Fan controllers and daisychaining

[Crashgate3]

I'll be making a watercooled system with a 120.3 rad soon, and want to use a fan controller as I don't want things loud, but don't want to be restricted to just the 7V that a voltmod would make.

Where fan controllers say 'can control up to two fans' (or four, or whatever) is this just the number of different controllable channels the controller provides or is it more of a total power restriction? Can I run the 3 (or 6, depending on what I decide to have on my rad) daisy-chained fans off the one channel?

 

[The Halk]

The restrictions on fan controllers are usually the number of independent channels they can control, and the total amps on each channel.

Ideally for a 120.3, assuming there's 3 fans on it you would want all 3 on the same channel, but I think this might blow the controller.

You'll have to go to manufacturers sites to find out.

You can also 5V fans too.

 

[Pneumonic]

you want to check what watts/amps the controller can do / channel.. you are ok to use as many fans as you like on that channel up to its rated max watts / amps

 

[Crashgate3]

What kind of power would a 120mm fan draw on average?

EDIT: A bit of searching reveals that it's between about 1.5 and 2W for a 120mm fan.

At 12V and 2W that gives 1/6A for each fan, so 1/2 an amp for 3 and 1A for 6.


And people think maths is a waste of time

 

[The Halk]

I've never seen a fan that's not labelled. The ones I currently use are 0.4A. So 6 of those would be 2.4A.

Spare fans I have are 0.15A so 6 of those is 0.9A.

Really depends on the fans