How To Wire Up PC Fans

this is how I wire up PC fans so you can quickly and easily add more fans and change the arrangement of them without re wiring anything.

to start you will need a pc fan and a transformer. I find multi voltage adapters great because you can adjust the speed by changing the voltage.

if you can't use a voltage variable adapter then a 12volt version will run the fans at full speed, a 6volt adapter will run it at half speed etc...

the voltage adapter will state what "A" or "mA" it can handle. don't exceed this amount or you will burn out the adapter. the pc fans will state what mA it draws, so it's a case of just adding them up.

1. in the first photo it shows some extension leads and splitters. you don't need these unless you want to add multiple fans and space them out.

2. if the fan doesn't come with a plug you will have to buy one. I find buying a splitter so you have two plug cheaper and easier as the wires are there for you already.

there is a red (positive), a black (negative) and a yellow. the yellow can be discarded as it isn't used in this application

strip the tips of the wired exposing the metal

3. because these voltage adapters have the terminals exposed as two holes you can simply bend over the exposed wires and insert them in to the holes. if you don't have this option you will have to strip the wires on the adapter and splice them together

4. put the wires in black to black and colour/marked to red. but test it to be sure. if they are the wrong way round the fan will not spin. however if it does spin, check its blowing in the correct direction. it should suck through the open side and blow through the framework

5. here I have fixed the wires in place with a hot glue gun. this secures the connection so there's no worries of the wires coming out or touching eachother. nice and safe. if you don't have a glue gun you could just wrap it in tape. be sure that the two wires cannot touch. putting something between them to insulate them is worth doing.

6. that's it done, you can easily plug and unplug your fan and you can buy splitters and extensions to have multiple fans running on a single plug

if you have any questions I will be glad to help

Edited by GoldGrower, 27 February 2013 - 08:51 PM.

if you have the 4 pin plug version cut and wire up like this. several fans can be daisy chained together
again, check polarity before permanently fixing

with it set up like this, the first fan is permanently fixed, and you just click in additional fans whenever you wish

Edited by GoldGrower, 28 February 2013 - 04:10 AM.

You da man bro, was looking for a tut like this. I like your proposed way of making it modular.

Quick question, if I were a lazy stoner and just connected 2 or 3 pc fans to one supply by just putting all the red wires together, and all the black wires together (instead of doing it serially like you're doing) would that be a problem?

I'm doing it parallel, not serially but yeah that would work fine, it's effectively the same but you just don't have the option to move things around much because you won't be using plugs, but it would run the fans just fine

Cool thanks. Would you happen to know if a CPU cooler can run with a 12v charger? I saw a thread where some guy used some old intel cpu coolers, setup seemed pretty tight.

I took 3 9v batteries (itll work with just 1 or 2) taped em together wired it in parallel and every time i need pc fan power i just hook up the positive and let er spin

has anyone tried using small fans with a small solar panel? they could be clipped all over the place and would come on with the lights

panels would work great my buddy has a bad ass setup that cost em about 300-400

I have a couple fans hooked up to a car battery with a 10 watt solar maintainer in my little greenhouse. Instead of using a dc adapter you could do more of a ghetto setup and run a car better hooked to a battery charger . I wired the battery so the end of it is a 4 pin computer molex connection to make hooking fans up easier

if I wire a 0.5 amp fan to a charger which only makes 0.3 amps does it catch fire?

Probably not, but you will be over working the charger, not by much though. Test and see, if its gets too warm then get a larger charger.

Also, thanks OP for making this, I've noticed a lot of questions about pc fans lately and I wish I knew about this thread sooner to point people in the right direction!

Here's what I did, with 70°-80° ambient the 600w ballast could easily reach over 100° and now with two fans it's only a few degrees above ambient!