Play hot bed power supply

[woodgeek]

Realistically, what size power supply is needed to power the Play with hot bed upgrade?

Printrbot says 30A while some users say “any ATX PSU”. Somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

I only ask because I purchased a refurbished Play on eBay and the hot bed upgrade from Printrbot. They want $65 for their power supply.

[RetireeJay]

Type "350 watt" into the "search" box in the upper right and you'll see dozens of posts suggesting that that's a good figure to use for a Printrbot with a heated bed. Yup, that means 30 Amps.

[novice]

As I've never had an abundance of ATX power supplies laying around and don't really care for the xtra wires I'm using this along with another similar brand on a second printer. There is/are a plethora of faceplate designs to print on Thingiverse if you don't want to design your own.

[Mooselake]

I've been using a similar 29A switcher for many years. Cut the proper connectors and wiring off an ATX supply and wire them to the plus (usually the yellow wire(s)) and minus (usually the black wire(s)) terminals on the new supply. For safety make sure the terminal strip is covered (I printed a plastic cover, then added in a PC style power inlet and a switch) to mine. Exposed mains voltages can be lethal, but it's easy to cover them or put the whole thing in an enclosure and protect yourself. I'm sure I've posted pictures, but can't find one via search; too wordy I guess.

One nice thing about these supplies is they have a voltage adjust. Fire up the bed and extruder heaters, and then adjust it for 12.0V. You'll find the hot bits will heat up a lot faster. It'll go over 12V when the heavy loads turn off, but per the board's designer it's good up to 19V (I couldn't find that post, but a reference to the max voltage from the DFM engineer).

Kirk