Fan Controllers

[YoMoma]

Bummer, I was so hopeing on adjusting the fans. Oh well, it will still show temps. Now if I could get the sticky tape supplied by the maker to stay put I`d be able to read the temps better.

[stinger608]

Originally Posted by Reloadron

Having read what I could find on it I am not sure. When setting it up in the Manual mode the user programs in a desired fan speed. However, lacking a tach feedback signal the controller would have no clue what the actual fan speed was. As far as the actual speed controller it would see a return of 0 RPM. The controller would be looking for a Null when the set speed matched the actual speed. The null would never happen.

The automatic mode looks at temperature. The greater the temperature the larger the PWM duty cycle and the faster the fan turns.

The unit does offer both speed and temperature alarms the user can program into it. Again, here lacking a tach signal the fan speed alarms would be inoperative. The seen speed on the fan would be 0 RPM.

This is the handy dandy user manual:

Aerocool Peripheral

I may be missing something as it was a long day. To my way of thinking a user lacking 3 wire fans would not really benifit from all this cool little gizmo can do. My take is it was designed around a 3 wire fan providing a tach return signal (Feedback Signal) to do its thing.

Ron

Dang it, I think your right Reloadron!!! It sure looks like you have to have the fans with the signal wire

[PrOLifIC_onE]

To start with, I have not researched this controller or the specific fans you are using but I just wanted to add a little tidbit here. Ron knows what he is talking about, so what I am about to say may not apply to your controller/fans.

Some fan controllers just go by volt percentage when they don't get RPM feedback. For those, they pass along a percentage of the voltage supplied to the fan, and sometimes will even offer a RPM estimate, even tho the controller doesn't know the max RPM for the fan (so it would be likely very inaccurate). At least this way the fans would still be controllable.

Anyway, it wouldn't hurt to hook your fans up and give it a shot...

[Reloadron]

Overall I will say it is a real nice controller. You can control a fan's speed with a simple potentiometer (resistor, variable) circuit. This system, though a tad large (using two 5.25" bays) looks to be a pretty cool (no pun there) device. It monitors and controlls speed in a more advanced fashion than a simple potentiometer circuit. Nice!

Figure something else in also, even if it doesn't like 2 wire fans, fans are relatively inexpensive.

Someday maybe I can get to doing a simple writeup as to how these things work.

Ron