Volt meter for my PSU

[Grump]

I have this plug:

http://grumpsplace.com/images/comp/gc/cm_volt_meter_s.jpg (http://grumpsplace.com/images/comp/gc/cm_volt_meter_l.jpg)

That connects to the back of this:

http://grumpsplace.com/images/comp/gc/gc662.jpg

This originally belonged to a Cooler Master Real Power 450W PSU that I am testing for the manufacturer and was going to use in my Grump Case project, but it isn't working right (as is usually the case for beta products).

Anyway, I want to connect the volt meter to my Enermax Noisetaker 470W, but I have no idea where or how. Can any of you help? I can solder, but you will have to tell me what I solder the connector to -- what wires, colors, etc.

You can see a bigger pic of the connector by clicking on the image above. It's a 4 pin plug with orange, green purple and black wires. I don't want to tear apart the PSU to trace it down because I think I will have to send the PSU back to Cooler Master -- but they will let me cut the connector off and keep the meter.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Grump

[Starbuck3733T]

Can you post pics of where the 4 pin harness goes into on the inside of the PSU? What voltages was it 'supposed to' monitor? How about some rear shots of the meter?

<--- resident EE.

Edit: oops, you can't open the PSU. crap. do you own a multimeter? Measure each one of the colored lines in reference to (w\ the ground lead of the meter on) black line. My guess is that those are the 5V, 3.3V, and 12V lines in some order, w\ black being ground.

[Grump]

I broke the rules and opened the PSU case. I unwrapped the power lines and traced the 4 wires into the unit to 4 different locations. Three of the wires look to be hard wired into the PCB in labeled holes. I can't read the labels because they are way too small for my wrinkled eyes, but it doesn't look like I can hook it up the same way on the Enermax.

My solution: screw it. When Cooler Master fixes the problem and comes out with another unit, I'll try it again then.

Maybe someone has an idea what I can use the display for. Maybe a sound activated doo-dad or a HDD activity display (except that I am using 2 SATA drives) -- an ideas out there?

Thanks,

Grump

[Greeny]

That appears to be a Wattage meter anyway not a volt meter, isn't it?

[Grump]

Yes, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. It is a watt meter. Do you have an idea for making a quick and dirty water meter out of this?


Grump

[toby]

i did a hard drive display which is pretty good http://t.waters1.users.btopenworld.com/IMG_0458.JPG thats a rubbish picture but it shows the display on the right and the needle moves when the hard drive is activated.basically you need some sort of moving coil meter which you attatch to the motherboard header for hard drive activity. although im not sure how this would work with two sata drives (unless they are in raid) because the hdd header only displays activity on the first drive i think although there must be some way of displaying the activity of both drives.That meter looks like a moving coil meter so you could try using it for hd activity but first you need to know some electrical stuff that i forget that tells you what voltage the display will work at best which you need to know if its going to work on the 3.5 rail which if it shows i could work out what resistor if any, of you could just put it on the 3.5 rail along with a potentiometer to adjust it. as for a sound activated doodad i dunno about that one. if you had a sound activated cathode you could probably bodge something together using that. and on a side note http://metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/vilkkuvalot2/index_eng is a really cool led hard drive activity thingy

[Starbuck3733T]

so the 4 wires for the thingy didn't go anywhere near any of the other pretty colors for teh voltage rails in the PSU?