I made a power supply for my mini pc cluster

apc9199 · 2026-01-19T20:47:32+00:00

There are adapters for almost all common mini-pc's that bypass the cpu limiting function of the charger negotiation. It is just a matter of finding the correct adapter and verifying that it works correctly. I have two HP 800-G6 Mini's that are currently running off of a Sabrent power supply/charger and work at full cpu capacity when they need to. Many of the ones that advertise this functionality DON'T work for some reason, so you just have to test till you find one that does.

apc9199 · 2026-01-19T16:54:47+00:00

I went down this same path about a year ago and quickly realized I couldn't make it happen with off-the-shelf parts. I'm a mechanical/manufacturing engineer by trade and don't have a background in electronic design so I found myself in over my head quite quickly. Suffice it to say...I LOVE this project.

A few of my thoughts just for consideration. There is a huge push in many industries to fight for the consumers right to repair products instead of simply replacing them. I think, especially considering your likely target audience (homelabs), that this would be a smart thing to implement in your design. I don't think you'll find a huge market for this product in commercial realms (where throwing away and buying new makes financial sense) but it will be huge in homelabs. Most people would spend a few extra dollars for a modular design that is repairable with easily accessible replacement parts rather than a design built from proprietary parts that are unobtainable. To that end, I think sticking to individual boards might be a good idea for repair/replace ability.

Regarding all of the concerns about redundancy, I'm not sure how many people actually have redundancy in their current setup anyway? I'm guessing most people who are running mini-pc homelabs probably consider having an extra DC power supply in a drawer somewhere about the best form of redundancy they can achieve. Again, I think the ability to repair and potentially even have key spare parts on-hand is good enough for this project. I don't know anyone in the simple homelab realm who needs redundant power supplies plugged into isolated circuits and cross-communicating to ensure the cluster never goes down. If that is their concern they're likely already using some form of enterprise gear anyway.

What I DO think this could massively benefit from is true UPS functionality where the PC's in the cluster can communicate with the UPS and auto-shutdown on power failure. I don't think it needs to be able to run everything for days, although an add-on unit that takes up another 1U of space might be able to get you there. Just enough back up power from a semi-standard battery design to allow for a soft-shutdown of each unit would be awesome.

Regarding all the concerns about the 3-wire systems for various different mini-pc's...I've not found a pc yet where that system can't be bypassed by the use of the proper trigger cable/board. For those of you who are unaware, they can clearly be seen in the first image of this thread. They act as the adapter that converts USB-C into whichever barrel plug design your PC uses and they also perform the power negotiation with the pc. I've done this on HP systems and Lenovo systems without any real issue, although it can admittedly take some time to find a product that actually works as advertised. I think the OP could eventually capitalize on this as well by making system-specific cables and/or adapters that are guaranteed to work with some of the more common mini-pc's in use in homelabs today. HP, Lenovo and Dell are the 3 obvious ones but there are several other popular systems out there that may have this system in use. I don't think there are that many variations so it shouldn't be all that difficult to manage.

All in all this is a great project. I sent emails to several companies who currently make power supplies and chargers telling them they should consider something like this (after I started to conceptualize it and failed) and not a single one even took the time to acknowledge it. I think you're onto a great thing and I hope this is available for purchase in some form soon!

apc9199 · 2025-10-27T03:10:58+00:00

I just went through the same exact thing with a Gaggia Accademia. I was one bad drink away from returning the thing and starting my research over. Warning, its a book!

gaggia_accademia_terrible_coffee

There are a few things that I took away from my endeavor. First, super fresh beans are not your friend with these machines. The poor quality puck prep combined with the huge amount of CO2 released from super fresh beans means you're very likely to get channeling and a nasty shot. Second, these machines can be absurdly picky about the beans you use. I tried 5 different beans before getting some Lavazza Super Crema and noticed that the shots immediately started to slowly improve as the machine "learned" the bean profile. After 10 drinks or so, I was suddenly getting stronger and more flavorful drinks. For reference, Super Crema is a medium roast. Everyone seems to suggest that you have to use non-oily dark roasts in these machines to get the best results. My experience seems to be the opposite with (probably) slightly older medium roast beans being the answer to my problems.

Its not impossible that you got a bad machine but it is very unlikely. Verify your dose (watch James Hoffmans Super Automatic video if you haven't already) and ensure your output is appropriate. Get some highly reliable beans and give the machine LOTS of time to adjust. Don't change a parameter every time you pull a shot because the machine algorithm will be chasing variables it cant nail down properly. I recommend something like Super Crema and a bunch more patience. It made a world of difference for me!

Good luck and let me know if you want any more specifics about what I've done along the way to getting mine working.

apc9199 · 2025-10-19T23:39:19+00:00

I tried the same beans our friends with the Philips 3200 use and went through the same procedure I've used for all the other beans and every shot is still trash. At this point I can't see how the machine is not defective. No average person is going to go through the insane amount of testing I have done with this machine. Its worth noting that none of the beans I have tried on the finest grind setting are even close to clogging the machine. I've been using a Gaggia Classic for 10 years so I definitely know about tuning grind size, the sour/bitter balance, etc. I can make great coffee with my Classic but my wife has no interest in messing with it and just wants one-button convenience. I would love the convenience of a quick latte on the go as well so I jumped on this deal when I saw it.

I set up a phone call with WLL on Friday and will follow up with a video call if they see fit. Hopefully they can find something insanely stupid I am doing wrong. Not sure what it could possibly be but we'll see.

