Submitted by: Unknown
Here’s a sweet video showing how to make your own USB powered fan. – Frankie Fix-It
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Holy **** ! I’m making one now xD
it’s cool, but it’s not a fix
it is if you’re really hot and don’t have a fan.
…but happen to have a cork, small motor, TP tube and spare USB cable around.
half of this place’s readers have them, if not in their back pockets, at least on the desk next to that PSU and Socket 7 motherboard…
Fix the lack of a real fan. Ahá.
its kinda a fix… useless cd becoming handy
it doesn’t have to “fix anything” it just has to be a kludge, which this is.
sure its a fix, if you don’t have a fan. It would be easier to fanfold a sheet of paper.
Works best with AOL CDs
Always good to find for more uses for those things.
Darn, you beat me to it.
Connecting a random ‘small’ motor to a USB port is not a great idea.
Why is that? Because the definitions of “small” differ?
Because USB has defined power draw limits and the device should actively notify the hub/controller about eh power draw it is taking. Just hooking up a motor to the power lines of any port with no limiting resistors or anything is considered a BAD THING by any sort of electrical design.
Hey, you can always build a second fan and head it inside the CPU to avoid it getting on fire… that IS a kludge!
In a perfect world, yes: Everything that draws power from a USB port should be talking to the host controller and letting the host controller know what it’s power profile is and so on. But the USB SIG knew that we don’t live in a perfect world, so they designed USB ports to be able to handle devices that draw electrical power without even communicating with the hub or the host controller at all. That’s why USB powered fans and spotlights and cigarette lighters and coffee cup warmers are safe to use: The device doesn’t have to be “smart” because the host controller is smart enough to know how to handle “dumb” devices. This feature is actually one of the reasons why USB has become so popular: USB doesn’t force electrical engineers to overbuild their devices, unlike a number of other ports I could mention.
Yes but a “small” motor can easily draw more current than the USB port allows. When you are the owner of a decent USB chipset, the chipset will simply shut down the port if this happens.
A lot of chipsets however, do not measure the current and will go up in smoke while providing insane amounts of power to the random appliance…
I’d stick to a current-limited design instead of directly hooking up an electric motor to my pc…
A. Electrical noise
B. Current draw limits per-port
C. No back-EMF protection
you missed, no short circuit protection, and ohh yea, motherboard fires.
Hey, guys, if this was a serious project or technically accurate instructions on how to build a usb powered fan, it wouldn’t be posted here… You all are missing the point…
The puns mostly left with Ms Fix-It. We’re left with a whole bunch of engineers and technicians
Not to mention what will happen when one of the loosened blades comes flying off and kills your cat.
omg… I gotta build one right now
I need to build three and pray for loose blades
ask my neighbor to watch the cats. 1 down , two to go!
Oh hell, I just watched this and was SUPER annoyed by the use of “engine” in place of “motor”. There IS a difference.
Oh hell, exactly!! me tooo!
A Random Pooka – This.
A Random Pooka – Maybe this will make people remember the difference.
http://jalopnik.com/5619875/thats-not-an-engine-thats-an-engine
Phew, who broke wind?
No one – this FIXED it!
Now _that’s_ a kludge! Not a great one, in that it’s really more of a cobble: making something from scratch, as opposed to repairing something that doesn’t work anymore, but still– cuts above what we’ve been seeing of late.
And it does have the best parts of a kludge: total disregard for specifications, easily-repeatable by equally-uninformed individuals, and the potential for expensive damage (cooking the computer with an unregulated load) and grave personal injury (a jaggedy CD spinning at who-knows-how-many RPMs, held in place only by the friction of a cork on a tiny metal shaft.
Yes. Much better than what we’ve been seeing of late.
Thanks, Frankie. I think perhaps you’re starting to understand.
they are just showing that they are a kludge fan.
does it work with rewritable cds also? xD
Hey look at that *plink* ARGH! Did anyone see where my finger went?
Congrats for the maker of this excellent kludge. My only beef is durability. That fan is *bound* to be unbalanced, and could eventually shake itself apart (ie. the stand will detach from the base, or the motor will detach from the stand). Luckily, that can be fixed by applying more glue
Blood is good glue
“Pleasent”?
WOW! This just saved me $8!!!!11
and ZOMG… it makes the feathers move!
I wouldn’t put my hand near that even if you gave me money. That thing is just unsafe.
I’m guessing the use of the word ‘engine’ is because the producer of this clip is a French speaker. The French word ‘moteur’ will translate to either engine or motor, depending where you translate it.
It requires the kind of small motor you can obtain from any… uh…small… usb fan… oh whatever.
We just bought one at the store. it has LED lights which spell stuff when it’s blowing. a lot easier
grts Roxis the Dark
Too bad you can’t blow away the smoke once it is ascending from your PC’s mainboard.
OMG thats epic haha
am amused with all these comments no ones said “just wack it on a spare molex inside the case”, sure that means poping the screws out but hey if your going to make a fan removing you already have some loose screws
but yes more then 500mA will “damage” most HC’s
For anyone who’s a big fan of hardware hacking