How to connect a MCW500o-PT to a Meanwell S320 Power supply?

Sorry, this will sound pretty stupid but the reason I'm asking is this:

Quote from Swiftech:

"Solder joints of the wires to the thermoelectric module are EXTREMELY FRAGILE. Bending the wires at their root will break the solder joint, with no possible repair".

OK, I have bare wires coming from the MCW5000-PT with solder joints but they are very short so I can't wrap them around the screws at the back of the Meanwell PSU.

As I understand it, you are just supposed to loosen the screws at the back end of the Meanwell PSU, wrap the wire of whatever you are going to connect to it around the screw and tighten the screw again. Is that right?

The problem is, if I try this with the MCW-5000PT, I am afraid I will just break the wire. I wish Swiftech had better instructions on this for noobs since the Meanwell PS is the PS they provide and recommend.

One other question is, can you hook this up PS to your ATX PS or do you HAVE TO use a relay kit type of thing like the one you can use with your pump??

you need a relay to turn on the PS with the PC.

You need to EXTEND the wires of the TEC.

OK, I have one relay that I'm using for my MCP300 pump. Do I need another one for this PS then?

Do you mean that I should extend the wires from the TEC so that the solder joints don't break? I have this "thing" that I got from Swiftech which they say is for extending wires if you wanted to hook up the MCW5000-PT to your ATX PS. Can I use that?

That device has 2 holes in it for wires to go through and two screws at the top to secure them. Should I just stick the MCW5000-PT solder joints into this device on one end and use regular wires on the other end and wrap the wires around secrew terminals on the PS?

Thanks for the help. I am hoping to try this out today.

EDIT: OK, I made some progress. Ct, your comments helped a lot. First of all, now I understand how to hook up the TEC to the Meanwell with the extender thingy that I got. I am just going to stick the two wires coming from the TEC to the extender and tighten the screw of the extender from the top to hold the wires in place. I am then going to run 18 gauge wire from the extender to the PS.

To make the PS work, I went to an electronics store in Boise called Radar (Radio Shack didn't have an A/C adapter) and got myself an A/C adapter. I then got the prongs that attach to it so just to test this out, I hooked the wires up to the PS at the appropiate terminals and then connected them to the A/C adapter. When I tried plugging in the power cable to the A/C adapter, the PS came on (I didn't have anything connected to the PS) so that works.

The problem is, IF I were to run the PS like this without a relay, unless I pulled the power cable from the A/C adapter for the PS, the TEC would *ALWAYS* be powered, right? I certainly don't want to have the PS running without the pump.

I got the pump now hooked up through a relay switch through my ATX PS. That way, when I turn the PC on, the pump comes alive.

Can I then run both the pump and the TEC through the Meanwell and if this is possible, how would I do this (so that the pump and the TEC come online together).

If hooking up the pump and the TEC to the Meanwell is an option, I might go ahead and do that the reason being that then I would have the option of running the TEC and the pump with the PC turned off for a little bit to cool the CPU off and then turn the PC on. This way, my overclocking could work a bit better perhaps.

Anyway, any ideas?

PLEASE!

Btw, one more thing: Neither Radio Shack nor Radar had the thing on the relay switch with the "N/O" ports on it. Radio Shack had a relay rated at 12V but 5amps and they had the PCB to solder this thing onto BUT like I said, no place to plug the wires into. In this case, I might end up having to order another PRS-II kit for the Meanwell but I don't really want to pay shipping for this one item. Any way around it?

As a note, the relay I have for the pump is rated at 12v BUT 16 amps. As a result, would this thing even work with the Meanwell??!!

First off, don't panic.

Take the time to get things set up right.

1. What relay do you have now? Look at the relay itself, (the plastic box) and find the name of the manufacturer and the part#.

2. Is there a current rating listed on the relay?

3. What pump are you using?

4. Does the pump run on 120 V AC?

The Swiftech website says the relay they sell is rated for 50A surge currents. That's not the only important spec, but it suggests that maybe the pump and the Meanwell supply can be switched on using the same relay.

5. Can you show me how the wiring is setup for the relay and pump right now? (I'm wondering whether the relay opens and closes both the 'hot' and 'neutral' connections to the pump.)

Let me know the answers to all these questions and we'll take it from there.

