Home made fan controller
airbornflght
Houston, TX Icrontian
alright, I saw an article on how to do this, so i bought all the stuff for around $20. I ordered 6 sub mini toggles on/on dpdt, and 5 dual color LED's and one amber led.
I also order bezels to give a more "finished" look to the controler, along with some heat shrink, resistors and wire. I thought I was set.
I got these switches out of the box and all I can say, is holy crap. they ARE sub mini. teeny weeny, not really but pretty small.
So I proceed to drill all of the holes in a 5.25" drive bay cover. and put all the componets in. great. everything looks good, except where i got distracted by my dog and drilled one of the led holes at an angle. a little gap around one side of the bezel is there, but nothing that I cant live with.
When operational, the controller will have 5 molex connectors, and an extra to power the thing. I used dual pole dual throw switches that had no off, because my down on will actually be off, but i needed to power the red side of the led, and when the switch is turned "on" the same red led will turn green. I think that is pretty neat.
So i start to solder this thing, and uh-oh, the only solder iron i can find is a 300 watt bahemouth. so i go and buy a slightly smaller 30 watt iron. I have soldered a lot of things from launch controllers for model rockets, to slightly easier things. but the contacts on this switch are like .1" apart from each other and im having trouble soldering this small of thing, with what i thought was a small iron, now appears way to large to be precise. I have also created a gouge in the tip of my iron by soldering on the tip instead of heat the work with the tip and puting the solder on the work. oh well. but when i try to heat the work, i can not get the wires hot enough for the solder to solidify.
I can solder the resistors to the led's and stuff like that, but when it comes to those damned switches i cant do it with six contacts in one little spot.
Does anyone have any advice. other wise i have a really pretty, but inoperable faceplate.
I also order bezels to give a more "finished" look to the controler, along with some heat shrink, resistors and wire. I thought I was set.
I got these switches out of the box and all I can say, is holy crap. they ARE sub mini. teeny weeny, not really but pretty small.
So I proceed to drill all of the holes in a 5.25" drive bay cover. and put all the componets in. great. everything looks good, except where i got distracted by my dog and drilled one of the led holes at an angle. a little gap around one side of the bezel is there, but nothing that I cant live with.
When operational, the controller will have 5 molex connectors, and an extra to power the thing. I used dual pole dual throw switches that had no off, because my down on will actually be off, but i needed to power the red side of the led, and when the switch is turned "on" the same red led will turn green. I think that is pretty neat.
So i start to solder this thing, and uh-oh, the only solder iron i can find is a 300 watt bahemouth. so i go and buy a slightly smaller 30 watt iron. I have soldered a lot of things from launch controllers for model rockets, to slightly easier things. but the contacts on this switch are like .1" apart from each other and im having trouble soldering this small of thing, with what i thought was a small iron, now appears way to large to be precise. I have also created a gouge in the tip of my iron by soldering on the tip instead of heat the work with the tip and puting the solder on the work. oh well. but when i try to heat the work, i can not get the wires hot enough for the solder to solidify.
I can solder the resistors to the led's and stuff like that, but when it comes to those damned switches i cant do it with six contacts in one little spot.
Does anyone have any advice. other wise i have a really pretty, but inoperable faceplate.
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