Q about wiring a fan controller to a standard case fan

[JasonSix]

Hi everyone, I found this website through a Google search and figured if anyone could help me it would be you guys.

Here's my question;
I just picked up a standard 92mm Vantec fan to mount on the side of my case for extra cooling. It was recommended to me as "the best 92mm" but I didn't realize it was so powerful and need to slow things down a bit.

I bought a Thermaltake 120mm Smart Fan over a year ago and it came with a PCI slot mount speed controller which I never used. What I would like to do is wire the Thermaltake Speed Controller so I can manually regulate the speed of the Vantec fan. I realize this will require some splicing to get it to work but I'm clueless as to what needs to go where (I'm not much of an electrician.)

Would anyone knowledgeable on this subject please give me some wiring advice? Here's a picture of the fan and speed controller wires:

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/7254/fancontrollerak9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

If not visible from the picture:
Vantec Fan: Standard 4-pin pass through Molex connector/single wire for fan speed monitoring to the motherboard.

Speed controller: Red and Black wire terminating to a mini 2-pin plug.

[dgrmkrp]

I did have the same controller, but thermaltake makes them in a special way: because they are used to connect to an input on the fan itself, the modding of this fan controller is going to be a PITA. I tried one of these with a regular fan, but you can't just splice this one..

Anyhow: a fan controller varies the voltage supplied to the fan. So, it should be in series with the fan, on the yellow or red wire or I don't know what color > more generally, the + of the fan. Usually it is red +. black ground and yellow rpm, but I've seen blue and pink cabling.. and yellow and black.. and red and black..

The fan you have is a great one indeed! One of the best in terms of power and noise :)
You should buy a separate controller, one that can handle the most watts per channel you can afford, cause this baby sucks current, and cut the wires and mod them in a 3pin connection. Just never plug it in a motherboard! Could fry it..

need more info.. I'm here.. lurking :)

[JasonSix]

Thanks DG!

I was trying to avoid buying a speed controller but I guess I'll have to break down and buy one. :eek: Any recommendations on one? I've got a Centurion 5, the black and silver one, and would need one that's black. That's my only preference.

[dgrmkrp]

Well, most fan controllers out there have a rating specified.. how man watts they can handle. Because the tornado draws 1 full amp.. you need a fan controller rated for at least the 12W you're gonna use. I would pick one with a higher rating and with a heatsink on its transistors.. helps dissipate the heat and keep the transistor conducting as it should.

I would recommend the akasa jr, cause it gets close to 5V when run on minimum, but it is rated at 10W and has bare transistors.. it is true that the transistor will only generate heat for the current blocked, but I'd rather be on the safe side and keep some head room.. that is just me. Having some hot pieces of silicon in the case can't help.. and adding more.. bad too.

I'm not sure how good this is in real life, but if the specs are right.. it would be good and cheap. link (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=137&products_id=363&zenid=45fb27bc0efa6139aee33eac73289d08)

[JasonSix]

That Sunbeam model has good specs. The only problem I see is that it has the small 2-pin male connectors on it and all of my fans are 4-pin molex. Do they make an adapter that will convert 4-pin to 2-pin? Or could I just snip the fan wires from the 4-pin molex and solder 2 of them (red and black?) directly to the pins on the back of the fan controller? I'm handy with a soldering iron :D
I figure I'll pick up a high cfm 120mm fan while I'm at it to replace the stock CM exhaust fan.

[dgrmkrp]

Picture is kinda bad, but they are actually normal 3 pin fan headers. You can even buy those and the female type, as they are very used in electronics. If you are handy with a soldering iron than you can add the 3pin connections to the fans with lower amps and keep a 4 pin molex too for the big guns. You never know when you may need it. Of course, if it is final, than by all means go with the perfect length of wire you need and the only connector that suits the job. You can use a normal not modded fan with a 3 pin connector to see what the order of the wires is or google the pinout.
If you want a high CFM fan you should be aware that even if you dial it down to the minimum, it may still be a tad noisy. But if noise don't matter >> go delta or another maker of speedy fans :)

[calumc]

Jason, from the looks of your fan controller its basically just a variable resistor. So all you need to do is cut the connector off the end and connect it into either the black or red wire on your fan.
If you need a quick diagram just let me know

[dgrmkrp]

@calumc: I've had that same fan controller.. if you are talking about the Thermaltake.. and possibly still have one somewhere.. it is a variable resistor, but bare in mind that not all fans are the same and they need a small amount of resistance to control them. This fan controller is in the range of thousands and tens of thousands of ohms.. That will totally block the current for the fan. It was used with the integrated circuitry on the fans themselves, so it isn't usable unless you have a similar circuit to use it with. It can be modded to act like a normal, usable fan controller, specific to the fan model.. but there is a danger that it could burn out.. Been there, done that ;)

[calumc]

Ah i see. Jason, have you thought about just running the fan on 5v or 7v? It will make your fan quieter but you wont be able to turn it up when you need the extra power

[JasonSix]

Thanks again DG and Cal! I just spent an hour reading various undervolting guides/info. I just feel like, with my luck with electronics, that I'll end up frying something! :redface: I think a fan controller will make things easier and leave me some room for expansion in the future.

[JasonSix]

Got another questions for you guys; I just finished installing this fan controller and now the Vantec Tornado is suspiciously quite. I really can't tell any difference on low or high although I can see the speed variating slightly as I turn the knob. The yellow signal wire coming from the Tornado is very short, so I zip-tied it off and hooked it to nothing. Do I need to extend the wire and hook it up to my fan controller? Going from low to high on the FC with little increase in fan speed concerns me, is this normal?

[dgrmkrp]

It is true that kinda all fan controllers don't have a maximum excursion of the voltage.. that is, in stead of 12V max, you might get 11V or 11.something.. But that shouldn't affect the tornado that much, I think.. The yellow wire being the rpm signal, you should do a small test to see if the speed goes up a lot or not.. install the fan close to the mobo header and use the fan controller to speed it up and down.. use a monitoring utility like speedfan or even the bios screen and watch if the rpm changes on the screen.. if not, there should be something else causing a problem.. or maybe there isn't one.. we'll see :)
u have any pics? we like them :)

[JasonSix]

Thanks for the info, since I never had one of these FC before, I really didn't know what to expect. I'll give that a try later on this evening and see if it speeds the fan up. The way it is now, it's perfect! It dropped my 8800 temps down from ~65c idle to 55c and it hasn't broke past 60c from playing FSX for several hours. Before it would max out in the seventies so having a fan there has made a vast improvement.

Here's a few pics of my rig, although I feel like I'm posting pictures of my Geo Metro on a Ferrari board. I've used this same case through several builds so it has a few battle scars :)

<a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/4429/pc1hb1.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us"/></a>
<a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/9880/pc2dr6.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us"/></a>