Hi THR,
Just buy 2 or 3 1N4001 10Cent diodes.
E

 

Hi THR,
Just buy 2 or 3 1N4001 10Cent diodes.
E

Too late.

Bought 2 of those buck converters. Seemed cheap enough and straight forward... and for the price grabbed 2 in case 1 was DOA or something.

 

Exactly... I'm in Canada so cost is a bit higher than what you paid, not much but in the end for 2 converters, I'd rather pay the extra $2 total to buy from eBay than from AliExpress that (for me) had a high fail rate.

I was just joking around before when I said that didn't help because how that board works isn't how mine does. But, if you went out of your way just to show me you got it cheaper than me, that's a bit weird.

If I need something quickly then I use Amazon or eBay but I have placed 90 orders (just counted them) and the only problem was one non-delivery, instantly refunded by seller, and one late delivery.

I think a very important tip is not accepting the cheapest shipping option. Frequently, this does not include tracking. Many sellers counsel not to use it in their listing. I always choose something trackable which is, on average about $2.50USD. Because of this I try to make the most of it by not just buying one, but instead looking at the incremental increase in shipping, which is almost never more than about 5% of the one item total, and optimizing the per item cost with shipping included.

It is often something like 10 of whatever I am buying for the price of one on Amazon or eBay, and I receive most orders in 3-4 weeks.

Bear in mind the AliExpress is not the seller, they are an aggregator, but they do use a firm hand to ensure their reputation is maintained as best possible. Also, the electronics modules and components category is extremely competitive and the normal purchase is only a few dollars, tops. This means the seller has to maintain a good reputation in order to make any money through volume.

The reviews range from useless, to marginally helpful, to unintentionally humorous—but since there is almost no case where you can’t find multiple sellers offering identical products, the volume the seller makes (which is indicated by ”n sold” in the listing) is a pretty godod way to vet things.

Sometimes it is actually cheaper to buy from Amazon or eBay for things like instruments and tools, so always comparison shop. For modules like the one you are using here, and for non-critical components, I will always choose AliExpress if I have the time to wait.

This comes from experience over a reasonably long time with a non-trivial number of orders of electronics parts, consumables and tools. I can’t speak about other categories of items which might be different. The bottom line is for the electronics category, given the time constraint, I would recommend AliExpress to my best friend as the right choice, and to anyone else. Don’t avoid it based on your one bad experience or the advice of people who don’t actually buy from them.

 

Hi, maybe Im wrong but with a simple voltage divider and a potenciometre you should be posible to control de intensity of the fan. And maybe with a Thermistors you can do that more pro.

 

Hi, maybe Im wrong but with a simple voltage divider and a potenciometre you should be posible to control de intensity of the fan. And maybe with a Thermistors you can do that more pro.

A voltage divider would work, but why would you want to generate a bunch of heat when you are trying to cool something? Very counterproductive.

 

A voltage divider would work, but why would you want to generate a bunch of heat when you are trying to cool something? Very counterproductive.

Yeah sure.. I knew it couldn't be that easy. Anyway, the best solution for cooling is the thermal paste, I think.

 

Yeah sure.. I knew it couldn't be that easy. Anyway, the best solution for cooling is the thermal paste, I think.

Thermal paste is just a way to improve thermal conductivity to a heatsink. A heatsink is just a way to improve radiation and convection, by more surface area providing better thermal coupling to the moving air. The fan is there to move as much ambient temperature air across the device that needs cooling as possible.

So thermal paste along would do nothing significant while a fan, even without a heatsink, would cool the device By convection, adding a heatsink can improve this, and adding thermal paste can improve the performance of it.

Thermal paste is like glue: if your are making a table, you can’t make it from glue but you can use it to make the furniture stronger then just the screws you might otherwise use to assemble it.

 

Thermal paste is just a way to improve thermal conductivity to a heatsink. A heatsink is just a way to improve radiation and convection, by more surface area providing better thermal coupling to the moving air. The fan is there to move as much ambient temperature air across the device that needs cooling as possible.

So thermal paste along would do nothing significant while a fan, even without a heatsink, would cool the device By convection, adding a heatsink can improve this, and adding thermal paste can improve the performance of it.

Thermal paste is like glue: if your are making a table, you can’t make it from glue but you can use it to make the furniture stronger then just the screws you might otherwise use to assemble it.

Yeah sure, this is a very accurate answer, but when I said that thermal paste is the best solution it's because the fan is usually not the problem. A normal person usually throws away a laptop because it turns off and only changing the thermal paste fixes it. And this usually solidifies in a couple of years.

 

Yeah sure, this is a very accurate answer, but when I said that thermal paste is the best solution it's because the fan is usually not the problem. A normal person usually throws away a laptop because it turns off and only changing the thermal paste fixes it. And this usually solidifies in a couple of years.

In this particular case the fan is a replacement to try to improve the moving air part of the system. It also seems to be based on the experience of a lot of other people who have chosen to improve the fan.

The TS (thread starter, like “OP”) wanted to be sure the fan he chose would be optimal instead of using a fan that normally used a higher supply voltage and would be ruining slower.

So in this case it is an attempt to maximize the effectiveness of the fan, not of the heatsink. Which might be a good additional step if it is possible, so you are not working to suggest exploring it.

 

Did u heard "pa ti la perra gorda"?

No.
This is an English only forum and we don't deal with colloquial Spanish.

And I doubt that "thermal paste" is a solution to his problem.

 

I was just joking around before when I said that didn't help because how that board works isn't how mine does. But, if you went out of your way just to show me you got it cheaper than me, that's a bit weird.

