Dell PowerConnect fan question

[Percival P. Cassidy]

As anyone who owns one knows, the fans in a Dell PowerConnect 5324
network switch are horrendously noisy. Therefore, following the
suggestions I see all over the 'Net, I bought a pair of Sunon
KDE1204PKV3-MS.AF.GN fans.

One of the two new fans keeps the "Fan OK" LED green but does not spin.
The other one spins but activates the red "Fan Error" LED.

Is there any simple explanation for this? With the original Delta
screamers, the red LED switched on only when a fan was disconnected or
prevented from turning.

Anybody else here done this fan substitution? Does a "working" (i.e.,
spinning) Sunon fan activate the green fan LED rather than the red one?

Perce

[Jeff Liebermann]

I haven't done the fan transplant on a 5324 but have done it
successfully on other switches. There seems to be something fishy
about the 5324 connector wiring. See the video starting at 7:05.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkMBa2yfW4o>
My guess(tm) is that you have the RPM sensor wire going to the wrong
pin.

In the comments under the first comment by Brad Poulon is:
Muhammad Khan1 year ago
I installed the same fans on my PowerConnect 5324 as well, they
are not whisper quiet and the front FAN led blinks red. Did you
do the wire hack shown in the video? and also where did you get
the fans from? Much Appreciated!!?


--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[Percival P. Cassidy]

On 05/14/2016 10:14 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

>> As anyone who owns one knows, the fans in a Dell PowerConnect 5324
>> network switch are horrendously noisy. Therefore, following the
>> suggestions I see all over the 'Net, I bought a pair of Sunon
>> KDE1204PKV3-MS.AF.GN fans.
>>
>> One of the two new fans keeps the "Fan OK" LED green but does not spin.
>> The other one spins but activates the red "Fan Error" LED.
>>
>> Is there any simple explanation for this? With the original Delta
>> screamers, the red LED switched on only when a fan was disconnected or
>> prevented from turning.
>>
>> Anybody else here done this fan substitution? Does a "working" (i.e.,
>> spinning) Sunon fan activate the green fan LED rather than the red one?
>
> I haven't done the fan transplant on a 5324 but have done it
> successfully on other switches. There seems to be something fishy
> about the 5324 connector wiring. See the video starting at 7:05.
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkMBa2yfW4o>
> My guess(tm) is that you have the RPM sensor wire going to the wrong
> pin.
>
> In the comments under the first comment by Brad Poulon is:
> Muhammad Khan1 year ago
> I installed the same fans on my PowerConnect 5324 as well, they
> are not whisper quiet and the front FAN led blinks red. Did you
> do the wire hack shown in the video? and also where did you get
> the fans from? Much Appreciated!!?

I switched the connections around the same way as the original Delta
fans: Red, Yellow (the originals were blue), Black, instead of the
Black, Red, Yellow sequence with which the new fans came.

I do see one difference between the fans I bought and the ones referred
to in Brad Poulton's comment on YouTube: mine are KDE1204PKV3-MS.AF.GN,
whereas he mentions KDE1204PKV3-MS.AR.GN

Perce

[legg]

methinks that is just direction of airflow.

RL

[Jeff Liebermann]

Yep. That's correct and required. However, if wired correctly, the
fan should spin even if the RPM wire was disconnected. I smell a
defective fan. Try powering the red/black wires with an external 12V
source. If the one that doesn't spin continues to fail to spin, it's
a bad fan. The other fan seems to act like the RPM wire is
disconnected, not sending a signal, or sending the wrong signal. Two
defective fans?

Did you notice in the YouTube video that the author had to replace the
fans twice? The 2nd time, the vendor shipped him 2 out of 3 defective
fans.

>I do see one difference between the fans I bought and the ones referred
>to in Brad Poulton's comment on YouTube: mine are KDE1204PKV3-MS.AF.GN,
>whereas he mentions KDE1204PKV3-MS.AR.GN

I Googled for what the various dealers are selling in the way of
replacement quiet fans. 1300 hits for AR and 2300 hits for AF.

Ah, found the catalog page:
<https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/Sunon%20PDFs/Maglev%20Catalog.pdf>
See bottom of Pg 08.
MS = Maglev
GN = RoHS compliant
AR = Autorestart + 3rd wire with rotation detector waveform
AF = Autorestart + 3rd wire with frequency generation waveform
Well, there's the difference and possibly the culprit. Check what the
original Delta fan is putting out on the 3rd wire and buy whatever fan
is compatible. I think you can take it from here.

