Paraleyes

I had a couple 230mm fans sitting in a box left over from removing the stock side and top fans from my Cooler Master HAF 932. Well I noticed they have the four holes for LEDs around the edges just like their clear 230mm LED fans in the front of the case. So, I figured I should take a shot at modding in some LEDs and making them look a bit better. Enjoy!

So this is what I'm starting with; a stock 230mm Cooler Master fan out of a HAF 932 Case. You can see that even these black Cooler Master fans have those raceways to run the wires for an LED at each edge.

After I removed the label, I realized I could run all the wires within the fan's frame. So I took out the round plastic retaining washer. . .

And there you go; the fan blades slide right off.

I taped off the back side of the fan blades to protect the steel ring and the grease on the pin from paint.

I used some fine grit sand paper to roughen up the fans blades for paint. I would recommend just washing the fan with soap and water. Dish soap is best and most convenient as it cuts away the grease from your hands the best. Anyways, the sand paper gave the blades a bit of a rough look rather than a nice smooth surface that could have been. Hindsight=20/20

Here I got a couple LEDs soldered and wired in through the raceways of the fan's frame.

Here's a close up shot of one LED in place.

All hooked up and ready to connect a power wire.

You can see the hole I drilled in the picture above and below to run the wires all through together.

The other end of the power wire.

The round plastic retainer clip snapped back into place.

Still waiting for sleeving from performancepcs.com

Here's the back.

Here's the front.

I was hoping for the most reflection as possible with this fake shakey can chrome paint. It's kinda cool how the camera captured the light from the LEDs even though focusing on the blade as if it were not spinning at all here.

These next two pictures however portray the appearance of the LED's natural glow and reflection very accurately with the camera's flash off.


Not a bad little upgrade IMO. It sure made these two huge stock 230mm fans quite a bit more appealing to leave installed rather than replacing them with a bunch of 120mm fans.

I will recommend this guy on ebay for purchasing LEDs and resistors. He'll make a pretty fair deal with you if you buy a lot. Even if you just want 20, it's still a good deal.

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UHAF 932 "Ultra High Air Flow" Prototype Concept Rig Build Log
Ultimate Aggressive Cooling Mod - How I Lowered my MB temps by 25C!
How to Modify, Cut Down & Upgrade Your Stock Heat Pipe System
Old Heat Pipes Moddded on a New P5N7A-VM Old Heat Pipes Modded on a New P5Q3

Nhb93

Followed you from over in the Owners Club. I must say, this is a great mod, and an excellent alternative buying more fans. Granted, I don't have any soldering experience which appears necessary to complete this. I'll have to find someone with a soldering gun to try this out. Would certainly go along well with the two blue cathodes I have in my case. +Rep for sure.

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reaper~

Nice! Very creative. I only wish I have the time to do this (working 2 jobs and all).

+rep

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Paraleyes

Thank you! Swing over to Radio Shack and pick up a cheap soldering iron and practice on bare wires and such. It's super easy; easier than I expecting even. I just found a couple how to videos on youtube and went from there.
Yeah, it definitely was a time taker that one. Thanks!

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UHAF 932 "Ultra High Air Flow" Prototype Concept Rig Build Log
Ultimate Aggressive Cooling Mod - How I Lowered my MB temps by 25C!
How to Modify, Cut Down & Upgrade Your Stock Heat Pipe System
Old Heat Pipes Moddded on a New P5N7A-VM Old Heat Pipes Modded on a New P5Q3

Paraleyes

oops

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UHAF 932 "Ultra High Air Flow" Prototype Concept Rig Build Log
Ultimate Aggressive Cooling Mod - How I Lowered my MB temps by 25C!
How to Modify, Cut Down & Upgrade Your Stock Heat Pipe System
Old Heat Pipes Moddded on a New P5N7A-VM Old Heat Pipes Modded on a New P5Q3

HAFenvy

I have pictures of my same modification to the existing clear 200mm fan from the HAF 922 which I just finished changing the LEDs out of. I'll post that into my build shortly and add some notes - I love the idea of using the chrome paint and might have to do this same mod to my 200mm Black fan if it makes it into the build or not

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Paraleyes

Hey thanks mate! If you do something to the black CM fan, post your pics on this thread too.

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UHAF 932 "Ultra High Air Flow" Prototype Concept Rig Build Log
Ultimate Aggressive Cooling Mod - How I Lowered my MB temps by 25C!
How to Modify, Cut Down & Upgrade Your Stock Heat Pipe System
Old Heat Pipes Moddded on a New P5N7A-VM Old Heat Pipes Modded on a New P5Q3

HAFenvy

Ok, my photos are up in my work log area. Quick synopsis: the 200mm clear fan in the HAF 922 has red LEDs in it. I just swapped them out and it worked perfect. The red LEDs were running 1.95V and the green ones I just put in are measuring 3.0V. So the onboard resistor on the PCB inside the fan is basically there to be your current limiter in the circuit to keep the operating current of the LEDs at a safe level. As long as you go with LEDs that have a forward voltage or 3.0V or less, you should be good to switch them out.

Results are here - not trying to steal away from Paraleyes thread but just thought I would share my findings as well . The 200mm black fan in the HAF 922 is the same plastic as the clear one (has the LED holes) so the chrome fan blade idea is something I might just have to try down the road

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Paraleyes

Yeah, I swapped out the red LEDs in the front fan on mine too. I put in those in their place. They look pretty cool in the front of the case. I'm sure that a lot of people are going to disagree, but I like it a lot.

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UHAF 932 "Ultra High Air Flow" Prototype Concept Rig Build Log
Ultimate Aggressive Cooling Mod - How I Lowered my MB temps by 25C!
How to Modify, Cut Down & Upgrade Your Stock Heat Pipe System
Old Heat Pipes Moddded on a New P5N7A-VM Old Heat Pipes Modded on a New P5Q3

HAFenvy

Interesting - haven't seen those before. For me I'm sticking with a single color but yeah those would be an interesting addition to a case if you wanted the color to cycle like that. Cool idea.

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