Nanoxia PWMX Controller - Control 3-pin fans via PWM

Control: management of fans, temp/rpm monitoring via soft/hardware

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ekerazha
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Nanoxia PWMX Controller - Control 3-pin fans via PWM

Post by ekerazha » Thu Feb 26, 2009 10:34 am

Take a look at this: http://www.nanoxia-europe.com/index.php ... 15&lang=en

Image
Many users are looking for a way to benefit from the possibilities of the 4-Pin-PWM-Controller even with conventional 3-Pin fans, e.g. using a 3-pin CPU fan on PWM-enabled mainboards. The Developers at Nanoxia tackled this dilemma and came up with a solution: With the brand new PWMX Controller it is now possible to control all 3-pin fans via PWM.

The Nanoxia controller chip detects the connected fan and generates fitting PWM characteristics. This way, every fan can be accessed perfectly by a PWM-enabled mainboard. Contrary to pure PWM solutions, the PWMX Controller allows to regulate the supply voltage of the fan, thereby offering a higher level of adjustment, e.g. reducing the maximum rotation speed of the fan while still react to current CPU load.

Specifications:
Dimensions: 3,2 x 1,2 x 1,3 cm
Control Range (Voltage): 5V-12V
Connector Input: 4 PIN PWM Connector (to mainboard)
Connector Output: 3 PIN Fan Connector
I think it's very interesting! It seems like you can control 3-pin fans from 4-pin PWM connectors, translating the PWM signal to different voltages.

pcy
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Post by pcy » Thu Feb 26, 2009 11:04 am

Hi,

That unit looks nice and its 2/3 the price of mine - depending on how much they charge for delivery, of course, which my price includes (for the UK). I figure they have gone for a high volume production process.


But it's scarcely new. Here is the User Manual for the PaQ Unit:
http://www.paqt.co.uk/docs/PaQ_PWM.pdf

It's been available for over two years now.



Peter

mcoleg
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Post by mcoleg » Thu Feb 26, 2009 4:30 pm

any idea if they sell them in north america?

ekerazha
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Post by ekerazha » Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:35 am

pcy wrote: That unit looks nice and its 2/3 the price of mine
Yeah, another nice thing is that you can also manually adjust the voltage so you can have that with PWM at "100%" you can only supply "7 V" instead of "12 V".

pcy
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Location: Central London, England

Post by pcy » Fri Feb 27, 2009 7:17 am

Hi,

By contrast the PaQ PWM->DC unit has a control on the min speed, but not on the max (100%) fan speed.

I would tend to control the max speed simply by buying a fan whose max speed was whatever I wanted. If you do that you get fan speed control at both ends.


We developed the PaQ unit because we needed it for the CPU cooling on the PaQ case, and only sold it separately because we had it. We ended up using low speed 140mm Yate Loon fans on the CPU cooler - they run at 950 rpm at 12V; and, typically, I set them so to run at 400 rpm when the machine is ideling.




Peter

ekerazha
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Post by ekerazha » Sat Feb 28, 2009 1:06 am

ekerazha wrote:
pcy wrote: That unit looks nice and its 2/3 the price of mine
Yeah, another nice thing is that you can also manually adjust the voltage so you can have that with PWM at "100%" you can only supply "7 V" instead of "12 V".
I have more info on this... well... this is uncorrect :wink:

You can only change the range from 5V-11V to 6V-12V

johnbentley
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Post by johnbentley » Wed May 13, 2009 12:39 am

I just bought this controller and it works like a charm with my fan (3 pinned Scythe S-Flex SFF21E, 120mm rated 1200 rpm) and heatsink (Thermalright HR-01) to cool the CPU.

A bought it via ebay from AEROCOOLER, located in California. Straightforward and easy transaction. It took 8 days to ship to Australia. That is, I recommend the seller. I'm not a shill.

See also the manufacturer's details on the product.

Edit: For completeness: I use speedfan 4.38 to control the fan.

confusion
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Post by confusion » Wed May 13, 2009 11:08 pm

FrozenCPU in the US carrries this now as well:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/9081/ ... oller.html

rjamxy
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Post by rjamxy » Sat Sep 12, 2009 4:14 pm

hello guys. I have one question. It is possible to connect more 3 pin fans (with use of 3pin multiadapter) onto one PWMX module?

red.october
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Post by red.october » Wed Oct 14, 2009 5:05 pm

Do they sell them in Canada?

kiriakos
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Re: Nanoxia PWMX Controller - Control 3-pin fans via PWM

Post by kiriakos » Thu Dec 02, 2010 12:40 am

I just got this Nanoxia controller too , but the pot on it , it does an adjustment of just 200 rpm from Min to Max ...

Is this normal operation as adjustment ?



Here is also an picture from the box.
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kiriakos
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Re: Nanoxia PWMX Controller - Control 3-pin fans via PWM

Post by kiriakos » Fri Dec 03, 2010 9:08 am

Under further testing , it looks that the voltage output of the controller that I got,
are from 8,6V to 10,4 volts ( at 100% PWM ) .

And so the actual RPM difference from Min to Max , it is related to the fan type , that will be used with it .

Even so , from my tests with an 140mm 1000 RPM , the RPM change was 140 rotations .
And with an 120mm 2400 RPM about 210 rotations. (Min to Max pot change)

Technically this measurements , indicates elusive specs .
especially if this controller are suggested for operation with 5 Volt fans up to 12V.
And this information indicates that the minimum output voltage , it should be 5V and not 8.6 !!

It will be really nice , if some one who owns the Nanoxia , to also verify the output voltages.
And post here the results .

work_permit
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Re: Nanoxia PWMX Controller - Control 3-pin fans via PWM

Post by work_permit » Wed Dec 22, 2010 2:55 pm

My unit ranges between 9.72V and 11.04V (at 100%). Its unfortunate since I want my fans running at 100% rpm when maximum cooling is called for,

kiriakos
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Re: Nanoxia PWMX Controller - Control 3-pin fans via PWM

Post by kiriakos » Thu Dec 23, 2010 8:42 am

Well for NANOXIA the game is over ... The brand closed down their main site .. nanoxia - europe.

Their second website in Germany stands like Ghost with dead mail server.

And I found in Japan , one text saying that the pot all that it does ,
are to adjust the fan voltage at the minimum input of PWM , so to not stop spinning !!


About voltage measurements , I did my, with the fan active !!

work_permit
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Re: Nanoxia PWMX Controller - Control 3-pin fans via PWM

Post by work_permit » Thu Dec 23, 2010 11:13 pm

kiriakos wrote: About voltage measurements , I did my, with the fan active !!
I did my measurements without the fan attached. I also measured the fans RPM's both with and without the Nanxia. The fan spins at 1314 RPM when connected directly to the fan header. When connected through the Nanoxia, it spins at 1214 RPM. That's an 8% decrease, which I'm guessing is consistent with the voltages I measured.

What decrease in RPM have you noticed?

kiriakos
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Re: Nanoxia PWMX Controller - Control 3-pin fans via PWM

Post by kiriakos » Fri Dec 24, 2010 4:56 am

I did two testings ...

One fast Panasonic 120mm 2400rpm FBA12G12U1BX

And one Prolimatech Vortex 140mm 1100rpm

The Prolimatech Vortex lost 100rpm.
The Sanyo lost more , about 240 rpm.

I did some testing on my motherboard and it does five step increase of PWM (Min to max )

Check the picture.

Edit : the worst than all , its the minimum voltage of it ( its too high) , no way to use fast fan ,
and drop the rpm to 1000 or lower , so to be silent when idle.
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