Oh, just noticed MCP300. 120V version I assume?

Since87, I am so glad to hear from you!

OK, first the relay switch. The switch I have is called a PRS-II on Swiftech's website. When I look at the relay itself, these are the things I see on it:

1- The relay seems to have been made by a company called "finder".
2-There is number underneath the manufacturer. I don't know if it means anything but here it is: "41.61.9.012.4310".
3- The last line says "12V ----- 16A 250V".

That's pretty much all it says on the relay.

Now, the pump. Yes, I am using the MCP300 pump and these are its specs:

"120V ~ 60Hz - 0.42A 23W"

So do you think I could hook *both* the pump and the Meanwell PS to this single relay switch?? That would be SWEET!!! It would make things heck of a lot simpler.

OK, for the wiring of the relay switch, this is how it goes.

The relay has 5 terminals. The first 2 of these terminals are labeled (+) and (-) and the wires that are connected to these terminals connect to a molex connector which you are supposed to connect to your ATX PS.

The 3rd terminal has no label on it. The documentation I got with the kit labels it as "N/C" (normally closed). You are supposed to hook your pump to this terminal when you want to fill and bleed your system. When the pump is connected to this terminal, the computer should not turn on when you press the power button but just the pump.

The 4th and the 5th terminals are both labeled N/O (normally open). Right now, there is one wire sticking out from the 5th terminal to hook up to the "L" connection on an A/C adapter (if you hold the A/C adapter with the single prong at the top and the remaning 2 at the bottom, this wire goes to the bottom right). You hook the green wire coming from the pump to the top "E" prong on the A/C adapter and the white wire coming from the pump goes to the "N" prong on the A/C adapter which is the bottom left. THEN, you connect the remaining black wire coming from the pump to the 4th terminal that says "N/O" (just like the 5th terminal) and that powers up the pump when you turn the PC on. I have tried this and it works fine.

EDIT: Heh, since the relay only has 2 "N/O" terminals on it and both are used (one by the pump and the other by the A/C adapter, I suppose there is no space to hook up the Meanwellm right? And I wouldn't want to connect the Meanwell to the N/C, would I?

The relay will easily switch both the Meanwell and the pump.

The ratings mean it takes 12V to make the relay switch, and it is designed to survive a long time while switching 16A from a 250V supply. (4000 Watts) You aren't going to be operating anywhere near its limits.

The 3rd terminal has no label on it. The documentation I got with the kit labels it as "N/C" (normally closed). You are supposed to hook your pump to this terminal when you want to fill and bleed your system. When the pump is connected to this terminal, the computer should not turn on when you press the power button but just the pump.

Click to expand...

This doesn't quite make sense. When you connect the pump to the N/C connection of the relay, and connect the AC connection from the relay to the wall outlet, the pump will run only when the PC is off. (Hopefully you already know this, but don't mess with any of those connections unless the AC cords to the wall outlet are unplugged.)

Anyway, I would suggest connecting the Meanwell by cutting the three wires coming from the pump and splicing in and soldering the corresponding AC wires for the Meanwell:

Green to Green
White to White
Black to Black

Soldering (and then insulating with heatshrink tubing) will give you the most reliable connection, and 'reliable' is very important here.

One drawback to doing this, is that if you move the black AC lead of the pump/Meanwell to the N/C connection of the relay, the Meanwell will be powered on when the pump is turned on. Without a heatload on the TEC, it may frost up your whole video card given enough time. You can deal with this by disconnecting the TEC from the Meanwell output whenever you need to do fill/bleed operations. (Just don't forget to hook the TEC back up when you're done.)

I hope this helps. If anything is not perfectly clear, let me know.

First of all, thank you very much for the help!

It is great news to hear that now I can hook both the pump and the Meanwell to the relay switch. Now, I don't have to buy anything extra. Also, like you said, for fill and bleed operations, I'll connect to the N/C terminal and disconnect the wires for the TEC.

I have trouble understanding this though:

Since87 said:

Anyway, I would suggest connecting the Meanwell by cutting the three wires coming from the pump and splicing in and soldering the corresponding AC wires for the Meanwell:

Click to expand...

