Need help with wiring computer fan.

[Vick074]

Hi,
I was wondering if any of you sparky's could help me with this. Im not much of an electrician. I bought a computer fan that I want to use for my intake fan. It's a Noctua NF-P14 DC 12 Volt, 1.20 Watt, 0.10 Amp. How do I go about wiring it for household outlet plug. Am I going to need to run resistors so I don't fry it when plugging in? I've seen some of you CFL growers use them when ventilating small spaces, but can't for the life of me find the post that covered it.
Any help would be awesome

 

[Rixter0618]

Hey Vick.... Here's what I did for both Of mine. I found a old dc cord like one for a cell phone or battery charger. On the part you plug into the well make sure the amps are higher the what your fan is. Take any of the adapter plugs that came with the fan and cut the black and red wire that you won't be pigging into the fan. Strip those ends and on the charger cut the dc and that would plug into the appliance and strip those ends. You know should have 2 sets of wires that are ready to ne spliced together. Splice the fan wires and the dc plug wires together and wire nut them. When you plug it in and it doesn't work switch the wires. It does matter what wires get spiced together. If it still doesn't work your dc plug does not have enough amps. This is a real easy task and should take as long as it did fir me to type this! Good luck and hope I was able to help

 

[wild1]

Well, if you'r not going to use some pc power supply(anything over 75w is an overkill imo), then your next option is wiring you PC Fan to a AC-DC adapter. I'm going to explain the latter the best i can.

You will need a 12v AC to DC power adapter. These fans don't draw too many Amps, so either buy a 12v AC to DC power adapter with 0.3A output minimum, or try and look up old phone chargers(the one that charged NiMh batteries, you know, really old ones ) they have enough Amps output(0.3 minimum). If you plan on using more PC fans, use one fan per adapter.

Now comes the wiring.

Notice you fan has 3 wires connected to it, Black, Red and Yellow. Forget the yellow, you can rip it out, its there to control the speed of fan when it's hooked to PC psu. So that leaves you with Black and Red wire. You'r AC DC adapter will probably have one black and one white wire.

You need to cut the connectors that are on the end of the pc fan wires, so that your are left with actual wires, and then you have to strip the wires so that you can connect them with adapter. So, on adapters wires will have an indicator so you can tell which is which. Black is black, and white will usually be marked, so you know its white, i think you can't miss it. You need to strip AC DC wires also, so you can wire you fan wires with it, and maybe you will need to split the acdc adapter wires, as they often come "glued" together.

Pay attention now!

Take the BLACK wire from PC Fan, and connect it to BLACK AC DC wire.
Take the RED wire from PC Fan, and connect it to WHITE AC DC wire.

So, black pc fan wire goes to black acdc adapter wire, and red pc fan wire goes to white acdc adapter wire.

When connecting wires, i suggest using shrinkwrap, or electrical tape. Secure it nicely.

That should be it, connect you AC DC adapter to a wall outlet, and the fan should start working.

 

[Rixter0618]

Sorry for all the typos... Auto correct threw in a slew of words that may confuse you.... If it does my apologize and would be happy to re-correct the spelling to straighten you out! Doing from my phone which makes matters worse!

 

[Vick074]

Awesome replies guys!
Thanks so much, I tried it and got it running in a matter of minutes. Didn't think it was going. Be that easy.
But when I plugged it in, I was expecting to have it blow a little better than that..
I guess I need to take it back (hopefully without them noticing I cut the ends off) and get one with a bit more wattage.
yeah, after looking this one has only 1.2w
Basically enough to barely blow out a match at 2" away.
What wattage should I be looking for to gently bring fresh air into a 6x6x3 ft space?
Or do they even make computer fans that blow "harder" than a 1.2w fan would.? I don't know.
I have a 4" axial fan that kicks ass, but moves too much air, and is quite loud. Trying to avoid using the axial..

Again, thanks for all the help.

 

[wild1]

I have 12v 0.25A pc fan, wired to 12v ac dc adapter, 0.5A output and its doing it job.

Are you sure your ac dc adapter has enough amps and that its a 12v?
Judging by you'r fan specs, his airflow is more than enough to gently bring fresh air into your space. You are using some extractor fan right?

 

[Vick074]

I have 12v 0.25A pc fan, wired to 12v ac dc adapter, 0.5A output and its doing it job.

Are you sure your ac dc adapter has enough amps and that its a 12v?
Judging by you'r fan specs, his airflow is more than enough to gently bring fresh air into your space. You are using some extractor fan right?

Good point wild1.
Maybe that's why it's not blowin.
On the plug it reads:
Input: AC100-240V 50/60Hz
OutputC8.4V=1.0A so right there it's not 12V. Maybe I'll take another look around the house tomorrow to see if there is an actual 12V one I can butcher before returning this one.
Yes I will be using an extractor fan hooked up to a canister filter, then exhausted out window.

 

[wild1]

Good luck

 

[Rixter0618]

Hey Vick... Glad to hear you got it running.... Your volts are okay... Your amps is what you care about and it sounds like you have it spot on. it's your cfm's is now what you care about. I have one 80 cfm for an intake and one 80 and one 120 cfm for an extractor. Works great. If you are hooking up a filter to it though you will loose alot of pulling power due to resistance. As far as bringing in fresh air my thought is you have enough??
Good luck and happy grow!

 

[Vick074]

Hey Vick... Glad to hear you got it running.... Your volts are okay... Your amps is what you care about and it sounds like you have it spot on. it's your cfm's is now what you care about. I have one 80 cfm for an intake and one 80 and one 120 cfm for an extractor. Works great. If you are hooking up a filter to it though you will loose alot of pulling power due to resistance. As far as bringing in fresh air my thought is you have enough??
Good luck and happy grow!

Thanks Rixter, so my plug not quite being 12v (8.4v) won't make a difference? This fan wont be hooked up to a filter at all, its just going to be drawing in cool air, so I dont have to worry about losing draw. But as it is, it's definitely too weak for my needs. I'm hoping a 12v plug will make the bit of difference I need.
I'll let you know what I come up with. Gunna work on it this morning.

 

[Vick074]

Looks like I got it sorted for now. I found a DC power cord that was for a ghetto blaster. Little bit higher v at 17v output, input 100-240v. Hooked her all up. And getting a nice steady blow now. lol. Better than before anyway. I guess I don't really need a super powerful intake fan anyway. The most important is the outtake. Even if my out fan is blowing more than is coming in, negative pressure should take care of enough fresh air moving in. I guess I thought having a fan pulling cold air from outside will just make it that much better.
Thanks guys! You've been so much help!

 

[Rixter0618]

Glad to hear you got it working!

 

[Vick074]

I'll post some photos of it later on.

 

[Vick074]

Everything worked perfectly. Got in the crawl space and bypassed the downstairs bathroom fan. Now it draws nice cool air from outside the house. Last photo is of the OG Kush babies a day before they go to flower.
Thanks for your help guys, hopefully this can help someone else looking to do the same thing.

 

[voucher]

Keep a spare fan handy. Motors will eventually burn out when being over-driven. People have been known to double & triple the voltage to a motor to improve performance, but it comes at a price.



BTW... when you replace your motor, instead of cutting the tail on the motor, cut off one of those adapters so replacements will be plug n play!

 

[Vick074]

Good idea.
Glad I didn't throw those extra connectors out.
When I was setting up the HPS today, I was going around the room airtighting everywhere. I must have got it pretty tight because when I looked at the intake fan not even plugged in, it was spinning pulling in cold air from the negative pressure of the exhaust fan. Still have to do some more sealing, but it's getting there.