rheostat/fanbus for rotrons??

[rpckvv]

i am gonna get 2 Comair Rotron Major's (or the circular ones)...

obviously i'm concerned about the noise at some times, so i was wondering if anyone made rheostats or fanbuses that can handle that kind of power

what would be ideal would be if i could plug the fans into a bus and with the flip of a switch just activate the bus, instead of lowering the voltage/wattage/whatever it is...

i know that there are rheostats that could handle this, but they're apparently expensive...is there any way to wire a fanbus to simply activate it, thus lowering the power to the fans, instead of already having the Rotrons at a lowered power?

For those who don't know, they operate @ 25W and run @ 2.26 Amps...personally, i dont know what the hell this means, but i do know that alot of power is required to run these...

They will be the only two fans in my case (one in front bottom for intake and one in top for exhaust), and I want to be able to slow them down if i want to d/l something overnight or whatever


-peter

 

[stool]

Right off the bat, without an adapter you're not going to be able to run them full speed. They will probably run at 12v, but nowhere near top speed.

 

[rpckvv]

what i'm more than likely gonna do is just get straight-plug adapters for the fans, so i can plug them into the powerstrip/surge protector/whatever you call it...

that way i'll be sure to be getting the most outta my fans, but, of course, another question:

can i (again) plug that into something that would in some way limit the power to the fans? i guess it's something like a dimmer for lights, like a knob that adjusts the amount of light emitted from the bulb, but i guess this would adjust the RPM of the fan...

maybe i'm just crazy (in that such a product doesnt exist), but since im just plugging this into a regular powerstrip, i thought such things may exist...

if such a thing exists, what would it be called?

i just dont want to go deaf using my computer, but on the other hand, i need these rotrons....

 

[stool]

I just realized you were looking at the AC version. Since you are going with ComairRotron Majors, why not get the 12vdc model? You'll be able to use regular rheostats, and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble. They are manufacturers part# 031089,and have the same specs as the AC ones.

 

[rpckvv]

cuz i'm retarded

-peter

 

[rpckvv]

so if i get the 12v major's (which i was intending to do before i had a massively stanky brain fart), could i plug those into a reg'lar fanbus (like the one @ caseetc.com)?

if not, what kind of rheostat would i be looking for?

please forgive me, i'm incredibly retarded at the moment....

-peter

 

[stool]

Yeah, as long as they are 12v. Any of the rheostats Hoot is selling, or the 25ohm 3 watt rheos from Radio Shack should do you just fine.

 

[Krusty]

Hoot has some 25W rheostats that might work. The 12v major DC fans run at a higher wattage though. They draw 27W of juice. I'm not sure if those rheostats could handle 2W over their rated load.

You could always do what I did and simply attach the ground to the 5v line in a molex connector to run the fan at 7v. The sound is significantly reduced, but there is no chance of getting these things to run near silent. I recently bought a few center-off switches to make a fanbus for my fans. I haven't began using them yet, but they are small enough to fit in a 3 1/2" bay cover and I can have the fans off, at 12v, or at 7v and they were only about 3 bucks a piece at radio shack.

Just make sure you have a decent psu. That's a pretty big extra load on your 5v line. I had a cheap turbolink 320w psu that ran one fan at 7v and a 1.4 tbird at 1.57 without any major power problems. My enlight 431W psu runs 2 of those fans at 7v wonderfully.