Modular design by Dell

[qoole]

Hi all!

Recently acquired an old (~2000 vintage) non-functioning rackmount Dell Poweredge server.

So I thought I would harvest it for parts. Some of the design is quite interesting too!

On the motherboard there were three vertical removable daughter-boards which appear to be 4-way SMPS boards. (see "4Way_SMPS" photos).
There were also three soldered daughter-boards which appear to be 2-way SMPS boards. (see "2Way_SMPS" photos).

At some point I will reverse engineer them and work out what voltage input/output they regulate! From the server PSU I guess it's a 12V input!

I guess they made them daughter-boards for better heat-sinking and the removable ones so they could be replaced if they failed.

I also notice a distinct lack of electrolytic capacitors on the boards. There were about 10% of the number I'd expect on a motherboard. I guess so as to limit the points of failure.

I hope the photos are of interest to someone out there!

http://imgur.com/a/Mqdyu

[codeboy2k]

I hope the photos are of interest to someone out there!

Definitely interesting, thanks for taking them.  If one of the 4-phase modules are working, you have a nice settable 1.8, 1.5, 1.2 Volt, 4-phase supply at about 100Amps probably ... if you gave it enough input power.

With the VID setting, you can set any output voltage between about 1.1 up to 1.9 I think, but those 3 I listed are the interesting ones I'd like to have hardwired on my bench.  Put it in a box with an old 12V laptop PSU, bring the VID settings out to the front panel, and use a settable, electronic fuse on the output so you can set some kind of current limit.

[qoole]

I don't see any reason the supplies wouldn't work as it was a more physical/gravitational fault that killed the server some Useless Parcel Service (which will remain nameless ) dropped the (admittedly poorly packed) server.

How did you work out the specs so fast? Have you seen these devices before? Got any data on them?

[codeboy2k]

I don't see any reason the supplies wouldn't work as it was a more physical/gravitational fault that killed the server some Useless Parcel Service (which will remain nameless ) dropped the (admittedly poorly packed) server.

How did you work out the specs so fast? Have you seen these devices before? Got any data on them?

The ADP3164 controller is a typical 4 phase synchronous buck converter. The datasheet is here. The datasheet has a typical schematic, you'll find it will be quite close to the real one.  The 100A I quoted is not a real spec, just a guess on my part. The datasheet actually shows an 80A design. It really depends on the MOSFETS on the board and the over-current sense resistor they used, which you'll have to work out from looking at the board.

The VID setting is done through pins 1-5 on that controller chip.