In Win offers Aurora Fans that you can Daisy Chain

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 08/10/2017 08:47 AM | source: | 5 comment(s)

In Win now has the Aurora Fans available. The thing is, you can Daisy Chain these fans. Previously all fans need to be connected towards a fan controller, your motherboard FAN headers or use y-split cables right? Well, here's something clever from In-win.

These fans actually have been announced on Computex 2016 already if memory serves me right. You simply can connect the 800~1400 rpm PWM sleeve baring fans in series, which helps tremendously with cable management. An interesting point here to mention is that each fan still can be controlled individually. The RGB LEDs as wellc an be controlled independent. A separated controller obviously is needed to control it all, that connects towards a USB connector.

The MSRP is 89 euros for a set of a kit with three fans. The set will feature three Aurora case fans that are fully RGB and addressable LED fans, modular sleeved cables, two LED strips, a remote control to change the LEDs and a control box.

Via hwi, In-Win

fantaskarsef
Senior Member

Posts: 14135
Joined: 2014-07-21

#5461300 Posted on: 08/10/2017 08:51 AM

Huh, weird. Have to check that out, I'm really curious how they can manage RGB and three fans via a daisy chain with a fan header.

Backstabak
Senior Member

Posts: 843
Joined: 2015-11-13

#5461328 Posted on: 08/10/2017 10:26 AM

I guess they just made a separate bus that is controlled via that USB dongle and each fan has their own ID.

wavetrex
Senior Member

Posts: 1696
Joined: 2008-07-16

#5461351 Posted on: 08/10/2017 12:15 PM

This has existed for digital battery monitoring systems (BMS) for quite a while (including those in Tesla cars), in which each battery in a chain can be inspected through a single wire that goes to all of them.

Obviously, it's a digital signal.

schmidtbag
Senior Member

Posts: 7153
Joined: 2012-11-10

#5461400 Posted on: 08/10/2017 03:11 PM

I'm personally not fond of this. It appears to use a PCIe power source, but I'd much rather it use molex, SATA, or the old floppy connector. Nowadays people have way more of those connectors than they know what to do with, meanwhile it's common to find people needing more PCIe connectors. These aren't high-speed fans, they don't need the amperage to warrant a 75W connector.

Also, most modern motherboard fan controllers are pretty advanced and configurable (and many can be manually operated in your OS). I'd much rather have a smaller power brick, not bother with 3rd party software, and have the motherboard control the speed. For boards that need to read the RPM, you just have to connect the tacho of one of the fans to pin 3 of the fan header and you're good. They're all the same fan so they ought to all run at the same speed.

For my PC, I built my own fan controller that pretty much does what I just described and it cost me less than $1. All you really need is a resistor and an NPN transistor and you can control as many fans as you want using pin 4 of the motherboard fan header. Doing this is also great when you want to control a 2 or 3 pin fan via PWM (which applies in my case).

EDIT:
If anyone wants to know how to build their own "3 to 4 pin fan controller", techpowerup has 2 forum posts, one called "So you want PWM control of your new CPU fan?" and the other called "So you want PWM control of your 3-pin fan?".

WareTernal
Senior Member

Posts: 259
Joined: 2013-09-27

#5461499 Posted on: 08/10/2017 06:01 PM

I'm personally not fond of this. It appears to use a PCIe power source

No, it doesn't use PCIe power. It uses a 6 pin connector to the fans from the controller. The controller is supplied by a 4 pin connector. The other end of that 4 pin connectors looks like it's a SATA power connector.

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