Corsair 4000D LL120 and QL140 mix

Hi! Like many others before me, I am currently struggling trying to setup corsair RGB fans (mixing LL120 and QL140 fans?)

I recently bought 3 LL120 white fans. Now, I was stupid enough to not check my available cha_fan connections and just realised I only have 2 cha_fans (+1 cpu_fan) connectors. I am also running an old water cooling setup with 2 120 non-RGB fans. I also have the lightning node core as well as the RGB hub.

I have thought about buying the commander pro, then I would be able to connect all the five fans and I should be fine, right? Now, in the near future, I will probably buy a Kraken Z63 - which has a 280mm radiator. The Corsair LL140 fans are, unfortunately, not available in white. The QL140 however, are. That means I would need to get two of those. I have read through many posts regarding mixing and matching the LL and QL series but never got anything concise. Will I be fine plugging in the QL and LL into the same RGB hub and commander pro? Will I need another RGB hub? I've heard the QL140s come with a "new" RGB hub. Can the LL120s be connected to that?

At this point, I'm just very confused. I'd appreciate it if anybody could help me out.

A QL fan is effectively a double sided LL where each side runs it's preset effect concurrently. You can apply effects only to one side or another, but in terms of mixing LL and QL together, the QL is effectively 2xLL.

So if you were to try and run 3 LL and 3 QL on the same hub, you would need to tell it you have "QL x 5" and start the hub with the QL fans first. This would make the first three behave normally. Then the next two LL would act like one QL fan and the final LL would act like the front side of QL. In practical terms, this doesn't matter for static or otherwise non-fan-to-fan moving patterns. However, the fun presets like Pong, Infinity, Gate or anything that moves from one fan to the next either get stretched or move too quickly though some sections.

You do have the option of getting the white 2xQL140 "multi-pack". That will have a Lighting Node Core in that can be the controller and lighting power for the QL. This requires another controller and now you have two lighting groups. Front 3x120 and the interior 3xQL. That does not allow you to casually run presets from 1-6, but you may find that two independent groups of 1-3 doing their effects is preferable. It is possible to manually program waves, gradients, etc. to move from group to group by forcing one to delay. However, this is not a quick click and done process and does take a fair amount of experimentation to get things nailed down with the timing.

Thank you very much for your answer!

I appreciate it a lot. So basically, it would work but is not the most optimal way of doing it, I suppose. I could still return the 3 LL120 fans and get QL140 all around but I'm not sure if it's worth the higher price. It all sounds a bit complicated, but I'll try my best regardless. I will probably be running static colours anyway.

Now, regarding the controller: How does the commander pro play into this? Would a commander pro + RGB hub be enough to run these 5 fans? I am only aiming for 5 fans in total - 2 QL140 for the Z63 and 3 LL120 for the case (1 back, two front).

I'll get the Z63 later this year - so my main task right now is getting those 3 LL120s up and running together with my two non RGB fans.

I think the answer lies in how involved you want to be in managing the lighting. If you know you are really just a click and go kind of person, mixing fans is tough. If you see this as a challenge and really like to get into how the software works, then managing them is possible and something you can deal with.

You'll have to do the price valuation on your own, but in my area the LL and QL basically sell for the same price. That makes it extremely difficult to recommend LL over QL. Besides the double sided nature, the ring is also "side cut exposed" making it very visible in cases that show the side of the fan. The QL also comes with additional presets not available on the LL. Because of the side cut and some slight differences in the material, they may not look exactly alike. This is more important for people who like to do a lot of white RGB where small differences are more apparent, but the side cut is also going to always make them appear somewhat different.

Commander Pro + RGB Lighting Hub is enough for 5 QL or some combination of QL/LL below 6 fans. You will also get a Lighting Node Core in the mult-pack of QL. That is the RGB Hub + 1 channel controller in a single box, slightly larger than a standard RGB hub. That connect anywhere you can find a USB 2 internal port -- Commander or motherboard.

Thanks for the input.

*Sighs* This really is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. Even though I am always up to a challenge, RGB really makes my head hurt.

I've calculated a few certain price scenarios and it turns out that the QL variant would be about €60 more expensive, which is.. kind of a lot. With 5 fans + Commander Pro I'm looking at €200 for each variant, the QL is slightly above that. It's also really unfortunate they don't offer these 140s as a triple pack. I've also thought about just painting the LL140s white but I suppose it would not look good and perform worse.

The problem with the white RGB would really be an issue here since I'm doing an all-white build. I guess it all comes down to how much I'm willing to spend for some fancy lights huh..

Yeah, that is definitely different and unfortunately the 140mm versions seem to stay close to list price while a 120mm triple back is the same price as 3 singles.

However, there may be a silver lining. Google around for some white LL pictures. Unlike the black, they really throw their light around and I was always a bit stunned when I would see other people's white LL builds and it looked nothing like my black LLs in a white case. The white frame does reflect a lot more light and is also likely to help minimize any differences in white LED tone. That is also something that can be addressed through the software --- either by taking blue out of the LL group or reducing red/green in the QL to make it "cooler" to match.

The other thing is if you keep your case on the right hand side in the traditional position, you will get the front of the LL and all this side cut stuff won't matter very much. You aren't going to see it on the front rail, QL or LL.