Daisy-Chain Fans?

[Streckfus]

Dumb question, I'm sure, but that probably means a simple answer....

Can 80mm fans be daisy-chained together, then plugged into a single molex connector? My Antec case came with two standard 80mm fans in the back, each with male & female 4-pin power connectors. Can I plug the two fan connectors together, then plug the remaining end into a single 4-pin molex connector or do I need to use a molex connector for each fan?

I plan on running 4 or 5 fans and I might run out of PSU connections if I have to connect each fan to its own molex connector.

Thanks in advance for the feedback.

 

[quakefiend420]

yeah you can daisy chain fans...i wouldnt put more than 3 on a single molex though...it could probably handle more...but thats just me

 

[lenjack]

Why apologize, and why do you think it's a dumb question? We were ALL newbies once.

 

[canadageek]

it's fine to put more than one fan on a molex. i've got 4 fans running on one. however, when you "daisy chain" them, make sure to connect them in parallel, or + to + and -to-
DON'T put +to-(series) this will collectively lower the eamperage, and some the fans will run at varying speeds.
hope it helpes, good luck!
cheerio

 

[Streckfus]

Originally posted by: lenjack
Why apologize, and why do you think it's a dumb question? We were ALL newbies once.

Yeah, I know, but some folks on here seem to get a little impatient with and condescending towards newbies. But you're right, even the biggest know-it-all didn't know anything at one point in time.

 

[Streckfus]

Originally posted by: canadageek
it's fine to put more than one fan on a molex. i've got 4 fans running on one. however, when you "daisy chain" them, make sure to connect them in parallel, or + to + and -to-
DON'T put +to-(series) this will collectively lower the eamperage, and some the fans will run at varying speeds.
hope it helpes, good luck!
cheerio

Thanks, but could you be more specific? As far as I can tell, the connectors will only connect in one way: female plugs into male. So the female end of the molex from the PSU would plug into the male connector from the fan, and the other connector from that fan (female) would have to plug into the male connector on the other fan.

It would seem as thought the way I've listed it above is a "series" circuit, but since there's no other way to connect the three together, how can I get a "parallel" circuit?

Do I need to get a Y-adapter or something?

 

[Painman]

If your fans all have the standard Molex pass-through connector, female on one end, male on the other, with the actual + and - leads for the fan spliced into the +12V and one of the ground leads, then you are running parallel. What makes a circuit parallel is that every device has its own connection to + / - that does not run through any other device. That's why the short chunk of cabling with the Molex connectors is called a "pass-through" - it literally lets the juice pass through so all devices in the circuit chain can access it w/o interference from any of the others.

 

[Streckfus]

Remember that when I look at the molex connectors, all I see is multi-colored wires and a connector. I understand the theory behind series/parallel, but that's about it. Basically, when I look at the molex connectors for each fan, here's what I see:

Red Black
Yellow Black Black Red

The two red and black wires come from the fan and share connections with the yellow and black wires on the male molex connector. The four wires from the male molex connector attach to the female molex connector. What I don't know is which wire is +, which is a ground, etc.

I understand that parallel is the way to go, but what do I physically need to do to achieve that? Do I need to attach a Y-adapter to the molex coming from the PSU and then attach each fan to the Y-adapter, or can I simply plug the PSU molex into Fan 1, then Fan 1 into Fan 2?

 

[Painman]

The Yellow Black Black Red are: +12v, Ground, Ground, +5V. If you plug the PSU Molex into Fan 1, then Fan 1 Molex into Fan 2, etc. etc., you'll have everything in parallel. No need to buy any Y-adapters.

 

[Streckfus]

Thanks for the clarification. Gotta keep things simple when answering my questions!

 

[Painman]

No problem. BTW, it takes 4 to 6 80mm fans to eat up 1 Amp of 12v power depending on their rotation speed, so don't worry about chaining a few of them together on one PSU lead. The leads can handle it.