- Joined
- Oct 6, 2002
- Location
- The Sunshine State
Sticky =)
First off, why does anyone want to continually turn their fans up and down? Well, after my Delta Experience I decided the next box would be as quiet as I could get it, within reason, without going water, or less performance. If you've lived with a Delta, you know what I mean. So I bought 3 - 80mm Enermax Case Fans, the pink-purple ones with clear blades, and screw adjustable speed controls. These are nice little fans for $8 US, but the only hassle was swinging the side cover open to adjust the fans up and down. After building the project below, I simply turned the adjustments all the way open on the fans, and use the front face plate mounted adjustor now. When it's cool in the morning and evenings, I no longer have to listen to ALL of the noise ALL of the time.... (didn't Abe Lincoln used to say something about that?)
I have a Blackish/Charcoal Chieftec Server Case DX-01BD
Basically, I did some reading, found out that to adjust the voltage supplied to the fan bus, you can use an LM317T Voltage Regulator chip, a small, cheap potentiometer, and a resistor or two. (Be sure to put a substantial heatsink on this chip !) A trip to the local Radio Shack (only thing we have), produced the electronic parts I needed, I had the rest (we'll say 'scavenged').
Stuff Needed
LM317T Voltage Regulator $ 2.00
5K Ohm Potentiometer (didn't have 2K) $ 2.00 ?
240 Ohm Resistor (pack of 5) $ 1.00
180 Ohm Resistor (pack of 5) $ 1.00
L.E.D. (pack of 2) $ 2.00 (or scavenge from an old electronics piece)
L.E.D. Holder Had one (scavenged)
Knob for Pot. Made one (scavenged)
Little Circuit Board Had one
Some sort of stomper heatsink material for chip Made one from old PSU Heatsink (scavenged)
Various Drill Bits and Drill
Various Wire to reach the FanBus, and Shrink Tube or use some lengths of stripped insulation from some wire (for the LED legs)
Soldering Iron, Heat Sink Clips, Solder
(Don't use that biga$$ed Weller on your electronic parts, use a real one)
Hot Glue Gun
Mr. Dremel and all his friends (and a boatload of Cutoff Wheels)
Patience Level: Pre-Saint on a Scale of God-Like
LM317T Voltage Regulator
1 to 27 volts
1.5 amp
Vi- Vo= 5 V, Io= 500 mA, IMAX= 1.5A and PMAX= 20W
Using a pre-drilled Circuit Board to mount the Voltage Regulator, the Resistors, the Common Points, and little jumper wires where needed, not only holds everything in place, but gives it a nice 'professional' ghetto look.
If you have a spare face plate to practice on, that would be cool. Since mine are black, I don't have a lot of them lying around, but I did have some white ones to test with. You can find out what size you'll need for drill bits, and prefit all the parts before you're committed to the real one. I have a swinging cover door on my case, and originally the knob wouldn't allow the door to close all the way. So, out with the Dremel, hack off more of the pot's shaft, and slice a nice little chrome knob in half, and that took care of that.
I again used Mr. Dremel and the cutoff wheels to make the board narrow enough to fit on the bay cover. Don't know whether it was late, I got a bad batch of cutoff wheels, or it was the crack, but I think I went through about 12 or more of them. That was a record. Then after all was soldered, and TESTED**, I used a Hot Glue gun to secure the board to the back of the cover. Very slick, too. And, from first hand knowledge, you can easily pop it off to, um, maybe move a resistor lead that somehow got soldered in the wrong place, preventing anything from working, and reglue it.
TESTED** I would suggest putting it all together with alligator jumper clips or something to see how the parts go together. I used an old 200watt psu I have jumpered to allow me to use it without being plugged into a motherboard. Then, when you have it all soldered, test it once more before glueing, and mounting. It's a lot easier to fix something before it's mounted than to take it all apart and do it right the second time...not that I would know or anthing.
One thing: At first I used a flimsy little heatsink I'd scavenged, until I actually touched it ! Whew, that bad boy was HOT. So I cut up some stout aluminum ribbed heatsink I scavenged from a powersupply (you can see it in the picture above), and used some good ol' Arctic Silver II (that was all I had available... where's that cheap crap when you need it?) - and it's a LOT cooler. Looking forward to evenings and mornings. Maybe I can just siesta out when it's toasty, not have to listen at all. hahaha.
Anyway, I think we have a winner. I can turn my fans all the way off, or wide open. I believe there is a 1.25 voltage drop, but in all actuality, it doesn't seem to make much difference. They might not be spinning at the top of their lungs, but almost. I also have not incorporated an On/Off switch, I couldn't see the need for it in my situation. That's up to you. My psu has plenty of power to kick everything in at the beginning.
That's about it. Whole project took about 3 hours the first time. I think I could knock one out now in less than an hour. Not only that, it doesn't look totally ghetto, fer a change. heh.....
This is a piece of Terminal Junction Strip I scavenged for a Fan Bus. No big fancy box with a lot of spring clips, but cheap, and highly effective. It's superglued to the little plastic strip that comes with the case to hold the drive bay slide rails, flush, on the bottom of the case...
