Prepare Power Supply

In this post we will be describing how we setup the power supply for our printer. Unfortunately it was not as simple as just plugging a cord into a computer power supply!

Warning

Household electrical current is extremely dangerous and the utmost care must be taken when dealing with it. The following steps are provided only as a guide.

Parts

Power Supply

Power Cord

The power supply depicted is a DC 12V 30A Regulated Switching Power Supply Universal 360W.

The power cord is a standard PC power cord.

Step 1 - Prepare AC Power Cord

The first step is to modify a standard computer cable to work with our power supply.

Step 1.1 Cut off the end of the power cord that would normally  plug into the power supply of the computer.	Step 1.2 Remove 1-1/2" of the jacket from the end of the power cord. Be careful to not damage the copper wires.
Step 1.3 Remove all of the excess *white stuff*.	Step 1.4 Strip 1/2" of the insulation from each of the wires.
Step 1.5 Twist the strands of each of the stripped copper wires.

Step 2 - Connect AC Power Cord

Now that the power cord is prepared, we can connect it to the power supply. At this time the power cord should not be plugged into the wall.

Step 2.1 Remove the screws from the ground, neutral, and live terminals on the power supply.	Step 2.2 Wrap the exposed copper wires around the screws. The wire should be wrapped counter clockwise when viewed as above.
Step 2.3 Attach the screws with the wire wrapped around them. Green to ground, black to neutral (N) and white to live (L).	Step 2.4 Ensure that the copper wires are not exposed and then close the clear plastic terminal cover.

Step 3 - Tuning Power Supply

It is now time to test and tune the power supply.

Step 3.1 Move the switch on the side of the power supply to the left, so that 110V is visible in the switch.	Step 3.2 Plug the power cord into a wall outlet. You should hear a whirring noise, and the led should turn green.
Step 3.3 Attach a multimeter (set to DC) to the power supply: the positive lead to a positive terminal (+V) and the negative lead to a negative terminal (-V).	Step 3.4 The voltage being output by the power supply should be displayed.
Step 3.5 The output voltage can be modified by rotating the small orange screw next to the green led.	Step 3.6 Keep modifying the output voltage until it is set to 12V.

Notes

Instead of buying a regulated switching power supply, it is possible to convert an ATX power supply for our purposes. There are many tutorials on the internet on how to do this. However, since the cost was low, we decided to buy a ready power supply instead.