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Greetings,
I've recently bought a Kolink Observatory case. As I've seen, it seems there is no out of the box way to control the fan speed. The fans always operate at 100% speed, but I'd really love to lower them down, since they are a bit noisy.
This case has 4 RBG fans and a fan controller included. All these fans are 6-pin and connected directly to the fan controller. The fan controller is a (even) cheaper rip-off version of this https://fccid.io/2ANYX-BORA120R/User-Manual/Users-Manual-3658203 as stated by a user somewhere on the net. What you can see in this manual that the Kolink fan controller lacks, is a PWM cable. Below I redesigned the Kolink fan controller and its connectors. (Sorry for the poor design).
As you can see in the image, there is no PWM connector to plug on the motherboard in order to control the fans. The fans get their voltage only by the molex connector that gets its power directly from the PSU. So I started thinking about solutions:
):
Cheers.
I've recently bought a Kolink Observatory case. As I've seen, it seems there is no out of the box way to control the fan speed. The fans always operate at 100% speed, but I'd really love to lower them down, since they are a bit noisy.
This case has 4 RBG fans and a fan controller included. All these fans are 6-pin and connected directly to the fan controller. The fan controller is a (even) cheaper rip-off version of this https://fccid.io/2ANYX-BORA120R/User-Manual/Users-Manual-3658203 as stated by a user somewhere on the net. What you can see in this manual that the Kolink fan controller lacks, is a PWM cable. Below I redesigned the Kolink fan controller and its connectors. (Sorry for the poor design).
As you can see in the image, there is no PWM connector to plug on the motherboard in order to control the fans. The fans get their voltage only by the molex connector that gets its power directly from the PSU. So I started thinking about solutions:
- My first thought was to connect the 12V input and the GND near it, to a case fan connector (I only have 4-pin connectors), but quickly realized the motherboard circuit might not be able to withstand 4 fans, and confirmed it somewhere on the net briefly after.
- Then I thought, why not get a pot to control the voltage of the fans? But then I read that the fans may not be able to even start with a low voltage. I'm not sure this could be feasible actually, and even if it worked, it wouldn't be a proper, neat solution that I'd like (but it's a nice fallback if everything else fails).
- Then I say ok, I've got the PWM signal, why not use an NPN transistor to amplify it using PSU voltage?
):- 12V of PSU goes naturally in the 12V of Kolink fan controller
- Collector goes to the (-12V) GND of Kolink fan controller.
- PWM of motherboard goes to base.
- Emmiter goes to motherboard ground and PSU (??)
- I would love not to fry my motherboard. So is the emmiter connected correctly to the GND of motherboard? I'm sure I need a resistor at a point, but where?!
- I don't seem to have a TACH output from the fans (they might actually have in one of their 6 pins, but probably the signal is just thrown away by the cheap-ass controller). How will the motherboard "know" how to control them?
Cheers.