First off, why does anyone want to continually turn their fans up and down? Well, after my Delta Experience I decided the next box would be as quiet as I could get it, within reason, without going water, or less performance. If you've lived with a Delta, you know what I mean. So I bought 3 - 80mm Enermax Case Fans, the pink-purple ones with clear blades, and screw adjustable speed controls. These are nice little fans for $8 US, but the only hassle was swinging the side cover open to adjust the fans up and down. After building the project below, I simply turned the adjustments all the way open on the fans, and use the front face plate mounted adjustor now. When it's cool in the morning and evenings, I no longer have to listen to ALL of the noise ALL of the time.... (didn't Abe Lincoln used to say something about that?)
I have a Blackish/Charcoal Chieftec Server Case DX-01BD
Basically, I did some reading, found out that to adjust the voltage supplied to the fan bus, you can use an LM317T Voltage Regulator chip, a small, cheap potentiometer, and a resistor or two. (Be sure to put a substantial heatsink on this chip !) A trip to the local Radio Shack (only thing we have), produced the electronic parts I needed, I had the rest (we'll say 'scavenged').
Stuff Needed
LM317T Voltage Regulator $ 2.00
5K Ohm Potentiometer (didn't have 2K) $ 2.00 ?
240 Ohm Resistor (pack of 5) $ 1.00
180 Ohm Resistor (pack of 5) $ 1.00
L.E.D. (pack of 2) $ 2.00 (or scavenge from an old electronics piece)
L.E.D. Holder Had one (scavenged)
Knob for Pot. Made one (scavenged)
Little Circuit Board Had one
Some sort of stomper heatsink material for chip Made one from old PSU Heatsink (scavenged)
Various Drill Bits and Drill
Various Wire to reach the FanBus, and Shrink Tube or use some lengths of stripped insulation from some wire (for the LED legs)
Soldering Iron, Heat Sink Clips, Solder
(Don't use that biga$$ed Weller on your electronic parts, use a real one)
Hot Glue Gun
Mr. Dremel and all his friends (and a boatload of Cutoff Wheels)
Patience Level: Pre-Saint on a Scale of God-Like
LM317T Voltage Regulator
1 to 27 volts
1.5 amp
Vi- Vo= 5 V, Io= 500 mA, IMAX= 1.5A and PMAX= 20W
Using a pre-drilled Circuit Board to mount the Voltage Regulator, the Resistors, the Common Points, and little jumper wires where needed, not only holds everything in place, but gives it a nice 'professional' ghetto look.
If you have a spare face plate to practice on, that would be cool. Since mine are black, I don't have a lot of them lying around, but I did have some white ones to test with. You can find out what size you'll need for drill bits, and prefit all the parts before you're committed to the real one. I have a swinging cover door on my case, and originally the knob wouldn't allow the door to close all the way. So, out with the Dremel, hack off more of the pot's shaft, and slice a nice little chrome knob in half, and that took care of that.
I again used Mr. Dremel and the cutoff wheels to make the board narrow enough to fit on the bay cover. Don't know whether it was late, I got a bad batch of cutoff wheels, or it was the crack, but I think I went through about 12 or more of them. That was a record. Then after all was soldered, and TESTED**, I used a Hot Glue gun to secure the board to the back of the cover. Very slick, too. And, from first hand knowledge, you can easily pop it off to, um, maybe move a resistor lead that somehow got soldered in the wrong place, preventing anything from working, and reglue it.
TESTED** I would suggest putting it all together with alligator jumper clips or something to see how the parts go together. I used an old 200watt psu I have jumpered to allow me to use it without being plugged into a motherboard. Then, when you have it all soldered, test it once more before glueing, and mounting. It's a lot easier to fix something before it's mounted than to take it all apart and do it right the second time...not that I would know or anthing.
One thing: At first I used a flimsy little heatsink I'd scavenged, until I actually touched it ! Whew, that bad boy was HOT. So I cut up some stout aluminum ribbed heatsink I scavenged from a powersupply (you can see it in the picture above), and used some good ol' Arctic Silver II (that was all I had available... where's that cheap crap when you need it?) - and it's a LOT cooler. Looking forward to evenings and mornings. Maybe I can just siesta out when it's toasty, not have to listen at all. hahaha.
Anyway, I think we have a winner. I can turn my fans all the way off, or wide open. I believe there is a 1.25 voltage drop, but in all actuality, it doesn't seem to make much difference. They might not be spinning at the top of their lungs, but almost. I also have not incorporated an On/Off switch, I couldn't see the need for it in my situation. That's up to you. My psu has plenty of power to kick everything in at the beginning.
That's about it. Whole project took about 3 hours the first time. I think I could knock one out now in less than an hour. Not only that, it doesn't look totally ghetto, fer a change. heh.....
This is a piece of Terminal Junction Strip I scavenged for a Fan Bus. No big fancy box with a lot of spring clips, but cheap, and highly effective. It's superglued to the little plastic strip that comes with the case to hold the drive bay slide rails, flush, on the bottom of the case...
20watt per channel, eight channel, led light and everything other little thing for 20 bucks, hehe.
