Case Fan Management

Ok hi everyone, Also wasn't sure where to post this as there is not a menu for LED lighting stuff.

 

I kind of have a crazy build in a Lian PC-011 (imagine a pc loaded with fans and rads). I have a total of 12 fans HD120's and 4 LED strips corsair.

 

I am currently controlling them with 2 separate light nodes, two fan nodes, and one gigantic fan bus bar. As you can see that's a lot of stuff and I want to consolidate this as having two is kinds of everything is cluttering. I saw the fan commander pro and I have a few questions on it.

 

First question - In order to run all 12 fans in my case I would have to split the 6 fan power out of the fan commander. Would I be ok doing this? So every power out of commander would be split with a fan spliter making two connections. I think I would be fine doing this but I just wanted to make sure.

 

Second Question - If I could just plug in the LED strip run into a fan led node that would fix my problem great! I noticed that the LED corsair strips is a 3 pin and the fans LED are a 4 pin. Is there a converter cable that will let me go to a 3 pin to 4 pin so I can plug the strips in the fan led node? If I could do this it would help me out a ton by eliminating a led controller node, which is there just for the led strips.

 

In short I want the Fan commander to do everything. I want it to power all 12 fans and run the leds strips plus fans. The first part I could conquer with spliters and probably be ok with because the fans don't draw that much. The second part in order to do I need to be able to hook these led strips into a 4 pin fan led hook up.

 

Also I am a avionics and electrical technician on Gulfstream jets and if I have to repin it into a 4 pin connector or cut it and solder the led strips I have no problem doing that. The only reason I can think corsair did what they did is because the LED strips are a 5v and the fan leds are a 12 volts or vice versa.

 

Anyways thanks for the help!

Ok Update.

 

The fan commander pro is capable of 1A pre fan header and my fans draw .3A so Im golden there.

 

Now for led.... the only difference between the 4 pin and 3 pin is the data out wire and the LEDs only have a data in wire not an out. They both work off a 5v and ground wire. I simply repined the 3 pin to a 4pin with a blank for the data out wire. Then I plugged it into a fan led control hub and bing they lit up and work fine, I even have color control.

 

Soo thats pretty stupid that corsair won't allow you to hook them to a fan led hub when they can work off one with zero issues. That was definitely an engineering "oops" "we didn't think about that" situation.The hub just treats it as a fan and it had NP running my 4 strips and fans when I did the test.

Hey buddy.. DevBiker has been playing these games.. makes cable converters up for exactly this sort of stuff lol...

 

i use his splitters for my Fan hubs

 

http://i.imgur.com/UQEreRMl.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/DGJ7Jjcl.jpg

 

more diagrams here if of interest..

 

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=173880

 

Devbiker will prob pop in shortly

 

his mission it to control all LEDs with iCUE lol

ahh hhaaa good stuff! I'll definitely check it out. I was looking for converter cables but my searches were coming up empty. Thanks!

 

I wanted to point you see your diagram. Each led strips have to be plugged directly in the commander, which you don't have to do. If you repin the led strips you can easily run them right off the fan led hub and that frees up a port on the commander for another fan hub. So you could hook up a crap ton more leds and fans in the setup. The only reson I can think they did that is because you will lose direct control over the strips, they will just match the fans. I'm running the default rainbow so I really could care less about the loss of some lighting control and technically you don't loose complete control just loose some touches.

 

"Pro Strips will NOT work in the Corsair RGB Fan LED Hub and will result in a damaged Pro Strip should you attempt this." <--- This part I proved is incorrect and they will work in a fan led hub if pined correctly for it. I've been doing it now for a full day to test and have had zero issues with them plugged into a fan led hub as long as they're pinned right. I will keep this post updated as more time passes if it has any negative effect on long term use.

"Pro Strips will NOT work in the Corsair RGB Fan LED Hub and will result in a damaged Pro Strip should you attempt this." <--- This part I proved is incorrect

 

The guide is generally for those in the dark lol so it tends to follow Corsairs methods of setup. . best not to confuse them with taking plugs apart and if they get it wrong it suddenly becomes my fault lol.

 

and the reason that statement is there is because a user did exactly that.. forced a strip into a Fan hub (didnt change pin outs) and damaged his strip.. so... its correct lol.

 

EDIT: I should point out the only reason I don't have 8 strips is because there was a slight.. erm.. accident with one of my strips and I blew it up (in the name of science though). Subsequently I can confirm you definitely can't plug the led strips into the led fan controller.

 

lol as you can see.. we have played... ;)... it can.. but requires modification... may add that ;) along with a link to DevBikers converters to the guide so people dont need to take plugs apart ;)

I can confirm.. that user was me ha ha! I did try to put the LED strip directly into the fan hub. In fact to this day it never crossed my mind that the pin out might be different. That does make sense though!

@the OP...

 

We have a Corsair Case Owners Club Discord server if your interested. its good to pool this knowledge :)

 

https://discord.gg/b6x8HpM