Thread: Another wiper motor/pc supply question

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More of a problem than a question.
For our pirate themed show this year I made a helm with a steering pirate. I used an old wiper motor I had. I don't like buying anything, I prefer the challenge of using what I have laying around. I don't get the high quality stuff the rest of you do, but my kids and I have fun experimenting.
Anyway, the wiper motor is off an old Dodge of some kind, not sure what model or year. I concluded the low circuit is burned out, can only get it to turn on high. I am assuming high anyway by the speed. Attaching to a battery (12v) it works fine. It does move too fast for my liking but it will work.
So, last night messing around I decided to try to computer power supply to run it. I took one of the 3 power supplies I had and clipped the yellow, red, orange, green and 2 black wires. I tied the 2 black wires together and measured the yellow. I was getting just under 12v at the yellow. Just over 3 at the orange and around 5 at the red.
I connected it to the wiper motor. The motor lurched slightly and stopped. The power supply shut down. Unplugged it a while and started over, again it lurched and shut down.
I connected a automotive light bulb and it came on, connected a small automotive blower motor and it again shut down.
Is there anything I need to do to it to get it to work for the wiper motor?
What I understand the sandbar resistor is to draw constant power from the supply. If the supply detects it is powered on via the green wire, but no draw it will go to standby mode? The resistor is to cause it to remain powered constantly? Or am I off base with that?
Finally, I picked up a box of gateway laptop computers at an auction a while back. In the box there were a dozen or more power cord / charger cords for the computers. What is the output of these? I have seen articles where these are used, but I am not sure. Is there a standard voltage output?
Thanks for any info.

Funny I just hooked up one today to a 12v power adapter. No bulky computer power supply.

Sounds like you are shorting the wires out. When I need 5 volts I use a molex connector and clip the red and 1 black then solder it to whatever. In the 12v case it would be yellow. Then just plug the male into the female so it is easier to remove when storing.

Also to run a computer power without a motherboard you have to short out 2 pins via a jumper so it thinks it is connected to the board. It is the Green and Black. Could be shutting down because of this.

I just got my computer power supply working with my wiper motor, depending on what supply it is, I might be able to help.

The PSU wont work unless you connect the brown wire to a orange wire, and you attach a 10 watt 10 ohm resistor (radio shack).

I took my power supply apart and attached the resistor on the inside of the case. I zip tied it to the fan vents so it keeps cool, if you dont do this, it will probably overheat and stop working.

Heres a site you can follow:

http://www.wikihow.com/Convert-a-Com...b-Power-Supply


Oh and I dont think you have to mess with the green wire, I think thats only if you want add a toggle on/off switch.

Thanks for the info.
The green wire must be shorted to a ground. Otherwise it makes the power supply think the mother board is idle and goes into standby mode, shutting down power or something like that. Mine won't give voltage out unless the green wire is shorted to a black.
Attach the brown wire to an orange wire? Have to look into that on the link you supplied. I also found a vehicle tail light bulb will act as a resistor so I did this and no help. The article I have already read on it says the power supplies basically don't convert power to DC without a load. A resistor to the red wire to ground will act as a constant load to keep the supply thinking it is under a load.
I will have to check the brown and orange wire.
I also wonder how good my wiper motor is. It has been laying out in the scrap heap for a long time. The low speed wire does not work, the high speed connection kind of works if I give the motor a spin to get it rolling. Maybe I need to go do more digging in the scrap pile and find a better motor?

There is actually quite a bit of difference in the various wiper motors out there. Having a picture and a part number would help.

As for the laptop power supplies, they are all different. There is no standard. It will tell you right there on the label what the output is. Be sure and note the difference between AC and DC output.

If you make sure the PSU is turned on via the methods described above and it's still shorting out, you might be trying to pull more current than the supply can deliver. You can usually look up spec-sheets for the PSU and see what the 12v rail (Yellow wires) is rated at in amps. I wouldn't think that a wiper motor would draw much current, but it's a place to go if you still can't get it to work after trying the suggestions above.

This wiper motor is old, out of a Dodge probably early to mid 70's and has been painted. I will see tonight if I can locate some kind of number.
I can't find a brown wire on this power supply either. I might try one of my other old power supplies I have laying around, this one is possibly bad.

I built a sweet looking PSU last year for my model train layout. i followed 3 sites to do everything. When all was said and done, my 3,5,and 12volt terminals all tested with twice the power. Now that I know I could apply it to Halloween, I might just have to take it back out and try over again. hopefully goes better this time

I was going to use a power supply out of an older computer , until I saw it was only 100 watts. Although it works out to 8.3 amp @ 12 volts I just figured I really didn't need to do that since I already have a 12 volt 10 amp power supply. You might want to check the wattage rating of the power supply. Also does the wiper motor work?