DIY Fan Controller (knob)

[RyeIII]

Im making a DIY laptop cooler using 2 120mm PWM fans since laptop coolers on the market is not too powerful to push air.

I've connected it from a 12v DC wall adapter, of course I don't want it to run at full speed.

I'm wondering if I can use a dimmer for a fan control (see link)

 

https://amzn.to/2JfugBZ

 

 

[iamdarkyoshi]

Personally I'd just use one of these:

 

http://a.co/b6wHZmY

 

Then you can just adjust the voltage on the power supply with the fans directly connected.

 

I'd pick non PWM fans for this (though PWM fans usually work fine voltage controlled)

 

The dimmer you showed PWM pulses the output power, not a separate pin like PC PWM fans do. It would be far from ideal, and would likely make the fans emit a high pitched whine.

[RyeIII]

2 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Personally I'd just use one of these:

 

http://a.co/b6wHZmY

Thank you for this!

 

 

3 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

I'd pick non PWM fans for this (though PWM fans usually work fine voltage controlled

I'm using spare fans from a h100i cooler, I will consider buying a new fans just in case.

[R3ep3r]

1 minute ago, RyeIII said:

I'm using spare fans from a h100i cooler, I will consider buying a new fans just in case.

I'd suggest you to use normal fans instead of PWM since you won't control them by motherboard software. Some normal fans will do the trick, also those are very cheap.

[iamdarkyoshi]

3 minutes ago, RyeIII said:

Thank you for this!

 

 

I'm using spare fans from a h100i cooler, I will consider buying a new fans just in case.

Try the PWM fans on this thing first, they will probably behave fine

[W-L]

1 hour ago, RyeIII said:

-SNIP-

Noctua makes a really nice manual PWM based fan controller if you want to vary the speed.

https://noctua.at/en/na-fc1