Providing Power to 386

[kf6snj]

Hello. I need a little help with my project. I am building a K-9 robot variant. I have the shell mostly assembled. However, my concern of the moment is how to provide power to the 386 motherboard I would like to use. I've seen various devices on the internet for providing battery power to a computer motherboard, however I would rather build it myself. Any suggestions?

[AndrewM]

Where on earth did you find a 386 motherboard?  I didn't think they could be found except in military flight simulators.

If I remember correctly you just need 5 and 12 volts supplied (ahh, those were simpler days), so you could use a 14 volt battery and a couple switching regulators to drop it down to the voltages required.

[kf6snj]

Where on earth did you find a 386 motherboard?  I didn't think they could be found except in military flight simulators.

Believe it or not, my father in law had it, they weren't used just in military flight simulators. Many old home computers used them too (imagine the headache if I had wanted to use a TI-99/4A for my robots computer system. I doubt it would be able to handle the camera). He brought his over to see if it could be updated. Ended up helping to build him a whole new system instead. Now I have the the 386.

If I remember correctly you just need 5 and 12 volts supplied (ahh, those were simpler days), so you could use a 14 volt battery and a couple switching regulators to drop it down to the voltages required.

That much I understand. My problem is that I don't have a schematic for such a circuit or a pinout for the power hook up for the 386.

[AndrewM]

I loved the TI99/4A.  My first programming experience in fact, and the games were great.  I'm just shocked that someone still had a working 386 computer 16 years later.  Of course I still have my first 286 processor (and math coprocessor) chips shoved away in a closet some where.

If you still have the powersupply for the computer, you can meter out the voltages on the connector to see what goes where. 

As for a schematic on a power circuit, most of the switching regulator manufacturers (TI, Fairfield, etc) have a basic schematic included with the datasheets.  Just do a search on one of their websites to find a good regulator that you can use and pull up the datasheet to see if a schematic is included.

[Webbot]

Jeez - I feel old !!  My first project was with a 4bit 4040 processor!! Predecessor to the 8086/8080/286/386 etc. All built on Veroboard (strip board). Boy - did it eat the amps!

Would have died for a 386 !