Fan On/Off Control (Without Lights)?

[Dr Atom Magnum]

I have two fans in a water cooled HTPC PC which are powered by 4 pin molex connectors and I wanted to be able to turn them on and off, preferably with a switch but a dial will do. I’ve only been able to find two products that let you do this, the Noise Isolator FC-525PW and the NXP-301 or NXP-305.

Unfortunately all the products I have found feature uber c00l l33t lights which would be extremely distracting when watching a movie in a dark room and for that reason rule themselves out. The other alternative is to make my own switch as described in guides like this.

Unfortunately I don’t have any of the equipment, don’t know where to get it and would probably make a mess if I tried. I’m warned you can put 12v through your entire system if you get the switch wrong so I really don’t want to make my own.

So then, are there any other on off switches that don’t have on lights on them?

As I say a switch is preferable but a dial is fine, just as long as it’s not lit up.

Thanks for your help.

(I wasn’t sure where to put this question but since it was a fan control question thought cooling was most appropriate. I hope it’s in the right place)

 

[ShadowDragon]

You can technically just twist the wires together and tape them if you don't have a soldering iron (which are usually a few bucks at radio shack, lowes, home depot etc for what you would need for this, nothing fancy). Cut the yellow wire and put a switch into it, you can't really mess that up. What you might have heard about is having a switch that can do off/7v/12v in which case you could possibly cause damage, but not with a simple on-off switch.

All of the fan controllers I've seen are 3pin so you would need 4-3pin adapters to use them unless you find one with a 4pin molex. I have an old sunbeam 4 fan rheobus that just has a single LED next to each dial, you could quite easily just snip the leads to the LED's and they won't light up if you can find one like that.

 

[Dr Atom Magnum]

Thanks a lot for the advice. I’ve really never done anything electrical so don’t even know where the buy a switch and then I’d probably make a mess of attaching it the front of the PC. I’m just incompetent

I had a look at the Sunbeam and it definitely lives up to it’s name Those LEDs look quite bright. Since it looks like fan controls and LEDs are inexplicably linked I think I’ll go for the Noise Isolator as that has switches which are more preferable than a dial.

I could try and disable the LEDS but from this picture there doesn’t seem to be much to cut so I might just put black tape over the lights. It won't look good but at least it'll be dark.

 

[ShadowDragon]

Grab the lights with a pair of needle nose pliers and pull? The tape over the lights should work, but you should also be able to get in there with a pair of snips and cut them out.

If you look at this shot: http://www.dvhardware.net/reviews/sunbeamrheobus/7.jpg you would just cut those three posts coming off the back of the light to disable it completely. And yes, they are definately bright if you leave the lights intact.

 

[Dr Atom Magnum]

Thanks again for the help. I definitely looks like those LEDs could be quite easily removed on the Sunbeam but I decided I liked the switches on the Noise Isolator so have ordered that. On that Noise Isolator picture above it looks like you could just put some insulation tape over the blue LEDs on the circuit board which wouldn’t be visible from the outside so hopefully it’ll look okay.

With that ordered all I need is that obscenely expensive Silentmaxx water cooled power supply and I’m set with a PC that can run completely silently.