start up voltage ? Zalman fanmate and Panaflo 120mm M1A

Renton · Post by **Renton** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 10:49 am

Zalman fanmate and Panaflo 120mm M1A

Can I use these two together ?
Zalman says:
"Do not use FAN MATE 1 with a fan having a start up voltage of more than 5V. Please check the start up voltage in the specifications of the fan. "

I have no clue what the start up voltage of this fan is.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 11:01 am

Most likely, yes. I have 120mm M1As that will start up with voltage as low as 3V. Samples may vary. Go ahead and try, it won't do any damage to any component (fanmate or fan). What Zalman is trying to do, I believe, is to cover their a** in case someone use the fanmate at it's lowest settings, a fan fails to start, and the system overheats and is damaged, and some lawyer tries to get rich. Or richer.

However, there's something you may want to check first. I believe the M1A draws 0.4A max. at 12V. Many motherboard fan headers will not supply that much current, and may burn out. So you may want to get a 3 pin to 4 pin molex adapter and power the Fanmate off one of the PSU 4 pin molex instead.

Renton · Post by **Renton** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 12:54 pm

Thank you Lenny, I'm a bit worried right now.
You are right, that fans needs 0.45 A and I left my computer at home running

But it ran all night so I guess I'm safe

bomba · Post by **bomba** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:20 pm

lenny wrote:I believe the M1A draws 0.4A max. at 12V. Many motherboard fan headers will not supply that much current, and may burn out.

I looked into this for my P4P800dlx, and found at least in my case, this is not in issue except with high speed power hungry fans. From the Asus P4P800dlx manual, p2-28, motherboard fan headers support cooling fans of 350-740mA. You may want to check the specs for your motherboard to verify, but I suspect you'll be just fine.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:28 pm

If it's still running you should be fine. With the fanmate turned down it should be drawing less than 0.45A anyway (don't know the efficiency of the voltage regulator in the fanmate though).

jafb2000 posted on this several times in the past. He / she (not sure if it's Dorothy posting or her husband) mentioned that even if the fan headers are burned out, the motherboard will still work fine.

Renton · Post by **Renton** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:10 pm

I got home and everything is fine... phew

I installed fanmate on the big fan and it runs fine.
The CPU is a bit hot, 56C at a room temp of 27C but at least is silent.
Just to be on the safe side I plugged the fan in the power supply.

Michael_qrt · Post by **Michael_qrt** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 5:55 pm

lenny, there is no voltage regulator in the fanmate, its just a variable resistor. But yes, if the fanmate is turned down it will draw less power.

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Fri Feb 13, 2004 12:57 am

Michael_qrt wrote:lenny, there is no voltage regulator in the fanmate, its just a variable resistor. But yes, if the fanmate is turned down it will draw less power.

I tend to disagree. Here's a pic of the circuit that is supposed to be inside FanMate. But, Zalman went cheap, and stripped all the non-mandatory parts...

Cheers,

Jan

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 4:00 am

I am not sure that the Fanmate draws less power when the output voltage is turned down. Since it has a rather large heatsink, it appears that the extra power not used is dissipated as heat (at least some of it). But I am not an electrical engineer, so I don't understanding this completely. But is it is a little disconcerting since the more heat that is generated inside the case, the more fan power is needed to cool it (in theory).

BTW, I own 2 Fanmates, myself. Anyone know of commercially available 7V wiring harnesses? Yes, I have seen the homemade ones.

Michael_qrt · Post by **Michael_qrt** » Sun Feb 15, 2004 8:39 pm

Jan Kivar wrote:
Michael_qrt wrote:lenny, there is no voltage regulator in the fanmate, its just a variable resistor. But yes, if the fanmate is turned down it will draw less power.
I tend to disagree. Here's a pic of the circuit that is supposed to be inside FanMate. But, Zalman went cheap, and stripped all the non-mandatory parts...

Cheers,

Jan

You're right, no idea why I thought it was just a heatsunk pot. Judging from that circuit it'd still pull all or most of the power of the bare fan with the excess being dissipated as heat.