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Recommendations for Illuminated Fans for Turing Pi...
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Hi All ... I'm using a Thermaltake Tower 100 as the chassis for my Turing Pi 2. I'd like to set it up with illuminated fans to add to the Wow Effect. But all the RGB / LED enabled 120mm fans I've seen - including the ones I purchased recently - rely on a connection to the motherboard to enable the colorfulness. Ideally, I'd like something that runs off of either a Molex or SATA power cable, as the 450W Power Supply I cobbled into the Thermaltake chassis has more than enough of both plugs available. The current setup runs off of a central, SATA-powered hub. But the hub clearly wants a motherboard connection that doesn't exist on the Turing Pi 2. I don't need pulsing, shifting, voice-activated lighting. A solid blue or white would satisfy my (largely silly) requirements. Thoughts? Sincerely ... Stephen
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I’ve got a solid white fan installed in my cluster, let me fetch the name & photo
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How's it powered?
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Corsair Air Series AF120 LED, doesn’t need anything from motherboard, just shines with white light when plugged in
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So, SATA or Molex powered?
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They're not cheap, but the nice thing is they have own controller
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In my case from Noctua NA-FC1 PWM fan controller but based on what I heard, it should be possible to power it from the fan header on the board, though that will be without PWM
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The controller does not have to be connected to the motherboard. You could use your PC to configure the light effects once and save them in a controlelr and it'll just use them each time you power it on
Oh and the controller is powered via SATA:
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I like Corsair's products. I have one of their PC cases. So, I'm assuming the Corsair Air Series AF120 LEDs run off of the controller pictures above?
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They seem to be just white fans, they do ot use a controller
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They'll run off the connectors beside each of the Nodes on the Turing Pi 2?
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You can connect them to TPi2 in numerous ways, but the problem you're going to have is they're goign to spin at the max speed
These are Jetson-specific connectors using JST 1.25mm pitch and 5V, so no
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What model is the Corsair PWM controller pictures above?
Didn't think so.
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These fans are not even PWM by the way
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Gotcha
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So your only way is to connect them to 12V via SATA->fan cable
Like this:
But then, do you want them spin at 100%?
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Probably not forever
: )
I'm a little lost on how I'd configure them via a PC. Not to be a pest, but what would that workflow look like?
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You might then use some sort of fan controller or so-called (low noise" cables to slow them down
The fans you asked about, you cannot do anything about them, they're not RGB not have PWM
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But this device: Noctua NA-FC1 PWM fan controller Could attenuate speed.
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Just power them up and use
Yes
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Brilliant
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I'm actually suggesting this one to people
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(that's a light pun)
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What you have to have in mind is if you lower the voltage of the fans to slow them down, this might also dim the LEDs, (but it depends on the fan, and I'm not sure about these)
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Dialing them back to 75% might be enough to give the bearings a break
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Usually 75% is also quite quiet for many fans already
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I like the Corsair setup you referenced. I have a Corsair case with three fans running the iCUE controller software. But how would I configure the fans for the Turing Pi 2 in a PC?
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The Lightning Node Pro can be set as follows:
Notice 
Hardware Lightning Channel 1
What it is is the controller memory - you can set a LED profile in the controller
The hardware profile is used when the controller is not being controlled by iCUE
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What this means is you can set the controller in your PC, but the hardware channel and tehn run it without teh USB connection in TPi2
The RGB controller, the one I mentioned, yes
But the fan speeds are still to be figured
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What's the product name / ID of that controller?
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The Lightning Node Pro
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And, last question, I think - The Controller is connected and programmed via USB, meaning it can be done externally, as long as it has SATA power?
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I'm not sure I understand this question. It needs to be connected via USB to set the profile and via SATA to have power
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So, if I connected the controller to the SATA power on the Turing Pi 2, and plugged the controller into a USB port on my PC (which is right next to the Turing Pi 2), I could program the Controller.
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Yes
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Awesome. And (last question, really) ... This kit: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/CORSAIR-iCUE/Fans/LL-White-RGB-Dual-Light-Loop-RGB-LED-PWM-Fan/p/CO-9050092-WW Comes with the Controller - the Lighting Node Pro, correct?
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But once again - this is for the LED part of the fans
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Not speed?
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The fans still need to be connected to TPI2 somehow to start spinning
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Speed is Motherboard controlled
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Or there's another controller type for the speed
But I'm not using it personally, so I do nto have thought or experience
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But these: Corsair Air Series AF120 LED Coupled with this: Noctua NA-FC1 PWM fan controller Would give me light plus fan speed controller, with the caveat that controlling the speed might inadvertently control the light.
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Yes and no 😄
This combination will work for you - this is the "yes" part
It won't dim the LEDs since LEDs in tehse FANS are powered via the LED controller, not via the fan power - this is the "no" part 🙂
So, yes, this fan set + the Noctua NA-FC1 will give you both control of the lights and speed
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Actually, this is a good thing. So, final confirmation: This controller will control speed while the fan LEDs stay at maximum illumination.
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Yes
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Why do one red cost $19 but two blues cost $96?
You don't have to answer that.
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Any links, from curiosity?
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Amazon
I think the difference is the High Airflow feature
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You can use openRGB on the raspberry pi to control the lighting on the fans, if you connect up the rgb controller to one of the usb ports on the Turing pi node 4
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Very good to know, thank you.
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