Vewlix F General mods

[Inky]

I had a similar problem with fan noise but was worried about the fan warning and decided to see what I could do about it.


Initially I purchased an alternative 80x7.5mm 24v fan 2 pin fan since
I struggled to find a 3 pin fan in the UK. My idea was to leave the
original fan behind the new one so it would still spin and give the
signal required - but it didn't! So that was a bust. The fan warning
still came on. The new fan was too loud anyway despite being advertised
as a quiet fan.





My next idea was to use a resistor in series to lower the voltage to the
fan and thus the noise. I had a few Noctua NA-RC10 cables lying around
so stripped the wires and added these in series. They contain 51 ohm
resistors (I wasn't sure of the brand but every other 51 ohm resistor I
looked at had a voltage rating in the hundreds). When you calculate it
with the 24v fan at 0.1A it works out as a reduction to around 19.7v
overall. This dropped the noise by about 20%!





I figured the warning will have a fan speed cut off at some point but I'm not sure quite what this was.


I also replaced the original metal screws with the rubber kind to help vibration. Which cut the noise by another 10% or so. NB these were the really cheap silicon ones my Noctua ones didn't fit.





So now the Vewlix isn't silent but it sounds more like a desktop PC than
a jet engine. I suspect you could increase the resistor value higher
and drop the speed more, but I wasn't sure of the exact value and had
those Noctua NA-RC10 cables lying around which I figured means they've
been tested in a similar situation and I could make a tidy job of it.


I think the best solution would be a pair of Noctua 12v 80x15mm fans
with rubber screws put in series with a voltage regulator or resistors
in series - trouble is the speed may drop so low as to set of the fan
warning?


Anyway hope this all helps anyone considering some thing similar in the
future. I don't make any claim to the safety or longevity of this set-up
there's plenty of people who say a set-up is bad for your power
supply...I guess time will tell.


For now I'm much happier with the fans.

Sorry for the double post chaps but this sounded similar to what you were discussing.

 

[Geddon]

Yeah that is a great post, thanks! I plan to eventually mess around with this. First thing I might try is putting a regulator in there and testing how slow the fans can go before that warning comes on. I also like the idea of Replacing each 24v with two 12v fans if I can find a place to put them. One of my friends tells me it is easy to build a circuit to fool the sensor if necessary. Whatever I end up doing I’ll post the results here.

 

[Geddon]

I’m going forward today with project shut up vewlix. My cab needs 2x 12v 60mm and 2x 24v 80mm. The 80mm are from some printer so a total crapshoot, but they were cheap as far as fans of this type go. The small fans are for the Taito x2 psu fans. I will report back once I install these things. I already did the cpu and case fan on the Taito x2.

 

[Geddon]

Following up. On my cab those 60mm fans are the culprit. I replaced those with the noctua ones and I put one of their little adapters in line to slow it down some. I probably didn’t even need to do that because I can’t even hear them, but they seem to be pushing a decent amount of air. Now the loudest fans in the back are the monitor fans, but they really are not that bad with the back on. So I don’t think I’ll bother replacing them.

So I have 2 spare 24v 80mm fans. I found a 24v power supply and plugged one in and it was not too bad but I think it is equivalent to what I would be replacing. I tried with one of those noctua Low noise adapters in line and that made it really quiet, but I’m assuming it would trip the warning. I might mess with the monitor fans if I need to take the monitor out for anything but for now i am perfectly fine with the noise of the cab and the Taito x2. Still louder than my other cabs but it is negligible.

For the x2 the main culprit was the case fan. I replaced with a better one and slowed it down. I also replaced the cpu and psu fans but I don’t think that made a huge difference.

 

[Geddon]

after leaving the cab on for a few hours the left fan is blowing cold, so i'll leave that alone, the right fan is blowing warm, not crazy or anything but I think those monitor fans do need more air pushed out of the cab, so i'll remove the fan slow down thing from that one and I think I'm done.

 

[Ajax]

Sorry to resurrect this thread so long after the last post, but I wanted to ask for some pointers on adding an external volume knob to my Vewlix. Any insight on which parts are needed/how best to approach this would be awesome.

 

[LearyCastro]

I can't stand loud fans, and holy crap, the Vewlix ones sound like freaking vacuum cleaners. I couldn't get them out of my cabs fast enough.

Sure, replacing the top one is a little work, but you probably never cleaned in there before anyways, and trust me, it's disgusting.

It is! Mine literally had CAKED UP dust!!!

 

[Kidkaos]

Anyone have any replacement fan links for a fix on an F?? I just got mine with the Fan Alert message. Any help is appreciated

 

[nem]

You could try grounding the sense line. Maybe it's as easy as that.

 

[Kidkaos]

You could try grounding the sense line. Maybe it's as easy as that.

What's the sense line? I cleaned mine and that helped for a bit. I get the error message from time to time but it's definitely a bad fan since 1 stops every once in a while.