OK, normally, I would be connecting the 2 wires coming from the pump to the A/C adapter and I would be connecting the 3rd wire to the relay switch. Now, if I understand you right, you are saying that *instead* of connecting the wires to the A/C adapter and the Meanwell, I should connect all the wires to the Meanwell.

Since87 said:

Green to Green
White to White
Black to Black

Click to expand...

The Meanwell doesn't have any wires on it so I am not sure what you mean by this here. What the Meanwell has are screw terminals to connect it to an A/C adapter.

I think I said this before but I tried connecting 3 wires from the Meanwell to a seperate A/C adapter that I bought today and when I plugged a power cable from the wall to the A/C adapter, the Meanwell came on. As a result, when you are saying green to green, etc. I assume that you are meaning to say: "connect wires to the appropiate screw terminals on the Meanwell" just like I did today? Am I right?

In this case, if I understood you right, you are saying:

1- Connect the green wire from the pump to the "hot" screw terminal on the Meanwell.

2- Connect the white wire from the pump to the "N" screw terminal on the Meanwell.

3- Connect the black wire from the pump to the "L" screw terminal on the Meanwell.

This would be the same procedure as hooking up the pump to A/C. Only now, instead of hooking up the pump to an A/C adapter, we are hooking it up to the Meanwell.

OK, if we did this, how do we hook up the relay switch to the Meanwell? Normally we would use the connections from the relay switch to the connections we used for the pump. So where do we hook the relay switch now??

in ac current, green is ground, black is hot and white is neutral.

for the wires on your tec, you need at least 12gage, otherwize theere is a ton of resistance and your wires will get very hot. the wires on the tec are tinned, they can handle a lot of current but still, those should be a larger diameter wire.
the pelt psu Im building has 10gage wires on it. thats the way to go

you mean the psu doesnt have a plug comming out of it to power it? thats kinda weird.
use what I stated above for wireing.

Sean, do you know of any circuts thatll turn on the pelt/pump/fans before the computer turns on? so you get a nice chilly start?


Jon

JFettig said:

in ac current, green is ground, black is hot and white is neutral.

Click to expand...

Yup, that's how I wired it when I connected the Meanwell to the wall just to test. When I do this, I don't see where the relay switch comes into the picture though. Since87 advised to me to hook the pump to the Meanwell just like I hooked an A/C adapter to the Meanwell. As a result, now there is no space to hook the Meanwell to an A/C adapter to plug it in the wall with the pump occupying the terminals that the A/C adapter would use. Also, Where would I hook the relay switch? The Meanwell can't work without power so just hooking the pump to it won't work.

JFettig said:

for the wires on your tec, you need at least 12gage, otherwize theere is a ton of resistance and your wires will get very hot. the wires on the tec are tinned, they can handle a lot of current but still, those should be a larger diameter wire.
the pelt psu Im building has 10gage wires on it. thats the way to go

Click to expand...

Hmmm, that's a good point I'm sure but it really is not possible to change the wires coming from the pelt. Swiftech notes that the wires are very very fragile and if you even bend them or mess with em in any way, you'll really be screwed and the pelt will be beyond repair (is this really true??!!! I mean if the solder joint breaks in the future for some reason, is there no way I can repair the pelt?). This is very scary if true. Besides, I can't even see where the wires going. This MCW5000-PT is a waterblock with the pelt at the bottom. Swiftech covered the pelt area with gaskets and everything though so you can't see where the pelt wires are coming from. The wires coming from the pelt are really pretty thin but I got 18 gauge wire to connect it to the Meanwell. If that proves to be too thin, I can change it but 18 guage wire shouldn't cause a fire, right? After all, the wires coming from the pelt are thinner than this. I can change the wires in the future if they really get hot of course but I just bought a lot of 18 guage wire yesterday so I wanna try that. If the 18 guage won't create a fire, then I'll be OK.

JFettig said:

you mean the psu doesnt have a plug comming out of it to power it? thats kinda weird.
use what I stated above for wireing.

Click to expand...

Yeah, this is an auxilary PS, not a regular PS. It doesn't have any molex connectors or ATX connectors. It only has screw terminals so you hook up the wires to it yourself. Here's a pciture of it:

http://www.currentsolutions.com/meanwell/html/s-320.htm

dude, 18gage wire is made for like 6 amps.. 12gage is good, itll still get warm but its decent, your wires are gonna be burning hot, and could melt.

you NEED larger wire. like I said, the pelt wires are tinned, they can handle it for the most part, buut they really shoudl be bigger.

