Announcing new new project: Modular Rack-Mount Power Supply System (mrps)

Normally, when working on a project that I plan to release, I’ll do all work in a dedicated private repo until the project reaches a certain level of maturity and stability.

Once ready to release / share with the world, I’ll make the repo public and write a blog post about it if it’s deemed interesting enough.

Usually, the blog post gets published here as a summary of the project with a healthy dose of personal/editorial commentary on the project, while the detailed technical documentation resides in the project repo.

For the past several years, I’ve been working on a project that I hope to eventually release. As you’d expect, a project like that has a serious skill-tree that needs to be navigated and mastered over time.

Today I’m announcing what is essentially a spin-off created from that larger project; a project that helps me develop some of those skills further and yields a useful bit of work that can stand on its own.

After some deliberation, I’ve decided to do a few things differently for this project:

• Not waiting until v1.0 is “ready” to start sharing progress.
• Not doing an extensive write-up on the blog, but instead setting up a dedicated GitHub Pages site in the same repo as the core project and doing project specific updates there.

This is a new approach; we’ll see how it goes!

So what is this project?

A bit of a hint; It looks like this:

For a considerably more detail, see the dedicated “what/why” section on the project site.

Concisely:

• My compute needs have morphed over time and I now require a small, dedicated cluster of compute for some specific workloads.

  • Through a friend, I got a good deal on some second hand “1L” computers that are ideal for my dedicated cluster setup.
  • The small form-factor makes them ideal justification to build a “mini rack”.

• In addition to the dedicated cluster, my primary compute clusters have outgrown the power supply I built years ago for them. I’d like to build a much more capable power supply that can handle the increased demands of my primary compute clusters:

  • If the design is right, it should be adaptable to future needs like a workbench setup or other custom configurations.
  • It should not have any of the limitations of the previous design:
    • It must be easy to work on “live” while in operation; I shouldn’t have to power down the entire system to do basic maintenance or upgrades.
    • Cable management should be straightforward and flexible.
    • The system should be modular, allowing easy replacement or upgrade of individual components without affecting the entire setup.
    • It should be easy to monitor the status and performance of the system at a glance.
    • It should be easy to remotely switch the power to a specific load.

In the years since the first power supply, USB-C/PD (Power Delivery) has become a mature, ubiquitous standard for delivering non trivial amounts of power over a USB-C cable. One side effect is that most proprietary power supplies can be eliminated and replaced with a USB-C/PD based solution!

There is a huge market on Ali Express that is full of ‘aftermarket’ cables that have a proprietary connector on one end and a standard USB-C/PD connector on the other end:

• Mens shaving razors
• Old school iPods
• Any DC load with a standard barrel jack or screw-terminal connector
• High Current LiPo battery chargers
• Odd shaped barrel connectors with proprietary ‘smart’ pins often used by older laptops and most 1L computers from brands that also make laptops

… etc.

Really! As long as your device uses a standard voltage (20 volts or less) and doesn’t need more than ~100W, you almost certainly can replace its proprietary power supply with a USB-C/PD based solution.

So that’s precisely the technology I’m leveraging for this new modular rack-mount power supply system.