MeanGreenFarmingMachine
Active Member
Yeah, i bought a quiet case PC fan for a small grow box that i built and was wondering how to connect the 3 little fan wires to the cord of a plug that i cut??
How to connect PC fan to plug??
- Thread starter MeanGreenFarmingMachine
- Start date
I've been curious about this too. I've read that you can use a cell phone charger, I think v12 would be acceptable for most--you might be able to run possibly more than one as well (but do not qoute me-- as i'm a newbie as well in this field--lets get a more experienced person to point us in the right direction).
MeanGreenFarmingMachine
Active Member
Yeah ive been reading on that and most people seem to say that 12v chargers are best, so ill try again and give you an update...
Thx
MeanGreenFarmingMachine
Active Member
Yo! It totally works! Thx alot man, Ill send some pic later on...
fabfun
New Member
when u say cord u cut u do mean on a charger right if not if u hook to 110 u will smoke that fan
and those fans r rated for 12 volt dc u can some times get away with 15 v it will spin faster but under 12 it will be slow
u dont connect all 3 wires usually the red and the black the yellow is the wire that tells shuts it on and off i believe
just cut connector off end off wire and wire to 2 wires on charger then tape real good some times if the touch it will fry fan or charger
and those fans r rated for 12 volt dc u can some times get away with 15 v it will spin faster but under 12 it will be slow
u dont connect all 3 wires usually the red and the black the yellow is the wire that tells shuts it on and off i believe
just cut connector off end off wire and wire to 2 wires on charger then tape real good some times if the touch it will fry fan or charger
fabfun
New Member
u can run a bunch of these fans off a computer power supply if anyone is interest i can steer u to the links that show u how and u can run more of of one charger but u have to add up amps of fans and make sure your charger can handle it and i can help anyone with that is there is interest
MeanGreenFarmingMachine
Active Member
Yeah i found an old 12v cell charger, did what u say and it worked!
MeanGreenFarmingMachine
Active Member
Oh cool, that brings up an other question....
Can i attach 2 fans on 1 charger
(12v charger plug, wire, fan, wire, fan) ??
PLUG----------fan--------fan ??
Lol im not good at explaining shit, but if you understand my question, can i do that wiring??
blatMachine
Member
Yes you can. You need to find the current rating of the charger first. Then make sure that current rating of the fan does not exceed the rating of the charger. Now when connecting the fans to the charger (or wall wart as I like to call them) you need to wiring them in parallel not in series. This means that both positive wires(or red wires) need to be connected to the positive terminal (or wire) of the charger, and conversely connect both of the common wires(or ground/black wire) to the common terminal of the charger. If you were to connect them in series, one fan would be connected to the + terminal and the common wire of the fan would connect to the + of the next fan and that fan's common wire would connect to the common of the charger. The yellow wire is a wire that provides speed control to the fan via PWM. PWM(pulse width modulation) is a digital output of a square wave in which the duty cycle can be set from 0 to 100% to alter the rotational speed of the fan. In your case, DO NOT connect the yellow wire to anything, you can leave it 'flapping in the wind'. But before you go wiring up things, make sure you know which wire coming out of the charger is your positive terminal; usually this wire has a some sort of marking like a white stripe or dotted line along the length of the wire. The common terminal should just use a plain black wire with no markings.
I am an electrical engineering technology graduate, and I know this will sound confusing but do a little research on basic wiring and it will make more sense.
NewClosetGrower
Well-Known Member
hey bud i can answer this for him...if that charger worked for one fan, being that its the right voltage, then you can run multiple fans off that single charger! somewhere on the fan it should say how many AMP'S it uses (most are anywhere from 0.25-1.25 depending) you have to see how many amps that circuit is and how many amps you have running on it already...just make sure you dont go over that number, or 80% of that number if its hooked to something that stays on, like a computer or whatever and you will be fine...basically if you had 5 fans that were 0.25 amps..i can almost guarantee you would have no problem..good luck
blatMachine
Member
Yes very good point, when wiring in parallel you add the current consumption of each fan together. That total number should not be generally more than 80-90% of the charger's total capacity.
MeanGreenFarmingMachine
Active Member
Wow thx alot man, this helps a bunch!
MeanGreenFarmingMachine
Active Member
Perfect! im connecting them right now.....ill seed pic right whene im finnished, thx by the way
NewClosetGrower
Well-Known Member
no problem man, im a journeyman electrician so if you have anymore questions feel free bud...
NewClosetGrower
Well-Known Member
and if any of you guys feel a little uncomfortable about having bare or taped wires in your grow area but these little pc fans are a must...you can buy a Molex power inverter offline for around 20 bucks and it does the same thing...
MeanGreenFarmingMachine
Active Member
Lol, umm i have an other question lol.....i'm kinda embarrassed.....i finished wiring them, everything was working perfectly until i accidentally pushed on the wire, (which i had not yet put some electrical tape on) , onto the tin foil tape....it did a small spark and now neither of the fans work......Please, PLEASE tell me i didn't just waste those things??
NewClosetGrower
Well-Known Member
check to see if anything else will work in that plug...like a clock or something...if not you tripped the breaker or the gfi if you have one...the breaker might not look tripped but flip it off then back on anyway if the clock doesnt work...if something else does work in it then yeah you probaly fried them...you might get lucky and might have just burnt the wire, you can try stripping it back and checking or cut some of it off and rewire it farther back...let me know
MeanGreenFarmingMachine
Active Member
lol, the fans are fried......but luckly, all my wires, the charger and my power bar still work so thats good, at least, lol. Anyways, i went and both more fans today, wired them (with care) and now evreythings good. So I learned from my mistake and problem fixed, thx for all the help dude.
NewClosetGrower
Well-Known Member
sorry to hear that man...maybe you could have taken the fans back and said they didnt work when you got them or you got the wrong size or something lol...well im glad you got it working. after talking about this yesterday i got bored last night and made one with 5 fans on it to put in my tent but only 1 fan really had some power so i took the other 4 off and left just the best one on it and took the second best and gave it its own power supply...what brand are the fans you got? the one i have is made by Magic and its only running off a 6 volt cord and it is awesome bro...i wasnt planning on putting any of these in my tent untill i saw how much power this had for so little electricity...anyway no prob for the help bro, anytime...im gonna look and see if theres an electrical question section because id like to make sure people set there rooms up SAFE!