Thermaltake Announces Dockpower FL Power Supply Series Featuring a Removable Dock Module

Peter_Brosdahl

Peter_Brosdahl

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Thermaltake has announced its new Dockpower PSU series, which allows users to move their power ports to more accessible locations in their builds. It’s often been noted that power supplies are perhaps the most boring part of a build. After all, they rarely have fancy RGB or LCDs, and most folks install, plug things in, […]

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It looks neat, but not really sure what the benefit is here, since the cables are already modular. Seems like just one more connection point that could break that doesn't really add any value to anything.

I see this kind of connection on industrial PC/PLCs all the time - but those are terminal strips with dozens of wires terminated to them wire by wire - you can just pull the connector out to replace the PLC without having to pull a bunch of wires - which is great. But on this PSU, the connectors are already modular and you have, at most, like half a dozen large molex connectors that can't be plugged into the wrong spot anyway... so...
 
I agree. At first I was really excited about it but the more I thought about it the more I came to the same conclusion.

However, something like this could've helped, possibly, with my mATX builds because one of my CPU power connectors was super tight to get connected to the PSU. I made it work but it could've be helpful if I'd been able to remove the dock beforehand to connect but this was the 1st time I'd ever encountered that scenario in roughly two decades of PC building. The trick here though is would I still have had the clearance and leverage to reattach and tighten it back up?

At best, I'm 50/50 on this becoming something truly useful for many but I do like how they are willing to take a gamble with something new and it could pave the way for other ideas.
 
Interesting that the dock can be used with other PSUs in the same family, so you can upgrade the PSU but keep the same dock (and thus the same cables).

Initially what I thought this was going to be was that you can mount the dock and PSU in separate locations, and thus further hide away the PSU, or the cables, or something. I dunno. Basically have your PSU and internal power cables in completely different locations. But it seems like the dock has to be attached directly to the PSU.
 
DrezKill said:
Initially what I thought this was going to be was that you can mount the dock and PSU in separate locations, and thus further hide away the PSU, or the cables, or something. I
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Same here. To me, that would be much more helpful and revolutionary, but the safety issues for that kind of ribbon are likely huge.
 
DrezKill said:
Interesting that the dock can be used with other PSUs in the same family, so you can upgrade the PSU but keep the same dock (and thus the same cables).
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Can't you already do that with pretty much every modular PSU out there?
 
Brian_B said:
Can't you already do that with pretty much every modular PSU out there?
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I don't think modular cables are interchangeable. Certainly not between brands, but probably not within the same brand either. Maybe some PSUs in the same family/line might have interchangeable cables. But I was under the impression that by and large modular cables are not interchangeable, and should only really be used with the PSUs they come with. Maybe I'm wrong about that, maybe things used to be like that but have changed in the years since, I have no idea.
 
They're just planning for the inevitable drop of that ****ty new 12v power cable Nvidia uses. When that happens you can just replace the dock with the new plug. Obviously.
 
Ok the whole server grade gold plated contacts.... You DO know that's a failure point right? All of that lovely non tarnishing gold is GREAT for sitting on a shelf. (or a ring.) But it's NOT a durable metal for repeated connections. You would want an alloy with gold and something else to give it more durability. Not saying it's going to be an issue for the average consumer... just putting it out there.
 
How many times does the average consumer plug/unplug their cables from their power supply? My guess is a very low number for a niche-specific group. Seems like a solution looking for a problem.
 
Yeah that's what I was thinking. People hardly ever disconnect their power cables let alone this new detachable dock design. Gold is literally used on a lot of computer components such as RAM and you don't see it being a problem there. Why? Because people also don't repeatedly reseat their RAM. Using Gold on that connector is a lot less of a failure point than bare copper. I think the "server-grade" is more along the lines of pointing towards it's a similar (if not identical) design that a lot of servers use with their card-edge connector. Especially for hot-swappable PSUs. Which hardly ever fail.

In addition to all of that. The gold plated fingers for any of those connectors be it RAM, PSU, PCIe or whatever else isn't pure 24k gold anyway. It is indeed mixed with something else to make it harder such as cobalt or nickel anyway. It even says so in the name, 30µ which is designed for repeated mate cycles.
 
Skillz said:
Yeah that's what I was thinking. People hardly ever disconnect their power cables let alone this new detachable dock design. Gold is literally used on a lot of computer components such as RAM and you don't see it being a problem there. Why? Because people also don't repeatedly reseat their RAM. Using Gold on that connector is a lot less of a failure point than bare copper. I think the "server-grade" is more along the lines of pointing towards it's a similar (if not identical) design that a lot of servers use with their card-edge connector. Especially for hot-swappable PSUs. Which hardly ever fail.

In addition to all of that. The gold plated fingers for any of those connectors be it RAM, PSU, PCIe or whatever else isn't pure 24k gold anyway. It is indeed mixed with something else to make it harder such as cobalt or nickel anyway. It even says so in the name, 30µ which is designed for repeated mate cycles.
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Fair fair I always try and keep that in mind. IT's also why you don't see USB and other heavy use ports with actual gold contacts any more.

I remember back in the day with the I believe F30 or 40 line of RS6000 servers they had gold seating for the CPU's... that were literally one time use. If the CPU is pulled for any reason the whole motherboard needs to be replaced and the old one collected for recycling mostly for the gold.

Not long after that people were buying dead computers to harvest the gold from contacts and traces where present...

Never mind me... I'm old damnit! ;)
 
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