Its very necessary you have larger wire.

Jon

JFettig said:

dude, 18gage wire is made for like 6 amps.. 12gage is good, itll still get warm but its decent, your wires are gonna be burning hot, and could melt.

you NEED larger wire. like I said, the pelt wires are tinned, they can handle it for the most part, buut they really shoudl be bigger.

Its very necessary you have larger wire.

Jon

Click to expand...

Well OK, it looks like I spent another $5 yesterday for reels of 18 guage wire for nothing then. I think by the time I get this setup to work (if ever) I am going to have spent $1000+. I keep having to buy more and more stuff everyday. I wonder if this will ever end.

For the pelt, whatever is on it wil have to do. Swiftech ships the units with the type of wire that is on the pelt right now and they are very clear in that if you damage that wire in any way, you are in DEEP trouble. There is no way I'm messing with the wires on the pelt. The MCW5000-PT cost me $100. If they melt, that's Swiftech's fault. I know that several people use these MCW5000-PT blocks though so if there was a design fault, then I would think it would have been a known issue by now.

I'm going to have to trust Swiftech on that the wires they installed for the TEC won't melt.

For the wires I'll use from the TEC to the meanwell, I'll try to find thicker wire.

Any ideas about how to hook up the Meanwell and the pump? I'm at a SERIOUS loss on how to do this. I just don't think that it's physically possible to hook up the pump to the Meanwell and still have a way to connect it to an A/C adapter for power.

Black Paladin,

I was starting from the assumptions that:

1. You already had the pump installed and connected to the relay setup.

2. That the power cord you had connected to the Meanwell for testing, was still connected.

In that case, you could:

A. Cut the plug off the Meanwell's power cord, and strip the three wires.

B. Cut into the AC power wires going from the pump to the relay setup. Make the cuts a few inches from where the pump wires connect to the relay setup. Strip both ends of each cut pump wire.

C. At this point you would have nine stripped wire ends.
3 Green
3 White
3 Black

D. Twist all the green ends together, solder, and insulate. Twist all the white ends together, solder, and insulate. Twist all the black ends together, solder, and insulate.

It doesn't much matter where the connections are made, as long as the right connections are made.

Another way it could be done if the Meanwell screw terminals give you enough room is:

X. Start with the pump wired to the relay setup normally.

Y. Pick a point on the pump's AC cord about halfway between the pump and the relay setup. Cut the AC cord there, and strip the six wire ends that result from the cut.

Z. Take both green stripped ends, and connect them both at the earth/ground terminal of the Meanwell. Take both white stripped ends and connect them at the neutral terminal of the Meanwell. Take both black stripped ends and connect them at the hot terminal of the Meanwell.

BTW, when I talk about the 'relay setup', I'm referring to the combination of the AC adapter and the relay board. Think of the 'relay setup' as having three output lines; green, white, and black. It's just a matter of connecting the same color wires for the pump and Meanwell in. It doesn't matter where the connection point is.

JFettig said:

for the wires on your tec, you need at least 12gage, otherwize theere is a ton of resistance and your wires will get very hot. the wires on the tec are tinned, they can handle a lot of current but still, those should be a larger diameter wire.
the pelt psu Im building has 10gage wires on it. thats the way to go

Sean, do you know of any circuts thatll turn on the pelt/pump/fans before the computer turns on? so you get a nice chilly start?

Click to expand...

I think Black Paladin is only using an 80 Watt TEC, so the current draw will only be 6.5 Amps or so. 18 gauge is probably okay, although I'd probably go with 16 gauge.

I can design a thousand different circuits to delay turning on the pelt/pump/fans before the computer turns on.

Some issues:

What power supply would be powering the pelts? (Particularly, can the fans run off the pelt supply?)

This circuit would have to have a connection to the motherboard's power switch header. (The front panel power switch wouldn't do anything anymore.)

What would you want the delay based on? A certain period of time? A temperature measurement somewhere?

OK, I got a diagram for how I have things hooked up now. Perhaps this will help.

