Emac Fan Project

Thanks Pistooli. I finally will get time to crack open the emac this weekend finally. I will definitely look at your post. Found the fan at Fry's - the last one they had in stock.

Is there a setting on the dial that I can just leave it at knowing it will be fast enough? I was hoping to be able to leave the controller inside the case and out of view but this might not be doable without first closing it all back up and turning it on? I suppose I can runt it from out the back as tidily as possible.

Also when you say "soldering" I'm hoping you are referring to the wire splicing that you did?

Wow I just saw you are in Budapest. Greetings to all from USA.

Ok well.... after hours spent putting in the hard drive, dvd burner, and the fan switch, and putting it all back together -- the eMac won't turn on! It makes a click and the screen makes a sound like it receives current but nothing else. No chime, no fans, no monitor output.

I might have killed it! But I was very careful with it so I am hoping that I can bring it back.

I also changed the PRAM battery and at first I was hoping it was only a matter of pressing the PMU button but no luck. Maybe I need to press it for longer? I pressed it for a full second then opened it again and tried it for about 2 seconds but same result.

I also un-installed the fan switch and connected the fan normally, but same results.

Pretty bummed but hopefully if I take out the motherboard again and re-seat it?

Thanks very much guys. I appreciate your input in my efforts to make useful what society says is obsolete! 🙂 Guess what? The eMac is back! 10.5 is beautiful so far. (10.6 was perfection, but of course, intel only). I have Lion on my Macbook and the emac is making me miss the "classic OS X"! Will post an update soon - have some questions.

roam I was hoping that something like that might be taking place but it turned out to be something else I believe.

I took out the logic board again and re-seated it. I think what may have happened is the blind mate port (if that's the name) was not completely connected because the power cable for the HD might have been improperly routed. The down converter has a notch that appears to be designed for those cables to pass through and they were not so maybe the wires were creating a gap even though it all appeared to be snapped in correctly.

So now it boots and it recognizes the new 300GB drive and the super drive. I installed OS X 10.5 on it and it is running it beautifully so far (not that I've gotten to do much except some basic user account creations and configurations).

The Zalman switch is in place. However, it does not seem to affect the speed at all. I take it there should be a clear correspondence b/w the dial and the sound/speed of the fan but there appears to be no change. I wonder what I did wrong. I did the splicing asyour picture indicated and wish I had taken a picture for you to check. I will need to do that at some point.

The name of the product is this: Zalman Fan Mate 2. The sticker from Fry's is covering up all the specifications on the package and can't be removed cleanly. The UPC is 823884100013

What I thought I was supposed to do to it is this:

Cut the cable of the Zalman product and then splice the female side to what was the male side, and the male side to what female side. When I did that, my colors matched your colors exactly on the splicing. Then I did shave one of connectors to make it fit into the emac's female connector I believe, and the other connector, I just broke off the tab at the top and that made it insertable on the emac's connector. I secured that connection with tape as well to keep it from slipping.

Just an update on my fan project. I think I know why it "didn't work". I believe I have a bad controller. When I pushed down on the button as I turned it once, I heard a definite correspondence to the speed and noise of the fan. I have since also managed to raise it back up, and hopefully all the way back down again because it's quieter again. If I simply turn the dial, no change, although it's possible that the change does eventually kick in but I'm not able to detect it. Even if I press down and turn, for the most part I get no response. It's ony occassionaly that I seem to get lucky. I went back to Fry's but they are completely out of the controller so I'll wait for them to stock some more, hopefully within a couple of weeks. There were willing to let me return mine w/o the cables.

I am pretty sure that I can get it back down to the lower setting if I haven't done so yet since raising it, and then I'll leave it alone. If I never replace the contoller, the "hack" would still have worked, as long as the emac doesn't overheat.

A couple of questions:

1. Do you guys know if raising it to the maximum speed makes the fan spin beyond it's default or does it simply set it to blow at its factory default?
2. Do you know if the emac varies the speed of the fan based on temp. sensors or does it come only with one speed?
3. When you turn your dial on your controller, does the fan immediately respond to the dial, or or is there a cycle that regulates when it checks for changes in voltage (or is it amps)?

Thank you very much for your help. Couldn't have done it w/o your assistance.

I'm tickled at how well the emac is running 10.5. Because it's sort of "off the grid" in terms of upates to most programs, it has a feel of a device. You turn it on and you know what it can do. Period! 🙂