im trying to build a pc growbox and i need help with the fans. i wanna connect pc cooling fans to an AC adaptor but i have no idea what adaptor to buy.
could anyone give me a link for an adaptor i can buy and use? and can i use any pc cooling fan as long as it has the red and black wires?
sorry im a noob at this kinda stuff, this will be my 1st actually DIY kinda project ive done .

PC fans operate on 12V, so all you need is one of those cheap selectable voltage 'wall wart' power supplies - you can buy them for about £5 at Wilkinsons and the like.




e2a: Or, you can use an old PC ATX power supply - they have 12V, 5V and 3.3V rails on them and plenty of juice to run as many PC fans as you could (sanely) throw at it.

Personally, I like to re-purpose old ATX PC power supplies for powering small electrical projects - they're massively available, either being thrown out or given away, they're reliable (on the whole - some Chun Ya ones not so much, maybe ) and easy to use. They also don't mind being run 24/7/365 certainly not with light-ish loads.

i have an adapter thats old and it pretty much looks like the 1 in the pic scribble posted, but the fan i connected it to didnt work. im not sure if the adapter doesnt work because its like 14yrs old or if the fan isnt working because its just broken =/. is it possible i connected the wires wrong and burnt out the fan motor or something?

i have an old power supply from a computer i bought back in 1998 so im gonna go check if its the kind i can use. how would i hook them up the the power supply, like u normally would or do i have to reconnect wires around?

Make sure that the old adapter's output is 12V DC and then put a multimeter across it, or a car headlamp or another fan or something to try it out.

To use an old ATX PC power supply, you just have to put a jumper (bit of stiff wire, basically - a straightened paper clip will do) in-between the SENSE pin and GROUND on the big adapter that normally goes into the motherboard:



That's the green pin marked as 'PS_ON' in the diagram (SENSE) that you have to jumper to any black wire (GROUND) - this will keep the supply turned on.

i feel like such a noob :'(

ok so i looked at my power supply and i have no idea if its the kind i need but all of the wires r mainly yellow, red, black, and orange, theres a few other colors but pretty much just 1 of them and looking at the pic scribble posted pretty much thats what the mobo plug looks like so im guessing its the right power supply.

but i took the smaller plug i think it was for the floppy drive, i dont remember its been a while. and i cut the red and black wires on it, stripped the ends and pretty much just twisted the ends of those to the ends of the fan wires, red to red black to black and nothing happend so im guessing im just really bad at this .

what scribble said really threw me off about the paper clip and stuff. so before i screw up could somebody pretty much tell me what im actually doing .
do i stick a paper clip in the little hole where the 12v wire connects to then connect the fan to the paper clip? =/

¿Que?

¡NO! - you just have to use a piece of stiff wire to bridge the green wire in the big plug attachment to any black one - this is the connection that the power button on a PC case normally makes.

Also, the red wires are only 5V it's the yellow wires that are 12V - the pinout diagram tells you all that.

Just look at the pin-out digram that I posted above for the locations of the pins (note the plastic clip on the side of the connector for orientation) and all should become clear.

Here's a pic that will hopefully make it clearer what you must jumper together to switch the supply on:



Just use a straightened paper-clip or something similar to jumper both the green and any one black pin together.

ok so let me see if ive got this...

im taking a paper clip and sticking it in the little hole where the pin is that connects to the green wire and connecting the paper clip to any other pin on there thats connected to a black wire?
if im still not getting it i feel like all hope is lost :'(

i didnt look at scibbles pic until now... it just confused me even more :'(

do i cut the green and black wire and connect them together with a paper clip? =/

No - you just bend the paper-clip and put one end in the hole where the green wire's pin is on the connector, and the other end in a black wire's hole.

Like this:

OMG THATS WHAT I WAS THINKING OF!!! >=[
i feel so stupid now

so i just do that then what? connect the fan? yellow wire to the fans red wire and black to black?

Yellow (12V) from a connector to red on the fan and black to black.

just making sure. i can connect the fan to any of the yellow and black wires or only the main mobo plug?

All the yellow and black wires will be 12V and GND respectively.

awesome
thanks sooooo much =D

if i have any problems ill be back

awesome i just tried it and its working

but now i need to order 3 fans. now considering that these r going in pc case growbox, does it matter how powerful the fans r? is there a certain range i should stay between?

TBH *no* PC fan is going to be *too* powerful for what you're attempting.

¿What light(s) are you going to be using in it - and is it just a normal PC tower case?

im going by the guide i found on another forum. im kinda learning about this stuff as im building it.

for the lights the guide says "42 watt CFL (A 6500k spectrum bulb for veg that is switched out to 2700k spectrum bulb for flowering)"
i dont know if thats the best but i heard it works. and yes its pretty much just a normal pc case.

You don't need to mither about the different colour temperatures and swapping them around and that - you can veg/flower with just the one type of CFL really.

¿I suppose that given the size of the average PC tower that you'll be hitting the recommended 50W/sq.ft for your lighting - any thought as to what you're going to be growing in there - something like Lowryder, I presume?

well right now ive never grown my own plant before so im just gonna practice with bag seeds for a while before i buy some seeds.
im really excited about it

this is the carbon filter im trying to make
where would i go to find the carbon stuff to make that?
its pretty much the last thing i really need for the grow box.

Don't use external picture hosting sites - upload any pix as attachments to your posts - much more secure that way.

Do a search on UK420 for 'activated carbon suppliers (or supply)' or similar - if you use Firefox you can use the UK420 Search Plug-in that I wrote for it, there's two - one uses straight Google, and the other uses Scroogle (anonymous Google scraper that don't keep search records) using SSL (https).

i looked around and read i can get the carbon from a pet store so ill check out the one by my house soon.
as for the fans, ive found some online that look pretty nice. if a fan says 20-40 cfm, will it just run at 40 cfm since its connected straight to the power supply?

i need an 80mm fan, u guys recommend any i should buy?

i was thinkin about 1 of these 2:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835129238
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811999120

i like the what the lights up cause its cfm is higher but id have to disconnect the lights, and i like the black fan cause its cheaper. what do u guys think?

ok now im confused about the carbon

i was thinking the carbon was some kinda filter material, sort of like the filters you put in air vents and stuff but i just keep seeing pics of stuff that looks like coal...
is there any carbon that looks like the stuff in the pic i posted earlier of the filter?