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Wire gauge for fans?

post #1 of 8
6/1/12 at 9:20pm
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Going to splice four 120mm fans into a single electrical wire and I was wondering what gauge and amp rating the wire would have to be. I was thinking about cable management, and decided that I would have to buy adapters anyway if I wanted to connect them to a 30w/channel fan controller. May as well connect them all to a single wire and control them all from a single switch thumb.gif

The fans are Scythe Gentle Typhoon 2150rpms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mm67 View Post

They seem to take 0.123 A which makes 1.476 W. But they do take 0.53 A (6,36 W) at startup.
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post #2 of 8
6/1/12 at 9:23pm
You should be good with 24guage wiring.

Though, I'd go with 22 to be safe, or 20 if you want.

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

EDIT: Just read you wanna do 4 of them.
18GA if you wanna go by the charts, but I'd personally stick with 20-22.
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post #3 of 8
6/5/12 at 8:52pm
let's say it's rated at 20 AWG, and i use 18 or 16. because the wire is thicker, wouldn't it be just as safe anyway? im a mech-e, and we always thought of wires as pipes, with water flowing thru. having it bigger is better than having it smaller, just to be on the safe side.

i'm asking cuz im about to do some custom wiring and i dont wanna see my PC up in smoke.
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post #4 of 8
6/5/12 at 9:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Simplynicko View Post

let's say it's rated at 20 AWG, and i use 18 or 16. because the wire is thicker, wouldn't it be just as safe anyway? im a mech-e, and we always thought of wires as pipes, with water flowing thru. having it bigger is better than having it smaller, just to be on the safe side.
i'm asking cuz im about to do some custom wiring and i dont wanna see my PC up in smoke.

Theoretically, yes.
However, if you're going into your original wiring holes, 18 or 16ga probably won't be fitting through that.

If you use 20AWG, and it gets warm, then yes, I would swap to 18/16.
Otherwise, it's fine.
He said it only spikes @ 0.53A at startup, and 0.123 continuous.
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post #5 of 8
6/6/12 at 5:30am
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I just saw a friend use some Cat6 (22 AWG) cable to power 4 fans.  Was a very clean build.

 

For the record, even Cat5 (24 AWG) is capable of carrying 100 W safely to power end-devices using PoE.

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post #6 of 8
6/6/12 at 11:19am
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18 gauge Is used on all power supply's as standard so that will be fine
But I think fan cables are 22 or 24 but I'd go with 18 if you are unsure. 16 or less is just overkill
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post #7 of 8
6/8/12 at 4:42pm
16-18 AWG power supply
18-20 AWG Floppy Drives
22-24 AWG FANS and is usually good to 2-3 A on 12v....but I think that the 24 AWG can only do like 1A @ 12v
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post #8 of 8
5/12/13 at 6:01pm
would it be safe to say that it is ok if I was to solder the standard fan cables (assuming 24AWG) to 18AWG cables? Or would I be better off just making 18AWG Extensions? Would 3x 18AWG fit within MDPC sleeving?

Sorry for hi-jacking the thread smile.gif
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