Mark Willis wrote:

> Easy enough to hack a 1/2 height drive bay cover to put 3 binding
> posts out there for Ground +5V and +12V, so your entire PIC project
> can be outside your closed PC, of course the original post's for once
> the project's debugged not for earlier <G>.

  Now that's hacking!

  One of my little tricks relating to Amateur Packet Radio is to power
the radio (generally, a handheld with current draw < 1.5 Amp) from the
computer using a 6.5mm (¹") "phone" jack mounted on the back panel,
generally in a vacant "DE" connector knock-out.

  I don't really advise this, as "hot-plugging" can easily crash the
computer, and I would be worried about Mark's suggestion for similar
reasons.  In fact, you can "kill" the power supply, *usually* only
temporarily, by the impulse from connecting a large discharged supply
capacitor.

  In fact, I used a "Y" adaptor for this purpose, also a 6-hole ferrite
choke and a bypass capacitor at the socket to avoid exchange of
undesirable dataforms.  Many SMPSUs however have an unused second 3¸"
FD connector.

  My present "cheap" source of these adaptors is discarded dead CPU
fans!  OK, OK!  So I'm a scavenger!
-- 
  Cheers,
        Paul B.