WeissWelsh Posted November 5, 2017 Share Posted November 5, 2017 (edited) Hello, I need some advice on hooking up a fan on the Pixcon16 Controller. I bought a small 12v computer fan and hooked it up to the Pixcon16's Aux Out connector. The fan does turn on, but not at the right temperature. The Pixcon16 is configured to "fan turns on at 100% at 95 degrees." However, the fan comes on much sooner. When the fan came on, the board was showing a temperature of somewhere around 80 degrees, which was not near 95 degrees. Also, what does it mean when it says "fan turns on at 100% at 95 degrees? Does this mean the fan doesn't always turn on with 100% power? Bob Edited November 5, 2017 by WeissWelsh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ebuechner Posted November 5, 2017 Share Posted November 5, 2017 95 degrees is a target temperature. Coming on at a slow speed at 80 degrees eliminates any heat spikes in the components. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeissWelsh Posted November 5, 2017 Author Share Posted November 5, 2017 8 hours ago, Ebuechner said: 95 degrees is a target temperature. Coming on at a slow speed at 80 degrees eliminates any heat spikes in the components. Thanks Ebuechner, When the fan comes on at 80 degrees it's at full speed. In fact, whenever it's on it's at full speed. Is there a special kind of fan I need to buy that will run at different speeds? Is that what PWM fans are? If so, those fans seem to always come with 4 wires, but the AUX OUT on the Pixcon16 only has 2 wires (Positive and Negative.) Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ebuechner Posted November 5, 2017 Share Posted November 5, 2017 I'd strongly suggest you read the manual. I own a Pixlite16 which is almost identical. The fan voltage must be selected by the voltage that you're supplying to the board. If you're supplying the board with 12 volts and use a 5 volt fan it may come on at full speed and burn the fan out. How much differential in speed may also depend on the fan and how much load it puts on the circuit. No you don't need a pwm fan( pulse-width modulation) if your fan comes on at full speed you may have a problem so I would suggest you do a little Diagnostics on it before letting it go too far. Education. There are three flavors of fans out there what usually come with different voltage requirements. 1. Regular utility case fan ( two wires) 2. Case fan with RPM feedback ( three wires) 3. Pwm fan ( four wires) positive, negative, RPM feedback, pulse-width modulation, The fourth wire in this case is used by sending a signal to the fan so the fan will control its RPM internally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeissWelsh Posted November 8, 2017 Author Share Posted November 8, 2017 On 11/5/2017 at 2:21 PM, Ebuechner said: I'd strongly suggest you read the manual. I own a Pixlite16 which is almost identical. The fan voltage must be selected by the voltage that you're supplying to the board. If you're supplying the board with 12 volts and use a 5 volt fan it may come on at full speed and burn the fan out. How much differential in speed may also depend on the fan and how much load it puts on the circuit. No you don't need a pwm fan( pulse-width modulation) if your fan comes on at full speed you may have a problem so I would suggest you do a little Diagnostics on it before letting it go too far. Education. There are three flavors of fans out there what usually come with different voltage requirements. 1. Regular utility case fan ( two wires) 2. Case fan with RPM feedback ( three wires) 3. Pwm fan ( four wires) positive, negative, RPM feedback, pulse-width modulation, The fourth wire in this case is used by sending a signal to the fan so the fan will control its RPM internally. Hi, I read the manual, but was still confused as to why the fan always stayed on at high speed. It's a 12v fan and the board is being supplied with 12v. Part of the reason I was confused was because on the Light-O-Rama Pixcon16 page (http://www1.lightorama.com/pixcon16/) where it said "Auxiliary output allows PWM control of an external fan for automatic temperature regulation inside an enclosure." I wasn't aware that PWM could work with just 2 wires. I'm still confused as to how the Pixcon16 can do PWM with just the two wires, but I'm not even remotely experienced with that. Or maybe their description is incorrect about PWM on the Pixcon16. I have no idea. However, I did find out that I don't have the problem I thought I had. I took a meter and measured the actual volts coming out of the AUX OUT. The reason I thought the fan was always running at full speed is because the board outputs about 10.8 volts at the initial start of the fan. It then gradually increases until it reaches the full 12 volts, in about .2v increments. The difference in fan speed between 10.8v and 12v is barely noticeable, which is why I didn't notice. I had expected the fan to run much, much slower initially. But at least I now know that nothing is wrong, it's just not a big difference between initial start and full speed. Thanks again for helping me out. Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ebuechner Posted November 8, 2017 Share Posted November 8, 2017 (edited) All the fans are backwards compatible. A pwm fan without a pwm signal will run at full speed like 2 wire fan. It's kind of a waste to use a pwm fan in a 2 wire configuration. Edited November 8, 2017 by Ebuechner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeissWelsh Posted November 8, 2017 Author Share Posted November 8, 2017 That's what I thought. It must have been a misprint on the Light-O-Rama's Pixcon16 stats page that the AUX OUT was using PWM. Thanks for clarifying that for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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