led fans + fan controller + voltage question

ojste · 2 Jun 2006 at 13:11

im just wondering if anyone know how fan controllers work.. by that i mean does it slow the fans down by lowering the voltage or does it just lower the fan speed while maintaining the voltage?

im asking this because im planning on buying an aerogate 1 fan controller along with along with coolermaster neon led fans. ive read that lowering voltages on leds fans will make the leds a lot dimmer, and im wanting to lower the fan speed as much as i can to make the fan noise as low but also make leds stay as bright as they can.

Mikey1280 · 2 Jun 2006 at 13:22

I'm quite sure they work by lowering the voltage

Joe42 · 2 Jun 2006 at 18:25

Most of them use pwm, which means they turn the fan on and off very quickly, and the longer the 'off time' the slower the fan will go.

Regarding the led's, that signal will be fairly high frequency, the led's will turn on and off as the fan turns on and off, but so fast that you won't notice. A domestic lightbulb switches on and off 50 times a second (50hz) and you don't notice.

In practice, yes the leds dim a little, but not much.

Edit: I use the aerogate 2 with my led fans, but the aerogate 1 looks like its just a set of variable resistors so it may be a little different. I've found that if you spin the fan with a finger fast enough, you can get the leds to light, and they are fairly bright, which suggests that they will be fairly bright at any speed on any fan controller. The fans i'm using are coolermaster led fans, so others may be different.

Mikey1280 · 2 Jun 2006 at 18:30

I think they just adjust the voltage from about 5-12v depending on what you get, I'm not sure how the aerogate works though, is it temp controlled?