I don't understand how I end up with 6 wires by cutting the 3 wires that come from the pump. There is white, black and green and there is one of each. When I cut these wires, how do they multiply??

Ok, take 1 six inch wire.

Cut the wire in half.

You will have two three inch wires.

If that doesn't explain it, I have no idea how to.

Since87 said:

Ok, take 1 six inch wire.

Cut the wire in half.

You will have two three inch wires.

If that doesn't explain it, I have no idea how to.

Click to expand...

OK, I think I understand now.

I just need to strip the insulation from the wires coming from the pump and use half of the tiny copper wires to for the relay and the other half for the Meanwell then?

For the TEC, it's 226Ws. The MCW5000-PT is basically Swiftech's MCW5000 water block with a 226W Pelt attached to it.

I *do* have a 80W TEC for the graphics card as well (that's a MCW-50) but I believe that I can run that without problems from my main ATX PS. I have a PC Power and Cooling 425W PSU.

Black_Paladin said:

I just need to strip the insulation from the wires coming from the pump and use half of the tiny copper wires to for the relay and the other half for the Meanwell then?

Click to expand...

What I think you need to do, is find someone who knows something about electrical wiring, show him this thread, and have him do it for you, or at least demonstrate the general ideas to you.

I'm baffled as to why someone who has so little understanding of basic electrical wiring would take on something like this. You do realize there are dangerous voltage and power levels involved here, right?

In answer to your question; there is no need to seperate out the individual strands of any of the wires to do any of this.

Black_Paladin said:

For the TEC, it's 226Ws. The MCW5000-PT is basically Swiftech's MCW5000 water block with a 226W Pelt attached to it.

Click to expand...

Ok, JFettig was right. 18 Gauge wire is much too small to use for more than a very short length near the body of the pelt. 12 gauge would be best, 14 gauge would do.

Since87 said:

What I think you need to do, is find someone who knows something about electrical wiring, show him this thread, and have him do it for you, or at least demonstrate the general ideas to you.

I'm baffled as to why someone who has so little understanding of basic electrical wiring would take on something like this. You do realize there are dangerous voltage and power levels involved here, right?

In answer to your question; there is no need to seperate out the individual strands of any of the wires to do any of this.

Click to expand...

I actually knew someone would say exactly what you said. I'm assuming that the reason only 3 people replied to this thread is because nobody bothered to respond seeing that I don't know anything about electrical wiring.

I had said this several times in the past and I want to say it again here. Some people here think that I have no business posting here in the extreme cooling forum if I don't know how to use the soldering iron or a dremel like a pro. Perhaps some people think that I shouldn't even exist because I'm such a goddamn moron because I don't understand anything about electrical wiring.

Well, an idiot I might be BUT I am willing to learn if people are willing to explain. Everything you told me has been very helpful and I appreciate you posting but you saying that I shouldn't have even gotten into this thing just makes me sad.

I know you are trying to help but when you tell me something like: "Ok, take 1 six inch wire. Cut the wire in half. You will have two three inch wires", then I am thinking if I should just cut the wires coming from my pump into 2. If I do, then I end up with 2 seperate pieces of wire that are not connected to each other in any way and that gets me confused.

Now I understand that you meant to say that I should just remove the insulation on the wires to be able to connect them to more than one place and not actually cut them in half, shortening them. That was the impression I got when you kept telling me to cut the wires. To me, when you say, cut a wire, that means this:



Whereas now, I see that you meant to say this:



I don't know if you were born an electrical engineer but I learn as I go along. Couple years ago, there was no way I would have dared to do a wire trick on any of my CPUs to increase the voltage. I read on the theory for some time though and one day I had the guts to try it and it worked.

This TEC watercooling project is somewhat similar I guess. I am trying to learn what is involved here but I have never done this before so I keep running into problems I didn't expect. I mean I never expected to have to divide the wires from my pump into 2 seperate sections to be able to get it to connect it to my Meanwell PS.

didnt I explain how the peltier wires are tinned? so they can handle the current, or almost(they get quite warm) Im not saying remove those, Im saying put 12gage wire on the ends of them. 12gage - 20amps
10gage - 30amps
I dont remember 14gage but its like 10 I think....

Its very needed. and for the money spending deal, if your in doubt, just ask

Jon