I cant find a good thermostat in any of my local stores so if I'm going to have to pay for shipping and handling I might as well go for something a little bit more fancy, I was thinking of a pc drive bay fan controller something with a small lcd 2 temp probes and 3 fan switches (toggle preferred I just think there cool and fun to play with). I have found all kinds of them on pc modding sites but it's my understanding that they need to be plugged into the pc mother board. also it would be nice if it could be used to maintain the temp I set for cooling down the box after shutdown. I'm open to alternatives, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

also wonted to say you have a great site here with an awesome community I've had a lot of fun putting my pj together and can't wait to make my vertical one.

home depot sells attic fan controls that work great. they can be a little hard to find. I had three different people working there tell me they didn't sell them. but I found a whole box of them back by the attic fans. look in the building section (where the roofing and concrete type stuff is). they should be somewhere by the attic fans.

edit: here's my plog post about it: http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?s...st&p=167312

I new they where lying to me I've seen all these pj with attic fans in them and thought Home Depot or Lowe's had to have them I will go today and see what i can find thanks for the help

if anyone has any input on the pc fan controller please post as i would like to use one for my next build

What the motherboard provides is the ability to monitor temp via software and a pc's internal temp probes. You don't need the mobo to just power the controller, just a DC adapter.

I've posed this in 2 places...

Smoking deal, I love slickdeals.net!

But where to get the temperature probes?

EDIT: ah, looks like it comes with 4!

Oh id does?! Sweet!

The documentation said something like "not included" on the Aerocool site... Or maybe I dreamed that message... either way, cool!


I got a bunch a long time ago with some orange thermaltake fans (I think the first set of orange fans thermaltake made) that I was planning to use.

I am using this kit in my 17" PJ. I placed the temperature sensor near the PJ roof above the lamp enclosure. It can be adjusted to switch on at a specific temp and off at another (this stops continual on/off cycling around a setpoint). The electronics are powered all the time and when the switch triggers, a relay on the switch closes. I use this relay to short out the power switch terminals on an atx power supply which is connected to my fans.

You can probably get away without using the atx power supply, I used it because I'm only using a low current 12v power supply to run the thermo switch because it's on all the time.

When the PJ is finished running (lamp off) and is cooling down, the fans will run until the temp switch is below the threshold. It usually cycles on and off a few times until the heat soak is gone from the lamp gear.

I thought of trying to use a system that continually varied the fan speed as required, but never got around to it. I don't think i'll persue it either because when the PJ is up to running temp, you really are dealing with a constant state, the amount of heat you need to extract pretty much remains the same. I think a system to automatically shut off the fans is all that's needed.

It may also be helpful to have some way of controlling the fan's top speed to minimise noise. Simplest way is to reduce the voltage going to it. Just make sure that a voltage you decide on is high enough to start the fan from rest. I'm running a 12v 12cm fan on 6v and it works very well and is extremely quiet.

thanks for the set up info qzstang65 and thanks for the link hirudin.
I all ready ordered mine last night says it will take until the 18th to get here, I live in TX and it's coming from CA whats up with that.

The fan controller I posted isn't going to get to you 'til the 18th? Lets see, that's next Wednesday. If they put it in the mail today, incording to the days UPS ships, that's only "3 day shipping" which is pretty standard for Ground (which I'm assuming you used).

This is a completely normal ammount of time for shipping, the company shipped my order the first day possible, sounds like they did the same for you too.

Ordered mine on Wed, shipped yesterday, will be here on the 18th also. Cali to Kentucky ground shipping, perfectly fine.

I just got my Coolermaster Aerogate 3
The molex power input has 3 wires yellow (12v), black (ground), red (5v)
I have the 12v covered with my slandered 120vac to 12dc adapter but don't know what to do about the 5v. Any help would be great I know i could just use a pc power supply but I would rather not have two power plugs. i wouldn't mind a pc power supply if there is a way to pull the 120vac from the power supply for the lcd and the ballast

Got mine today also.

I'm planning on whipping up a small dc regulator to make 5v for the Aerogate off my 12v adapter. I may see if there is 5v on my lcd power supply and try to tap off that if it's not too hard.

Actually, this will probably do the deed for me.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...p;tab=techSpecs

thats what I'll use too I have to get some switches from radio shack so I can do it all in one order