OK to cut 4-pin connectors on Nexus/YL 120mm fan?

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aztec
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Location: Foster City, CA

OK to cut 4-pin connectors on Nexus/YL 120mm fan?

Post by aztec » Wed May 30, 2007 9:08 pm

I was wondering if its OK to cut the 4-pin male/female power leads of a 120mm Yate Loon.

I only want to use the 3-pin so I can get RPM sensing, and would prefer less clutter as well.

Any tips on how to go about this? Or do I simply snip?

I was thinking snip the leads and leave a little excess so I can hide/protect that part with heatshrink when I sleave the 3-pin lead.

Thanks for any advice!

mcoleg
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Post by mcoleg » Wed May 30, 2007 10:44 pm

no problem, i did that on the yate-loon. just make sure you insulate the leads separately and you're set.

aztec
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Post by aztec » Thu May 31, 2007 12:43 am

nice..thanks!

what kind of insulation is necessary? I was thinking electrical tape, but that's going to create a bulge.

I'm gonna splice the excess and see if I can cut some of the wire down.

Thanks again.

cpemma
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Post by cpemma » Thu May 31, 2007 7:11 am

I extracted the pins from the 3-pin connector and snipped off the extra wires there. Press the barb in with a fine-tipped screwdriver (or maybe a paper-clip would work) and wiggle out the terminal, cut wires, open up barb slightly, push back till it clicks into place.

If you go that route, the three wires can be plaited for extra tidiness. ;)

To cover wire ends or joints neatly, heatshrink tubing is ideal.

mcoleg
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Post by mcoleg » Thu May 31, 2007 7:18 am

what he said :p

i used electrical tape though - don't particularly care how it looks like since it's out of the way anywho.

aztec
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Location: Foster City, CA

Post by aztec » Thu May 31, 2007 11:17 am

thanks guys.

I think I'm gonna go on a combination of this.

1. Snip leads going to 4-pin molex. (only two of them)

2. hyperextend The leads to cover wire (not hard to do. i just tried this with an older fan, just used some long nose to pull/extend the wire so it comvers the bare wire, which is barely exposed when cut)

3. sleave and heatshrink 3-pin lead (covering the snipped leads)

I'll take some shots of my soon-to-be completely sleaved and modular setup. :)

mcoleg
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Post by mcoleg » Thu May 31, 2007 8:19 pm

i usually don't heat-shrink smaller wires. the only reason for that - they loose elasticity so i can't route them as easy as the regular ones.

on the other hand, if you have the layout planned out ahead, that will look cleaner, for sure.

Jasper
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Post by Jasper » Fri Jun 01, 2007 10:22 am

Personally, I don't isolate cut ends explicitly.

On the 80 and 92 nexus, the 3 wires from the fan first go into a 3pin and then two of them continue on to the molex passthrough. Just use a small scissors to snip them right where the stock heatshrink ends on the 3pin. Those cut ends sure aren't going to touch eachother (because their free length is 0), and they're also not going to touch anything freefloating around since there's not gonna *be* any current-carrying free-floating wires there. A small length of electrical tape around all 3 wires simultaneously for the paranoid.

The 120s are more difficult, the three wires come from the fan, two of them first go into the molex passthrough, the third one tagging along alongside, and then the three wires run through a PVC sleeve to the 3pin.

What I do is first remove the molex pins into which the wires from the fan go from the molex housing. I have a nice tool from AC Ryan for it, but the jeweler's screwdriver trick will do. Then, snip off as close to the pins as possible the wires that go to the molexes. You're left with: fan -> 2/3 of the wires have a loose molex pin attached -> 3pin.

Next, I cut through the pvc sleeve, without damaging the wires, at about 2 or 3 centimeter from the molex pins. Then, I point the two molex pins in opposite directions, and work that part of the sleeve over one pin and onto the next, and then the rest of the sleeve over the remaining pin. Arrange so that the two pins can't touch eachother and are covered by the pvc tube. The 3-4 wires plus the pin is enough to make a decent press fit into the tube. This is easy, cheap, full conservation of resources, and works well.

cpemma
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Post by cpemma » Sat Jun 02, 2007 5:49 am

Jasper wrote:The 120s are more difficult, the three wires come from the fan, two of them first go into the molex passthrough, the third one tagging along alongside, and then the three wires run through a PVC sleeve to the 3pin.
My 120mm Yate Loons described above were as your smaller Nexus (3 fan wires straight to 3-pin, red & black back out to 4-pins), so it's a case of dealing with the situation you find. ;)

Jasper
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Post by Jasper » Mon Jun 04, 2007 9:28 am

cpemma wrote:My 120mm Yate Loons described above were as your smaller Nexus (3 fan wires straight to 3-pin, red & black back out to 4-pins), so it's a case of dealing with the situation you find. ;)
Odd, that, since YL manufactures the Nexus 120 I believe. All the Nexus 120s I've had were as I described above, but that's only 2 batches fairly close together. Maybe they switched technique for some reason.

I much prefer the fan>3pin>molex passthrough geography, since cutting off the molex is really really easy there (and I probably would prefer a ZM-MC1 to the stock molex passthrough even if I wanted to hook them to a molex and not a 3pin, in general terms). The Antec TriCools I have have a molex passthrough all in one male=female connector ( http://www.endpcnoise.com/e/images/antec_tricool.jpg has a bad picture), which is a much better solution than the traditional wires-plus-male-plus-female, but even those I might well cut off sometimes.

For one PC I did, though, I made a custom wiring harness from the passthrough from a TriCool to 2 male 3pins where the nexuses plugged in.

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