What is the startup voltage of your Nexus\D12-SL?

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What's the startup voltage of your YL/Nexus fan?

Nexus - 5V
7
39%
Nexus - 6V
2
11%
Nexus - 7V
2
11%
D12SL - 5V
6
33%
D12SL - 6V
1
6%
D12SL - 7V
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 18

JazzJackRabbit
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What is the startup voltage of your Nexus\D12-SL?

Post by JazzJackRabbit » Thu May 11, 2006 5:41 am

I'm curious. I see people on the forum running Nexus fans at 5V, so naturally assumed that Yate Loons which is the source for Nexus fans should at least start at 5V, maybe even lower reading that Nexus simply uses inline resistor to bring the voltage down. However, none of my Yate Loons start at 5V. In fact they start reliably only at 7V, at 6V they do start, but take 5-7 seconds to spin up to 'full' speed.

So how do people run their fans at 5V? Do they spin them up at 12V and then bring them down to 5V? Do they use speedfan to start fans at 12V and then frop RPMs once speedfan loads? Or do they use an equivalent hardware solution?


Note: I've included the poll for both fans, YL and Nexus. Please vote accordingly. If you have both pick either one, but later in the thread please post lowest start up voltage for both. Since fans typically have harder time starting in horizontal position, please post results for vertical fan position.

Tibors
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Post by Tibors » Thu May 11, 2006 7:34 am

My nexus fans start at 5V most of the time. So to be absolutely sure they start, I have two of them running in series on 12V (=6V each). And another system gives a 12V startup boost before it slows it down to 30% PWM.

People writing that Nexus fans are YL fans with a resistor added have too much imagination. It does not make any economical sense for YL to produce a slower moving fan that way. Just putting a slower motor in it will be cheaper.

JazzJackRabbit
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Post by JazzJackRabbit » Thu May 11, 2006 8:57 am

Tibors wrote:People writing that Nexus fans are YL fans with a resistor added have too much imagination. It does not make any economical sense for YL to produce a slower moving fan that way. Just putting a slower motor in it will be cheaper.
Well, I don't know if it's true but I think adding a simple resistor would be cheaper since it only costs 10cents while on the other hand building a slower motor will require changing your manufacturing facilities/process. Doing something like that does not make sense for a limited production oriented at a very small niche like us.


Well, does anyone knows for sure if nexus uses slower motor or simple inline resistor? Anyone cares to open up his nexus for the sake of public knowledge? :D

jaganath
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Post by jaganath » Thu May 11, 2006 1:20 pm

none of my Yate Loons start at 5V.
That's wierd. Which YL's do you have? D12SL-12? I've got 5 D12SL-12's and they all start at 5V (sometimes lower, but not reliably).

I remember discussing the Nexus top speed thing on here a while back, someone said they just changed the IC to limit the top speed, like a rev limiter on a car.

Tibors
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Post by Tibors » Thu May 11, 2006 2:34 pm

JazzJackRabbit wrote:Well, I don't know if it's true but I think adding a simple resistor would be cheaper since it only costs 10cents while on the other hand building a slower motor will require changing your manufacturing facilities/process.
For adding a resistor they have to change the manufacturing process too. Specifically they need to redesign the PCB to which everything connects. You can't just bungle a resistor on a wire between all those moving parts.

Yate loon makes a lot of different fans they all call D12SL-12. This results in that type number actually not meaning a whole lot. Certainly not as much as some people see in it.
jaganath wrote:I remember discussing the Nexus top speed thing on here a while back, someone said they just changed the IC to limit the top speed, like a rev limiter on a car.
That is certainly not the way it works. The speed starts to go down as soon as you drop the voltage only a tiny bit. So there is not "unnatural" cap.

Cerb
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Re: What is the startup voltage of your Nexus\D12-SL?

Post by Cerb » Thu May 11, 2006 4:21 pm

Nexus, 7v. It did not start having problems starting at 5v until about a month ago. I have not tried testing at 6v.

frostedflakes
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Post by frostedflakes » Thu May 11, 2006 10:01 pm

Very interesting, I've owned quite a few D12SL-12 (six, I believe) and don't remember any not starting at 5V. They're all orange casing, though. Are you using the D12SL-12 with black casing? Maybe the internals of these fans are different. :?:

Butcher
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Location: UK

Post by Butcher » Fri May 12, 2006 2:34 am

jaganath wrote:I remember discussing the Nexus top speed thing on here a while back, someone said they just changed the IC to limit the top speed, like a rev limiter on a car.
You can adjust the controller IC on brushless fans to pulse the coils at a lower frequency resulting in a slower fan. I'd assume that's what they did. It's probably just a resistor change on the board which effectively costs nothing (other than having to do separate production runs).

cmthomson
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Post by cmthomson » Fri May 12, 2006 5:37 am

I have four orange Nexus fans, and two were unreliable starters at 5V. I run two of them at around 6V with inline resistors, and the other two with NMT-3 controllers, which start at 12V and drop to 5V.

Ralf Hutter
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Post by Ralf Hutter » Fri May 12, 2006 9:20 am

Out of the 8-10 120mm Nexii that I use, all but 2-3 start at 5V. The others start at the lowest setting of a Fanmate, which is probably around 5.5V.

geforce1
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Post by geforce1 » Thu May 18, 2006 6:42 pm

I just got a YL D12SL-12 (black frame, orange blades) and it starts reliably at 5v on my Zalman ZM-MFC1 fan controller (knob turned all the way down).

hapveg
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Post by hapveg » Fri May 19, 2006 6:03 pm

I bought 4 Nexus 120mm fans, but so far have only used 2. One would start flawlessly at 5V, the other wouldn't. Currently using a Zalman fanmate on each fan, not too sure of the voltage, but I'd guess about 7V (both start flawlessly).

Cerb
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Location: GA (US)

Post by Cerb » Sun May 21, 2006 11:04 am

Now that I've gotten around to it: 6v for mine.

bzoler
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:08 am

Post by bzoler » Sun May 21, 2006 11:39 am

I have one at 5V
but I have to open the case and make it start with my finger,
just enough to touch it and it starts immediately

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