Fan control

[paco83]

In order to quiet fans most people reduce the voltage but throwing a resistor in there. Has anyone tried switching the fan on/off rapidly to achieve similar results? This would obviously reduce the airflow as the reduced voltage would, but would the rapid switching also reduce the noise?

 

[jpeyton]

That is one quick way to screw up a fan motor, with repeated voltage flux and spin up/down cycles.

 

[Cerb]

PWM basically does that, and it causes noises in some fans.

 

[paco83]

Ya it was thinking about PWM that i thought of this. Was just curious about the feasability of it.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: paco83
Ya it was thinking about PWM that i thought of this. Was just curious about the feasability of it.

There are cheap fan controllers that use PWM, but certain fans make noises and won't start in some cases with it at lower duty cycles, so it is generally frowned upon; where variable resistors work fine across the board, albeit at a slightly higher cost.