MediaBox Blog

I have been researching what power supply to use for the MediaBox for sometime now. The Omaura TF5 case seems to be limited to using a SFTX, Flex ATX or an Omaura DC-DC PSU.

SFTX

I haven't heard of an SFTX power supply before, and couldn't find much on the internet about it either. The closest match I could find was the SFX power supplies which is used inside mATX cases, but the specification on the Intel FTP site suggests a height of 63.5mm, but the height of the TF5 minus it's feet is around 50mm so using an SFX PSU was out of the question.

Flex ATX

My experience with Flex ATX is quite the opposite to the SFTX PSU.

Follow up:

And to be quite honest, I am not a fan with the fan (no pun intended ) . Because of the limited height with the PSU, they usually only have a 40mm fan which has limited air flow, so this is compensated with higher RPM. Because of the higher RPM this generally means they are noisy. The RPM of the fan does alter depending on load, but personally I still think they are too noisy for the MediaBox.

DC-DC PSU

The third option for a PSU is a DC-DC power supply with an external power brick. Omaura seem to do a DC-DC kit specifically for the TF5 but I couldn't find anywhere that sold this kit so I went looking for my own. I first came across the 120W picoPSU which fits directly into the ATX power connector, but quickly dismissed it because the height of the picoPSU would be slightly too high for the TF5 case (but it's a cool PSU nonetheless). I eventually came across the 160W M2-ATX, the dimension of this board where perfect so I went ahead and purchased one. It was just over £40 which wasn't too bad for a power supply, but it did mean I had to find a power brick to power it too. Here are some pics of the M2-ATX.

As you can see from the pics, it seems the M2-ATX is actually based of the picoPSU which is cool. Another interesting fact was after the PSU arrived I lined the board up inside the TF5 case to see where I would need to drill 3mm holes for some M3 standoff's to mount it, but there where holes already present in the section for the power supply which lined up perfectly for the board, so I am wondering if the DC-DC kit from Omaura is actually the M2-ATX.

So with the DC-DC board out of the way I needed to find a power brick to supply the M2-ATX. Most of the ones I found where either not powerful enough or where expensive, but then I came across this. It's a 120W supply which should be plenty to feed the MediaBox. So once this arrives in the post I will be able to dive into building the box which I hope to have a guide up shortly (I know, I know. I keep saying it, but between parts taking longer to arrive and not having the time, it's not easy)