Powering pc case fans...

avid

Member
Oh, so you have tons of pc fans sitting around just waiting to be used in a stealth grow? Ore are you drawn to the cheapness of just buying new case fans for your exhaust?
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Awesome, how are you going to power them? :confused:

Are you going to cut and strip wires off of a wall-wart hoping you have everything hooked up right? Are you going to just pray that you did your math right about how many milliamps/volts it takes to run all of them?

Yeah, it makes this shit way more fucking complicated than it needs to be.
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To start off
, there ARE controllers for 3 pin fans that plug into the wall...
They're just a bitch to find, or not cost effective.

So what are we to do? :confused:




This
thing is going to be our friend. It ends in what's called a molex type connection and it plugs into the wall. (It's a common connection for powering computer components)
All for just $14 USD.
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This is what the plugin on a 3 pin fan looks like:
Connector_mb_fan_3pin.jpg
Now, you CAN buy fans HAVE molex connections already. Also if you wanted to power more than one fan, you could use a splitter.

Fan with molex AND 3 pin: (and hell, this one has 3 speeds and it's only $1.55 USD ea)
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Molex splitter: $0.10 USD ea
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And that's all hunky dory if your fans can plug into molex connections.

And if they only have 3 pin connections?
Well, you're not SOL.
You can use this thingy to plug your fan in.
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In fact, you can chain these to power more fans.


Okay, So it's not as complicated as it seems. And for me not worrying about the correct volts/amps over my precious plants would save me some worry. Maybe it's not your style, maybe you just want to hack up an old wall wart with your knife and leave exposed wires all over inside your wet grow box. But damn. For me it's an extra $20 well spent. :)
 

redzi

Well-Known Member
Or try Rino ac to dc molex from Frys. Provides the wiring for two fans. I use a 3 speed 120 MM case fan...just enter that into a ebay search.
 

Sppoc

Active Member
My psu, cool max 400w had 3x 4pin Molex so I just soldered some extra wire to all my fans' wires to extend em a few feet and bingo. Powering 3 fans @ max. (I'm pretty sure at max.)

I really did this because I wanted to try out soldering and didn't want to order anything extra. It was fun though, taught myself to solder haha.
 

Nizza

Well-Known Member
nice read, but i don't get it, what's so hard about getting one of those DC wall adapters and wiring fans onto it? just make sure output is the right volts dc and you're golden. Some computer fans run off a/c so be careful
 
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