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[GUIDE] Making a molex-to-barrel adapter


jacobsson

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Actually it's a very simple mod. I have a barrel plug handy so what I did is cut it out, separate the outer and inner wire, twist outer wire with molex's black ground and the inner wire with molex's 12v yellow and that's it. The other 2 wires of (red and black) are unused.

In use the barrel plug is connected to Akitio board, the riser is UNPOWERED. I'm not sure it we should also power the riser but I have it running fine for me up til now (9 hours without any crash).

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My barrel plug has a very clear outer/inner wiring so it's a piece of cake. If it's 2 wires setup like above then I recommend you carefully do testing before wire them together :D

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or a premade one like these which you should be able to plug directly to a PCIe connector

Rockminer R Box Power Cable 4 PK 12V PCI E to 3X 5 5mm x 2 5mm DC Barrel Plugs | eBay

The price is not right I min opinion, it seems like they all cost ~$25.

Making your own would probably take you down to ~$5

5.5/2.5mm Barrel

PCIe 6-pin extender

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I haven't read that before! Two yellow cables (12V) together in one entrance of the barrel pin and two ground cables to the other entrance? Is that what you are saying?

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I have a 500W PSU and I thought to use one pci cable to give power to my graphic card and one molex cable to turn on the Akitio Box.

Thank you for your help! (as usual)

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I haven't read that before! Two yellow cables (12V) together in one entrance of the barrel pin and two ground cables to the other entrance? Is that what you are saying?

Yes! The cables aren't the problem, but (imho) the Molex plug is. The plug isn't made to transfer that much power. If you imgine e.g. the 6-Pin PCIe plug has 3x12V pins and 3x ground pins.

Transfering the same power on a Molex plug with just 1x12V and 1x ground could be risky. So my advise is to spread to load on at least 2xMolex plugs, like the 2xMolex -> 6-Pin PCIe adapters do.

I have a 500W PSU and I thought to use one pci cable to give power to my graphic card and one molex cable to turn on the Akitio Box.

Since you will have more than just one Molex plug... use them!

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can I leave the other yellow cable detached?

As long as you are using 2xMolex plugs and 1x yellow wire from each of that plugs you are fine. If there is a 2nd one... just shorten it and make an isolation on its top (or just use this 3rd wire as well).

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Ok, I am going to try with the 3 yellow cables version. If at the end is impossible to use all the cables I will use two of them. Is not a bad option.

Another question, my PSU has a Type3 cable to three female Molex. Is ok to provide energy? I don't think I am going to need another Type3 cable to separate the two male Molex to Barrel-pin (one per Type3 cable), isn't it?

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Well, at the end I bought the cable with three yellow cables but was impossible to introduce more than two inside the adaptor. I used two yellows and two blacks, next to each other, not tangled. The yellow cables inside the positive symbol side, and the black ones in the negative side.

What do you think?

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I tried a couple of times but was impossible to introduce the 3rd wires into the screw terminal. The only solution is to cut a few thin grey wires inside each cable to reduce the volume and have space for all three cables but I think is not a good option. Maybe if the cables have a small quantity of grey thin cables this will give energy problems.

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Well, I just try to test my adapter molex-barrel and it was impossible. The connector doesn't enter Akitio box. I think the size is incorrect, maybe they gave me a connector with a size 2.1 instead of 2.5.

Has anyone here had problems with this type of connector?

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Hello everyone!

Yesterday I finally received the correct connector (2.5mm) and I could start my molex-barrel test. I tried the Akitio with an USB 3.0 PCIe card and it seems that everything is working properly.

Now the next step is to begin testing the graphic card but I have to wait after Christmas for that.

Thank you for your help!

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