Since I first put my PC together in early August I have probably not gone longer than 5 days without changing something. I am an inveterate tinkerer and my computer has been the focus of my attention...some of you ( the truly interested or the desperately bored) may recall the various incarnations poor Sprocket has has been forced into.
Recently she was watercooled, but poor performance, due to substandard components, has brought me back to aircooling. My next PC will be watercooled from the start, but Sprocket is now fully committed to being aircooled.
Fully committed in this case means big fans and lots of 'em. No more pussyfooting about, no sir.
A month or so ago, I visited one of my favorite haunts, an ancient surplus store that has been in the same location for over 50 years. This place has an astounding amount of crap in it, I rarely can get out in less than 2 hours...if you can imagine it, it's probably in there- the trick is finding it.
While wandering around I spotted this panel of fans, but it wasn't what I was searching for at the time so I ignored it.
Today I went back and bought it.
It is a monster...six 120mm by 38mm aluminum bodied fans in brand new condition. I have absolutely no idea what it was originally intended for.
The store's policy is no returns on electrical items, but they will hook your item up and check that it works befor you buy. When I made it to the checkout counter, the lady couldn't manage to dig up anyone to test these fans ( who knows where everyone was hiding...) so she said she'd knock $10 off the price if I'd buy it as is.
Well, YEAH!
So, instead of $29.95 I paid $19.95.
Basically, $3.50 per fan, including fingerguards and wiring.
How can you go wrong?
Here she is...
The panel itself is stainless steel ( I'm pretty sure), but I shan't be using that on this project ( I don't think). The fans, while dusty, are in mint condition, it's hard to imagine that this panel was ever installed/used.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that these fans are not 12volt...they are, in fact, 110v.
This is just fine with me, I would have been leery of hooking these babies up to my PSU anyway. I hooked them up when I got home and, as expected, they all worked. Worked is an understatement...this thing is almost a hovercraft, it moves some serious air. Then I spliced in a fan rheostat and they will go from silent to full song smoothly and with no hum. Next I'm going to experiment with a wall light switch/dimmer and see how that works.
At any rate, I will have to wire in a separate plug and run these completely independant of the PSU, no big whoop really.
So, in addition to mounting six 120mm flowmonsters, I am also relocating and rewiring the PSU.
All of this relocating/rewiring/hacking & installing is PhaseI.
PhaseII will be the beauty part...I'm not saying what it is, but I'll tell you that it includes extensive use of blue mirrored Plexi and the complete ( I hope) stealthing of all the wiring.
Let the fun begin!
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