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Possible to solder fan connections for OEM Mac Pro 2013 top fan?

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Apr 26, 2012
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Motherboard
Z68ma-D2H-B3 UEFI U1C Bios
CPU
i5 2500k
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Gigabyte GTX 970 Mini
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  1. 0
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  1. iBook
  2. iMac
  3. Power Mac
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I'm very interested in doing a mac pro 2013 case mod and I think it would be a nice touch to have a real mac pro fan on the top for functional and aesthetic reasons.

Looking into the teardown for the fan it uses ribbon cables to transfer data from the wifi card and the fan to the main board. How would I go about connecting just the fan to a standard 3/4 pin fan connector? It seems feasible, has anyone else out there looked into this? Knowing the pinouts or how to determine them would be helpful.
It would also be great to have the wifi card built into the top to solve some potential wifi connectivity issues I've been reading about.

Pictures to illustrate what I'm talking about:
Capture d'écran 2015-03-26 19.53.05.png
Just one ribbon cable for the fan that looks like it also detaches from the boardCapture d'écran 2015-03-26 19.56.10.png
Looks like there's 2 ribbon cables going into the wifi card adapter. Fan -> adapter -> mainboard

Close up of the fan connector (small one on the bottom). Seems like a lot of pins for just a fan!
Capture d'écran 2015-03-26 20.12.47.jpg
Capture d'écran 2015-03-26 20.12.02.png
How could I go about testing each pin to see what they do?

Thanks!

-Jrdn
 
I think the best you can do is to follow the traces on the PCB and see where that go. You might be able to use a multimeter and check for voltage or connectivity to the fan but theres not much you can do other than maybe find a pinout diagram online.

I was just thinking that maybe if you were to disassemble it a little more, you'd be able to find where the stators for the fan connect and you might be able to use a fan hub from a different fan connected to the stators to get it to work.
 
I think the best you can do is to follow the traces on the PCB and see where that go. You might be able to use a multimeter and check for voltage or connectivity to the fan but theres not much you can do other than maybe find a pinout diagram online.

I was just thinking that maybe if you were to disassemble it a little more, you'd be able to find where the stators for the fan connect and you might be able to use a fan hub from a different fan connected to the stators to get it to work.


An update!
I am unfortunately unable to take the fan apart, the bearing it uses is all sealed off and I don't feel comfortable pulling on it. So, I am stuck with the visible side of the PCB. I did buy a multimeter like you suggested and tested the connections that I thought were designed for wires. Here is the diagram I made. Can any conclusions be drawn from the points I mapped out in regards to 12v and ground and possibly sense and PWM?
iLF671z.jpg
 
An update!
I am unfortunately unable to take the fan apart, the bearing it uses is all sealed off and I don't feel comfortable pulling on it. So, I am stuck with the visible side of the PCB. I did buy a multimeter like you suggested and tested the connections that I thought were designed for wires. Here is the diagram I made. Can any conclusions be drawn from the points I mapped out in regards to 12v and ground and possibly sense and PWM?
Well investigated so far, here is my opinion.

You seem to have identified that the ribbon cable carries only four signals. Clearly the red and the purple (1 and 4) are the main power, but which is which? To identify which is GND I would connect the WIFI board back into the cable. The WIFI radios should be highly shielded (to GND), so finding continuity to either (1 or 4) to a large GND point on the WIFI side will confirm GND. Clearly the other pin is then +12V

Then simply connecting a 12V power source, should (?) then make the fan work, at full speed! I say should (?) because this really assumes that this behaves like a standard PC fan.

As to the Green Yellow (2 and 3) pins are control signals, if the above works one could assume that these are the other two pins on a four pin fan. There are a couple of ways to test this.

1) Find the Tachometer output, really you need an oscilloscope, or frequency counter to identify this signal coming from the pin
2) Identify the PWM input. The safest way is to simply GND a PIN. If the fan stops rotating then this is likely the PWM fan speed control pin.

ALSO

Regarding the reuse of the WIFI card, you would need to identify the part number, and see if and how others may have re-used it, the big issue will be adapting it to fit in a standard motherboard socket. If this doesn't work out, then you should definitely be about to reuse the antennas, you just need appropriate antenna extension cables.

Good Luck
Kiwi
 
I am happy to report success!!

Pin 1 - 12v
Pin 2 - Tach/Sense
Pin 3 - PWM
Pin 4 - Ground

Based on what I mapped out I also thought that 1 and 4 were 12v and ground based on how often they came up, but which one?! Based on a suggestion from another forum I took the plunge and tested it out.

I found that with just 12v and ground connected the fan didn't want to spin. I then attached the PWM and Tach and the fan spun up just fine. It comes up in HWMonitor and iStat with the RPM and I can audibly hear it throttle up and down. In BIOS it got up to ~1500 RPM and in OSX right now it hovers around ~1150 RPM. Looks like from benchmarks I found it can get up to 1900 RPM with ~45dB


Now I just have to get a way to route the cable out of the bottom where the ribbon cable is designed for. And get a way to mount it...
And get a wifi card in the top...


IMG_1872.jpgIMG_1864.jpgIMG_1870.jpgIMG_1871.jpg
 
Is it possible to reverse the fan direction? I am looking to put one at the bottom of my design and push air up and through my design. I want to turn it upside down with the smaller end pointing down / bigger end pointing up.

Thanks.
 
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