On Tue, 15 Jul 2014, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 15/07/14 21:12, Sjouke Burry wrote:
Please tell us how to get 24 volts out of PC power supplies..........

put a load on the 5V and then pick off the +12 and -12??

But the printer power supply was standalone, not in a box but the board
mounted on a piece of metal bent at 90 degrees. I though of looking in the
inkjet because I'd noticed that printers often had higher voltages inside.
It was very easy to extract the switching supply.

This is now dated material since there many inkjet printers that have
external supplies, so you can grab one of suitable voltage and use it.
Indeed, with the switch to switching supplies, AC adapters become much
more useful in the past. You get a compact power supply with more current
capacity than most of the old ac adapters, and you can find a wide range
of voltages.

The reality is that the mundane is often the most useful things one can
find in the garbag. That iPod is a neat thing, but I didn't really need
it. That usb to microUSB cable I needed, so it outright saved me some
money. I tend to save AC adapters because they can be used for other
things, but also because you never know when you might bring home some
interesting piece of electronics that needs such and such a voltage.

Micahel