Forgot that you were after step down

Surprisingly, step down are more expensive:

 

No.
This is an English only forum and we don't deal with colloquial Spanish.

And I doubt that "thermal paste" is a solution to his problem.

Correct... in fact there is no thermal paste anywhere in the PS2. There is an area with a large thermal conductive pad under a giant heat sink but the pad is a bit thick and doubt if I used paste it would make full contact with the sink.

The PS2 puts out 5v. When you add a hard drive it jumps to 7v. The fan is a 7v fan and will run full speed, very loudly.

Issue is that in addition to being a weird size/shape, the stock fan is 7v, so most people throw in a 12v Noctua fan and are amazed as how much quieter it is, but I don't think they understand that it's also running at probably half the speed.

Noctua makes 5v fans as well so just wanted to step the 7v down to 5v so I can have a better fan running at the full 3000rpm to suck the heat out of the system. Currently having no over heating issues but since building this for my nephew I want to make sure that it runs better than new.

 

If you're using the converter shown in post #14, suggest the following:
(1) Connect fan power to converter input (it will accept 5V or 7V and that covers any hard drive change)
(2) Use 12v Noctua 60x60x20 fan that others use from Amazon (looks like fan part number is Noctua NF-A6x25 FLX).
(3) Leave converter as "variable" (pot controlled), adjust output to 12V to power Noctua fan at full speed. If you think its too noisy you can adjust converter downward and lower fan's voltage/speed. If Noctura is selling their 12V fan to run at 7V then it should be OK to vary the voltage.

 

If you're using the converter shown in post #14, suggest the following:
(1) Connect fan power to converter input (it will accept 5V or 7V and that covers any hard drive change)
(2) Use 12v Noctua 60x60x20 fan that others use from Amazon (looks like fan part number is Noctua NF-A6x25 FLX).
(3) Leave converter as "variable" (pot controlled), adjust output to 12V to power Noctua fan at full speed. If you think its too noisy you can adjust converter downward and lower fan's voltage/speed. If Noctura is selling their 12V fan to run at 7V then it should be OK to vary the voltage.

Actually Noctua doesn't really recommend it (running 12v off 7v). So, those buck converters will increase 7v up to 12v? Gotta be some downside to that, no? Excessive heat? burning out the converter?

I dunno... but seems like if it's 7v may as well just grab the 5v fan and make it a steady 5v. Once the PS2 is put together, unlikely my nephew is gonna open it up and attempt to adjust it.

That said... maybe a small potentiometer mounted with a knob on it? not sure there's enough room for that or how people know what value to use. 10k?

 

That said... maybe a small potentiometer mounted with a knob on it? not sure there's enough room for that or how people know what value to use. 10k?

Hi THR,
You are not thinking this through.!
How are you going to set 8 Ohms on small 10k Pot.???
Also, if you could, that 8 Ohms would dissipate approx 0.5Watt!!

Use two or three cheap 1Amp diodes in series to drop approx 2V at 0.25A.
E

R= V/I ... R= 2v/0.25A = 8.0 Ohms

Watts = V * I ...... 2V * 0.25A = 0.5 Watts.

 

Hi THR,
You are not thinking this through.!

Haha... I think you missed reading where I have no idea about how people calculate what pots to use, or earlier when I said I know very little about electronics.

I went to school for drawing and painting. I fix guitars. Adding a buck converter to a fan is probably the biggest electronic project I've worked on in 5yrs.

Cheap buck converter, 5v fan, set the converter to 5v, walk away. Thought through.

 

I'm thinking of doing the same thing. The only concern with this route is buck converters increase the current when stepping down the voltage. Some power is lost (buck converters aren't 100% efficient), but going past the maximum current rating on the fan is not recommended. According to Noctura for the NF-A6x25 5V that's a max input current of 0.26 A. I'm wondering what kind of current you buck converter is going to output when attached to the 7V fan wires on the ps2 and the hard drive is running, ramping up the power.

If i end up testing this ill add a post.

 

I'm thinking of doing the same thing. The only concern with this route is buck converters increase the current when stepping down the voltage. Some power is lost (buck converters aren't 100% efficient), but going past the maximum current rating on the fan is not recommended. According to Noctura for the NF-A6x25 5V that's a max input current of 0.26 A. I'm wondering what kind of current you buck converter is going to output when attached to the 7V fan wires on the ps2 and the hard drive is running, ramping up the power.

If i end up testing this ill add a post.

Post is old and dead.

 

What is the situation with your PS2 fan? I'm wondering how the buck converter is working over time. I have done a lot of searching and this post was the most useful to me. The ps2 fan is loud and people continue to mod their systems using the Noctura fans.I'm grateful for your input.

 

What is the situation with your PS2 fan? I'm wondering how the buck converter is working over time. I have done a lot of searching and this post was the most useful to me. The ps2 fan is loud and people continue to mod their systems using the Noctura fans.I'm grateful for your input.

Never bothered.... was making a new bracket in Fusion360 to print because the downloaded ones were OK but not great. But when I got the PS2 together it really wasn't "that" loud like the forums all complained about. So, I have the parts and the file for printing, no fan though, and told my nephew if has issues let me know I'll swap it out.

That said, everything I saw online had people running a 12v Noctua off a 5v/7v plug on the board and no one had any before/after heat results to prove if it was a good upgrade or not. Yes, it's probably quieter but who cares if the hard drive or board burns out from the extra heat from having a fan running barely half speed.

So, sadly, no useful feedback I'm afraid. I still think buying a 5v Notcua and using the buck converter set to 5v is the way to go though. Run the 5v fan at 5v, not a 12v fan at 7v.