Help with building a zone controller for fans

[hortus]

I am working with a Thermaltake Mozart that will take up to 10 fans. I want to fill all 10 slots with Yate Loons but I am having a little trouble invisioning the parts to build a custom controller to control various sets of Fans. I am planning on running the fan directly to the rear of the CPU off the motherboard sensor and tying it to the CPU temps. I will do the same with the central front fan but it will be controlled by the temps of the video card (X1900XT cooled with a passive Thermalright H-03). The remaining 8 fans I want to set up into 3 custom zones and controlled with a potentiometer. I considered a front panel controller but could not envision the wiring correctly. The Yate Loons are 4 wire harnesses with a 3 pin single wire connector for controlling the fans. I am thinking the best way would be working them in some form of series paralell but due to the magic of Red Hook ESB, I cannot really figure it out for myself. I was going to set 4 fans in the rear to one zone, 3 in the face to a second, and a single fan to the Hard drive cage as the third.

Parts, advice, etc is greatly appreciated. I am not really up to speed on controller panels and the like. But this system is pretty high tech, and I would not be against a high tech solution.

I am not adverse to the idea of chopping up wires and soldering any configuration that works.

 

[thrawn86]

auto controlling fans via temp can be done pretty easily with a front panel device, IE hardcano or some such. I don't know of any 10-device fan bus, so you'll probably be needing 3 front panel devices. One digital fan control panel, and two rheobuses.

Come on dude, they're yate loons. Damn near silent, especially if you have the low speed versions. 7vmod them and forget about it.

Besides... The mozart is an htpc case isn't it? The review I read of it said it only had 1x 80 and 2x 60mm fan mounts...

edit: Why in the name of Cthulu do you need TEN FANS?!

 

[hortus]

auto controlling fans via temp can be done pretty easily with a front panel device, IE hardcano or some such. I don't know of any 10-device fan bus, so you'll probably be needing 3 front panel devices. One digital fan control panel, and two rheobuses.

Gotta engineeer it then, cuz I aint got room for a bunch of panels sticking out the front.

Come on dude, they're yate loons. Damn near silent, especially if you have the low speed versions. 7vmod them and forget about it.

Nope, I want to have more control over their speed than that.

Besides... The mozart is an htpc case isn't it? The review I read of it said it only had 1x 80 and 2x 60mm fan mounts...

This is the case in question: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811133025

edit: Why in the name of Cthulu do you need TEN FANS?!

4x150gb Raptors, 4xSeagate 320gb 7200.10's, Asus P5W64 WS Pro, e6600 core 2 duo with Vigor Monsoon II TEC cooler, 4gb Crucial Ballistix Ram, Sapphire X1900xt video card with Thermalright HR-03 passive cooler, Gigabyte IRAM card with 4gb of Kingston 3200 Ram, 750 Watt Thermaltake Toughpower power supply,

Custom cabling, custom blah blah blah... get the picture. 10 fans down low will be practically silent, while providing great airflow. And I want to tune that flow to get the cooling I want. That's why.

Since when did we do things in moderation here at [H]

 

[thrawn86]

My responses are in bold

Gotta engineeer it then, cuz I aint got room for a bunch of panels sticking out the front.

Okay. um. They sell fans with sensors built in, auto speed adjusting. And those FPDs don't really stick out. Maybe the knobs on the buses would be a bit too long, but those are easily replaceable/clippable.

Nope, I want to have more control over their speed than that.

Okay, well if you don't have room for any front panel devices then I have no idea how you're going to control them aside from opening up the case and adjusting the rheostats. Btw, you can buy those readily at your local electronics supply/hobby store.

Other than that, buying a bunch of rheostats and mounting them on a sheet of brushed aluminum would be pretty easy. You'd want to just clip off the molexes since they're taking up space. Snag a dozen rheostats, some breadboard, and some 18awg stranded wire so you can route the wiring however you want it.


This is the case in question: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811133025

Weird, check this out. http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews05/review.php?item=ttmozart&file=1 I was looking at that one

holy DAMN you could do some absolutely sick watercooling with that case. I demand you scrap the aircooling idea, buy an Iwaki pump and a dozen HD blocks, two 120x2 rads, and build the most awesome WC rig known to man.


4x150gb Raptors, 4xSeagate 320gb 7200.10's, Asus P5W64 WS Pro, e6600 core 2 duo with Vigor Monsoon II TEC cooler, 4gb Crucial Ballistix Ram, Sapphire X1900xt video card with Thermalright HR-03 passive cooler, Gigabyte IRAM card with 4gb of Kingston 3200 Ram, 750 Watt Thermaltake Toughpower power supply,

I guess since that case has so many open mounts You want to fill them all just to maintain airflow in the desired direction, so that makes sense.

Custom cabling, custom blah blah blah... get the picture. 10 fans down low will be practically silent, while providing great airflow. And I want to tune that flow to get the cooling I want. That's why.

Keep in mind how decibels work. 10 fans at 20 decibels does *not* = 20 decibels. Those HD's ain't silent either

Since when did we do things in moderation here at [H]

 

[hortus]

Sorry, but water is out of the question. Air is the only way to go in this particular system. And this case is definately set up to make the most of it.

However, I do agree that it could house a truely astounding system if that were needed.

 

[Casca]

I have 12 120mm fans running on it. 5 are the 47CFM yates and the rest are the 71CFM yates. I have all the fans running off a sunbeam fan controller and if I turn all the higher CFM yates off, I cannot hear the 47CFM fans at all. And the 71CFM yates running at about 9v are near silent as well and at 12v they are a low hum. Like someone already said, if you're getting yates, just run em at full and forget about it. Maybe my hearing is just bad, but honestly with the yates, the loudest thing is my HDD.

 

[thrawn86]

I have 12 120mm fans running on it. 5 are the 47CFM yates and the rest are the 71CFM yates. I have all the fans running off a sunbeam fan controller and if I turn all the higher CFM yates off, I cannot hear the 47CFM fans at all. And the 71CFM yates running at about 9v are near silent as well and at 12v they are a low hum. Like someone already said, if you're getting yates, just run em at full and forget about it. Maybe my hearing is just bad, but honestly with the yates, the loudest thing is my HDD.

They are extremely quiet fans. I Have the 71cfm versions and its a pretty pleasant low hum, I could only just barely hear them over my 92mm enermax (zalman 9500) at ~1200rpm.

Casca - Those are 2x 2x120 right? Got to be some pretty sick temps...