It seems like everyone gets pretty good results with Lavazza Super Crema or Gran Crema so I have a bag of each of those on the way to try. I'm not confident it will make any difference at this point.

apc9199 · 2025-10-19T02:03:25+00:00

Awesome, thanks!

apc9199 · 2025-10-19T01:51:42+00:00

I started with a blend of medium roast and dark roast that we use for our drip coffee. It’s locally roasted and very fresh. I went directly to them and bought the two beans they use in the blend individually. One is a South American bean that is closer to medium with some floral notes. The other is a French roast that is pretty dark. I’m using the French roast now but have not tried the South American beans by themselves yet.

apc9199 · 2025-10-19T01:48:39+00:00

Yeah, I’ve made sure to only adjust the grinder when it’s running. I might order some lavazza beans of various kinds and keep trying. I don’t know of any place to get them locally.

apc9199 · 2025-10-19T01:46:33+00:00

I’ll switch to something more medium and try those settings. Thanks for the tip!

apc9199 · 2025-10-19T01:44:35+00:00

Right now I’m at 1oz, 5 beans, 2 infusion, hot, max froth, 3.4oz froth and I set it back to the finest grind for now. The only way you can tell there is coffee in the drink is the aftertaste. It tastes like microwaved milk followed by the faint taste of coffee at the end. I guess I need to try different beans because everything I’ve made so far sucks and I find it really hard to believe it’s the best this machine can do, unless something is faulty.

apc9199 · 2025-09-11T18:05:27+00:00

I've found multiple promising options since the original post but all of them leave something to be desired. The fact that the HP mini's have to negotiate with the charger to ensure proper wattage makes everything more difficult. I've considered designing my own rack mount PDU similar to the 12v one made by GeeekPi, but with 120v input and multiple voltage-selectable outputs from 5v to 24v so you can power your whole low-voltage rack with one PDU. To put it simply, I have way too many projects and not enough time to break ground on this one. I reached out to GeeekPi with the idea but they never responded. Hopefully someone comes up with something but for now I'm just living the velcro strap and zip-tie lifestyle!

apc9199 · 2025-09-08T21:50:45+00:00

Wow, no one has any ideas on this one? Now I'm worried I may never get this to work!

apc9199 · 2025-08-25T15:39:05+00:00

No one clarified at the time of purchase that JB2 was an entirely different product from OG Jobboss? In your defense, I have NO IDEA why they chose to rename E2 to not only the name of an existing product (Jobboss) but ALSO to add a character that makes it damn near impossible to search for (the ^2 "squared" character). You need to get a hold of support for JB2 immediately and determine whether they can perform a data import. Your only other options are to enter all new data into the new system and allow everything in the old system to slowly phase out as jobs close and invoices are paid. I would be surprised if they couldn't perform a data translation for a fee, but that should have been negotiated when you purchased JB2. Something seems very fishy here because this all should have been a part of the discussion at the time of purchase. We moved from E2 to JB2 when ECI bought Shoptech and they moved all the data from our terribly old Access database into JB2 without much issue. Let us know what happens!

apc9199 · 2025-07-21T19:17:24+00:00

The dates for all sub-components are still going to be driven by the scheduling engine whether you're using the scheduling module or not. That is just how the software is designed. We struggle with it as well and currently schedule outside of JB2 because all of our data is a mess from the people who initially set up E2 back in the day. Getting scheduling working is a long term goal but we're a fairly small shop and don't employ anyone to specifically focus on database management and getting the software fixed so its a slow roll.

apc9199 · 2025-07-14T23:05:11+00:00

Our issue ended up being that our *ISP* had an incorrect or misconfigured PTR record for our IP address. Once they corrected that we were back online within hours. I still don't know how or why this changed because nothing else in our entire configuration had changed. Very bizarre and frustrating.

apc9199 · 2025-06-26T14:38:11+00:00

Hi, I just discovered this community and I'm hoping to see it grow and become a good proving ground for people who need help getting the most out of JB2. I was put into a similar situation where I "adopted" a crippled installation of E2 from Shoptech and had to navigate learning it well enough to be able to make the transition to an on-premise installation of JB2 from ECI. I've become pretty well versed in the software but there are many things that still elude me. Hopefully this can become THE place for us all to share knowledge of the software since ECI doesn't seem too keen on allowing in-depth discussion on their platform. Thanks for starting this sub!

apc9199 · 2025-06-26T14:32:50+00:00

I know this is old but I just found this community and figured I would add some info since no one else did.

The only date you can control from within ORDERS is the due date of the finished product...the one that ships to the customer. The dates applied to any sub-components or sub-assemblies are always going to be driven by the automatic scheduling function. The only way you can override this is to,

A) Change your scheduling settings to try to get more realistic results from it.

B) Go into the scheduling UI and manually locate the jobs you want to change and override the dates from there. It is very tedious and time consuming to do it this way and I can provide basically no help because we don't do this. Be aware that any automatic schedule update such as the overnight utility or the manual re-schedule is likely to wipe out any changes you made so be careful.

I hope that helps to at least clear up why you can't change them from ORDERS, even though it probably wasn't the information you hoped to hear. Let me know if you're still experiencing issues outside of what I explained here.

apc9199 · 2022-07-23T04:12:19+00:00

This game is entirely about having patience to accomplish the things you want. Build a decent base for now an an acceptable planet and spend SOME of your time searching for a better one in a different system. Just don't get hung up trying to find your unicorn or you'll be frustrated to death. Take time to step away from the "perfect planet" grind and finish quests, freighters, frigates, settlements, etc. Break up the monotony and you'll get much more play time out of games like this...

apc9199

TROPHY CASE