Connecting a rheobus?

[Mankay]

Hiya,

What would be a good way to wire up a rheobus to a bunch of fans with molex connectors? I'm looking for a solution that has long range so I can do some hidden wire routing, as well as being cheap ;p

Thanks for any advice.

 

[neo4s]

Your quention is pretty broad, anything in paticular your not sure about? As far as wiring there are a few ways to do it, depending if you want to add a switch for a 7 volt mode, on / off switches, power indicator LEDs, etc. I recommend soldering the wires to the rheostats (or potentiometers - which are much more common)

 

[cleverhandle]

Yeah, kinda depends on the details, anyway...

If you want range for the wiring, pick up some speaker wire (the smallest gauge at Home Depot was 24, IIRC) and some heatshrink tubing (available at pcmods.com if you can't find it locally). Cut the wire a couple inches from the fans, split and strip about 1/2" of casing. Do the same on the speaker wire, but split it a couple of inches. Slide some heatshrink on the speaker wire, pushing it up far enough to expose the wire, twist the speaker wire to the fan wire, and slide it back down over the twist. Hit it with a hairdryer and you've got a pretty solid join - not enough to, say, pick up the computer by, but it's strong enough to pulled around gently. Repeat with the other wire. If you want to get fancy, buy some larger heatshrink and slide it over the wire pair when you're done. You could repeat the process at the other end if you want to reattach the molex connector, but I'd guess that working with bare leads will be better for the rheobus.

 

[Mankay]

Ah, sorry about that, forgot to mention it. I ordered the rheobus from xoxide, and from what I saw it uses 4 male 3 pin headers. So I guess I would need some female headers for the wires (no idea where to get those or how to wire them up from 4 wires to 3 either)?

 

[OulOat]

4 to 3 pin adapter

 

[Drewpy]

Originally posted by: OulOat
4 to 3 pin adapter

Actually he needs the opposite kind of connector.

If they are Panaflo fans, you can get 3 pin tails for them.

Usually going from a 4 pin connector to a 3 pin connector is not recommended. Your fans may have come with 4 pin connectors because they use a lot of current, and it would be unsafe to connect them to a 3 pin header. This is why you may have a hard time finding such connectors. Nobody wants to sell something that they can get sued over.

The quickest option is going to be finding the appropriate pin connectors at a local electronics store, and soldering those on to the ends of your fan's wires.

 

[cleverhandle]

Forget the extra converters - find some old 3 pin fans and cut off the connectors (or buy tails), snip off the molex, and join the 12V and the ground on each end using speaker wire or what not. You're going to have to add extra wire if you want to hide the wiring job anyway - no reason to have extra converters and plugs flopping around in the case.