Splicing wires of cooling fans to use elsewhere (SOLVED and UPDATED)

gymjunkie

Member
My Xbox One tends to get really hot and while it plays fine it worries me so I cut into the wires of an old comp cooling fan and hooked it to an outlet plug but it wasn't enough. I bought two 120mm fans from Masscool, they arrived today but they have red, black, and yellow wires so I'm trying to figure out how to go about this.
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
When you obviously don't have a plan or have some sensationalized expectation of how things 'should be', sure.

Red : 12v
Black : Ground
Yellow : RPM

Do you even have any hard monitoring data for what temperatures you're trying to achieve? If your cooling solution is insufficient and the Xbox becomes a brick, you'll also have zero support. Have you even done any analysis to what you're implementing?

The XB1 gets a bit 'roasty' out of the top vent, but as an exhaust vent it shouldn't be that surprising. Also, the APU is rated for pretty large temperatures, and the Xbox can already manage its own thermal solution, so there's really no reason to monkey around when you don't know what you're doing.
 

gymjunkie

Member
You obviously read something wrong. I'm not even touching the xbox itself, im simply placing fans on top of the vent to pull hot air out.
 

gymjunkie

Member
Minimal or not it's still something I would like to do, can't hurt. So the RPM wire I assume is just for adjusting the speed since red will already supply the power anyway so does that mean I wont need the yellow wire at all? The plug I am using is also a 12v, same as the fans, but if I am using two fans would it overload the plug?
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
Depends on the amperage of the plug, although fans don't pull a large amount of current unless they're deltas or something. You should be able to see the rating on the fan such as "12v, 0.4A"

You shouldn't need the yellow, it just reports RPM. Most traditional solutions adjusted the voltage or PWM (such as in newer 4 pin fans) off of readings from the yellow wire, but it doesn't directly control anything itself.
 

Okedokey

Well-Known Member
Red is 12V constant, yellow usually pulse modulation (12V) allows automatic speed control and black is negative. If sound is not an issue and you don't mind the fans running full speed, connect red to positive and black to negative. Otherwise use yellow as positive.

Connect in paraleel and it will work fine. Headers are rated at 1A usually.
 

gymjunkie

Member
I hope an update for something like this is ok.

Ever since I placed the two fans on top of my xbox, the temps have dropped dramatically. Unfortunately I don't have any hard numbers, but the air coming out used to be very hot and now it barely feels warm. The brand I used was MassCool (bought from Newegg), they were pretty cheap and so silent I honestly forget they even exist.

I know it doesn't look the greatest but damn if it doesn't work!

20170510_103708.jpg
 

Agent Smith

Well-Known Member
Go to Amazon and buy a thermoelectric cooler. https://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-keywords=Peltier &index=blended&link_code=qs&sourceid=Mozilla-search&tag=mozilla-20

I was going to use one on top of my CPU, but after I made a post about it at another forum members quickly told me that I would also have to control the condensation. That part never occurred to me otherwise talk about totally cooling down your CPU! LOL But for your application these might be pretty useful. It's like an air conditioner. Just note which side of the thermoelectric cooler is the cool side. Use a black felt pen and make a dot on that side.

Here's a guy who did this with a CPU. At the end you can see the condensation issue that arises.


 
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beers

Moderator
Staff member
TEC eats a lot of power for not much gain. You also have to have something pretty hefty on the hot side cooling wise for it to make a difference. If you can't sufficiently cool the hot side it doesn't benefit the cool side.

Adding a TEC to the XB1 would probably blow the power brick.
 
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