Tabletop Fans made with case fans

[ShadowNyfe]

Ya so this is going to be my first official worklog. It was a good learning experience and I made many mistakes along the way that will hopefully help me when I do actual case modding.

The basic idea of this mod came from me coming across a good deal on Newegg. They were selling 4 80mm fans for $4, so I thought why not. I bought 8 of them and kind of stuck them together. This was my first attempt:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Random%20Shiz/fans.jpg


It worked well for a few days, but I decide since it was going to sit in my room, I might as well make it look halfway decent.

Unfortunately I didn't save my initial sketchup model to show here, but I had printed it out and was using it as a reference for measurements.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0021.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0022.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0023.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0024.jpg



After it was all drawn up nice and pretty-like, I had my friend cut out the fan holes using Hole-saws. Turns out they don't have metric ones readily available so we just eyeballed the closest size.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0026.jpg


Here's another picture of the hole cut out. I took a small piece of the scrap plexi and had some fun on top of the stove to test out how it'd bend.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0027.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0025.jpg



I taped some paper towels on the plexi to hopefully somewhat isolate where the plexi would soften up and waited for the stove to heat up. Then I held the plexi over the stovetop and flipped it every 15 seconds for about 2-3 minutes.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0038.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0039.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0040.jpg


Here's the end result of the bending, it turned out pretty well.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0041.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0042.jpg


With fans mounted:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0043.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v636/LazyRulerDude/Computer/IMAG0044.jpg


Mistakes:

- The holes for the screws didn't line up, so I'm having some issues mounting it. Thankfully fans aren't too heavy, but I need to learn how to measure them in the future.

- Plexiglass flexes when you heat it. The whole sheet flexed and became a tiny bit distorted, which I didn't notice until after it was cooled.

- I needed to either extend the base, weigh it down, or build a leg on the front because it's currently SLIGHTLY off-balanced.


Any kind of comments or constructive criticism, as well as tips on how to work with plexi better would be appreciated. This is my first official mod, so be nice =D


Thanks for reading.

[chaksq]

Sweet dude. Looks like a nice and simple project to get started with plexi. Few questions, how did you wire them all up? Also how is the noise factor, a lot of case fans can be noisy? Do you have any kind of speed control?

[ShadowNyfe]

The fans came with.... hmmm...I'm not sure what the correct term is, but pretty much you plug the molex into the previous one and it has another connect for another fan to plug into. I just plugged all of them together and wired the first one to a 12v wall plug power supply. Originally I had used a test computer PSU that was wired to be turned on by the switch on the back, but I figured that drew too much power for what I needed.

the noise factor... louder than I want, but it also has a different sound signature than a regular fan. It's a bit higher pitched I guess you could say, so unless I'm sitting in my room doing absolutely nothing, I don't notice it.

The fan controller thing was exactly what I was about to post about. This started out as a cheap project just to pass the time, and I didn't want to spend the money on a fan controller but looking at it now, it seems like a nice idea. With that in mind, I'm not sure if there's a fan controller that can handle the power of 5 fans and still be cheap. If anyone has such a fan controller, lemme know :]

[chaksq]

Depends on your definition of cheap but I'd consider this to be budget friendly: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/987/bus-15/Zalman_ZM-MFC1_6-Channel_Fan_Controller.html?tl=g36c17s286
It can adjust each fan independently, I've heard good things about this although I haven't personally used one. For use in your mod you could take off the front cover and use it as a template to cut some holes in the fan holder, then mount the board and controls directly to that.

[Ap1thy]

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/992/bus-34/FrozenCPU_Black_PWM_6x_Fan_Controller_525_Bay.html ?tl=g36c17s286#blank

theres another one, it only adjusts two fans at a time though and for either youd need to convert the fans to the small 3 pin connectors

[AntraxLife]

looks awsome, really clean looking the plexi. +rep for that,
one idea or suggestion: paint the fans white, only the motor and the blades.
really cool looking,

-AntraxLife

[Computer-Geek]

kinda old thread 05-09-2008

[Mark_Hardware]

If the fans are using molex connectors, a fan controller isn't going to do any good....

EDIT: Holy crap I just noticed the 2008 I'm embarrased now