I still think your fan that doesn't spin is defective.

2:30AM. Maybe I should get some sleep...

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 15 May 2016 00:00:40 -0500, legg <le...@nospam.magma.ca> wrote:

>On Sat, 14 May 2016 23:22:15 -0400, "Percival P. Cassidy"

>>I do see one difference between the fans I bought and the ones referred
>>to in Brad Poulton's comment on YouTube: mine are KDE1204PKV3-MS.AF.GN,
>>whereas he mentions KDE1204PKV3-MS.AR.GN
>>Perce

>methinks that is just direction of airflow.
>RL

Wrong. See Pg 08
<https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/Sunon%20PDFs/Maglev%20Catalog.pdf>
to decode the part number.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

I did satisfy myself that the non-spinning fan was in fact defective,
and the seller (in China) refunded my money for that one fan. And as far
as I could find out, the 3rd wire on the original Delta fans put out a
"spinning" signal.

I now have a couple of KDE1204PKV3-MS.AR.GN fans from a different vendor
(nothing against the first one, but he didn't have the "AR" ones), and
they spin just fine, but the fan LED is reddish with flashes of green
rather than steady green. I guess I'll just put up with that.

Perce

[web...@gmail.com]

Did you ever do the pin switch as shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkMBa2yfW4o

The guy in the youtube comments says the KDE1204PKV3.MS.AR.GN w/ the pin swap works great.

That pdf posted does not help decode these part numbers heh:
KDE1204PKV3.MS.AR.GN
vs
KDE1204PKV3.MS.AF.GN

Also here: http://www.jonkensy.com/quiet-down-your-homelab/

[web...@gmail.com]

Here is another quote:

"Just a note to add that if you use the version of those Sunon fans with the "F" 3rd wire output (frequency or "tacho" output) then the switch will register a fan fail - you need the version that has the "R" (Rotation) type 3rd wire output which is a basic constant 5v or 0v output depending on whether the fan is stalled or running"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_dM0pBRfOI&t=0s

[Percival P. Cassidy]

Yes, I switched the pins, and, as I said, the LED is mostly reddish with
flashes of green. I guess it's just no spinning fast enough to keep the
Dell circuitry completely happy.

Perce

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 28 Aug 2016 09:55:32 -0700 (PDT), web...@gmail.com wrote:

>Did you ever do the pin switch as shown in this video:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkMBa2yfW4o

Nope. However, I just inherited a Dell 5424 that could use a fan
transplant. I might try it eventually, but not in the immediate
future. It's going into a mount top site where there's nobody to
complain about the noise.

>The guy in the youtube comments says the KDE1204PKV3.MS.AR.GN w/ the pin swap works great.

Looks good. It took him a few tries to get the power polarity
correct. The open question is whether the fan sense wire wants a DC
level to represent fan speed, or if it generates pulses. I still
don't have an answer and suggest you use an oscilloscope on the sense
wire to see what it's doing (with the original noisy fans). I can do
it in about a week (I'm on vacation this week) or I might sneak into
the office for one day this week.

>That pdf posted does not help decode these part numbers heh:
>KDE1204PKV3.MS.AR.GN
>vs
>KDE1204PKV3.MS.AF.GN

Dunno. All I have to work with on decoding the part number was on my
previous posting.

>Also here: http://www.jonkensy.com/quiet-down-your-homelab/

Same thing. Just juggle the wires and it should work, assuming that
you got lucky with the sense wire.

[Jeff Liebermann]

Well, that's your answer on the part number.

However, you can probably simulate the "R" type by simply integrating
the frequency output of the "F" type with a large capacitor. To the
Dell switch, the pulse train would look like a DC voltage. It's easy
enough but I don't want to recommend a circuit until I see what kind
of load the Dell represents (TTL, CMOS, transistor circuit, etc) and
what levels it expects.

F versus R type:
<http://www.sunon.com/uFiles/file/03_products/07-Technology/005.pdf>

You could also just pull down to ground the 3 fan sense wires on the
Dell. (see waveform on the R type above). There would not be any
indication of a fan failure, but it would work.