60 Hz AC system is running that means that 60 times every second the polarity of the charge changes/reverses so it is a constant "one step forward, one step back" if you get my drift. For DC, the electrons move in a constant direction from a positive charge to a negative "sink". For those who have a difficult time visualizing electricity and it's flow, think of water, either in a stream, river, lake, pond or best of all plumbing. Water flows from high pressure to low pressure (as does our weather systems) which usually means that water runs downhill. The source for the water is either a lake, pond, rain/runoff or a spring (think battery) and the individual water molecules (electrons) flow to the "sink" of an ocean, delta, etc. This is an excellent model of DC electricity flow. IDK how AC flow can be used with water.
Ok, I've done some work with Gov contractors on Gov sites (L3 communications) and at some of their sites they have a large number of servers all running on DC. There is a common DC line that snakes past all the servers as well as a few non-insulated copper grounding lines. The DC wire is green in color and I would think that it was 8-10ga (but A LOT of machines were being run, many with 2-4 chips with 4 cores each) and I think the voltage was 240DC. I know there were MAJOR saftey precautions which I had to take while disconnecting machines from the live line (pretty scary I must admit!), I always had a large, thick/solid rubber mat on which to stand.
So, all of these servers were getting either 120-240vDC directly into their PSU (which seemed smaller and pretty cool) where it was then split to the normal 12vdc and 5vdc (and whatever else those special machines may have required.
This site also had a large bank of what looked like rubber capacitors (told they weigh 300-500lbs each), maybe about 30-45 of them, and I was told they hold enormous charge and were in conjunction with the massive rack of 600lb batteries (probably 50-60 of them) after which they had a multi-fuel (mainly diesel IIRC) generator out back.
Now the power came in as AC but was converted to DC to run all the equipment. This was done and the heat was ported out of the room (this room was 60 degrees +/-. Once this conversion was done, there was no other electricity conversions needed within the machines. This saves electricity in the conversion and the heat needed to counter effect that of the conversion.
Now, I know this wouldn't be ideal for most consumers but I want to know if it is possible to get a DC power supply for a standard home rig. This would be a nice addition to have if I ever have the grid go down for some time but can use DC from solar or other DC power sources.
I know that MANY appliances (anything with a motor) can be converted to DC or purchased in that format.
I was told by the company running these servers that by doing what they did it cut their electricity by over 25% each year and if you are running a server farm like this, that is no small chunk of change!
I'd love to hear members experiences or ideas on this setup. If someone is living off-grid via solar or windmill then they will have DC already. If you have a standard PC rig you are going to convert energy to AC (loses about 10-15% depending upon equipment and generates heat and then from AC to DC within the computer with another 8-15% loss and the addition of heat). Now that addition of heat may not be an issue in the winter or early spring/late fall but in summer, you will want as little as possible I would think. Also, if you have the leaste efficient inverter (DC->AC) and a cheap PSU (AC->DC) then you might be losing 30% of the energy you are putting into the system, and THAT IS A LOT in ANY type of setup!
