Hi folks, I'm upgrading the fans in my Vipar V240 so I thought I'd do a quick guide on how to before I do a grow with it.
This is just a guide, not a factory manual or a diy walkthrough, so if you can, for example, change a fan in a PC case and wire a plug you should be able to do this.
As with any home upgrade it's all down to you to make sure you don't blow yourself up, electrocute yourself or burn your house down or all 3 at once!
If in doubt I'd really, really recommend you don't and just save up for a silent panel like the HS1 or the new Clevergrows.
The stock fans in the panel are capable but very basic and loud standard 8cm 2 pin PC fans.
They run at 1400rpm continuously, draw 12v and 0.25amps and are not controllable even in a PC case as they are missing the 3rd yellow wire that reports rpm to PC motherboards, don't worry, it's definitely not an earth as you'll see later! Each fan moves about 25cfm.
Ideal for the job Vipar need them to do and they cost pennies in bulk but I want to find something better.
I decided to go for Arctic Cooling's F8TC Swiss-made 8cm high performance fans at £12 for 3 on ebay.
They have built in temperature control and a thermal probe but if you don't fancy that you can have the standard F8 model that runs constantly at 2000 rpm. Stay clear of the PWM version as that requires a PC motherboard to control it. Each fan moves about 25cfm.
They run at 500rpm until the temperature is above 32c when they switch up to 2000 rpm. They run on 5v to 12v and draw a maximum of 0.18 amps so a small saving on power use and therefore less heat already (cooler 12v converter box for a start). Even the non TC models will save you power and cool more efficiently at higher speeds. Each fan moves 31 cfm @ 2000 rpm
The fans have one extra silent blade and run at 0.3 sone @ 2000rpm which is about 60% quieter than the stock fans at 1400 rpm.
Anyway, on with the job in hand!
First thing is to undo the screws holding the two parts of the case together and then carefully lift one piece up and disconnect the wiring from the heat sink to the drivers so you can lay the two sections side by side. Notice I left one driver connected but that's just because I can't be arsed labeling which is which. It shouldn't make a difference which driver is connected where but I prefer to stick with the factory choice that I know works.
Now you can see the fans clearly and it's very easy to just unscrew them and disconnect the wires. I haven't cleaned the panel yet as I wanted to show you how surprisingly clean it stayed and by extension how clean the tents stayed over the past year. Nice to confirm the other panels should be clean without having to open them up until I see if this upgrade works.
Now you've got your fans out you can start getting the new ones ready for fitting.
First you need to separate the yellow wire and snip it off close to the fan case, it's the same yellow wire I mentioned earlier that we don't
need. Once you've done that you can snip the black and red wires from below the connector at the other end.
Now you've got the same wiring as the old fans plus the sensor probe.
Wrap the sensor probe round the fan case and leave the probe sticking up as pictured, I've married the case parts up already with one fan
screwed in to make sure the probe is just shy of touching the heatsink. Don't worry about overheating, these new fans will move enough air to avoid overheating issues even at 500 rpm and the built in control is very sensitive so they will switch up to full speed within 0.1c of 32c.
Once your probes are in place you can wrap the power cable round too obviously leaving enough to work with but we'll get to siting the fans and probes in a second.
One thing to bear in mind now is that I've decided to reverse the airflow direction to the factory fans.
They suck air in from the 3 vents on top of the case and vent out the sides, I can't work out why as that means that not only are they sucking the hotter air in the tent in from above but they are venting the hot air out of the sides straight at any other panels you may have in the tent. I guess I'll find out really quickly if I'm wrong but you'll have to wait and see what happens just like me
After giving the case a bit of a clean you can take your fans and slot them in, I've positioned them so that the probes are closest to the
drivers because those are the hottest parts of the panel to touch when the light is running. It's a good idea to get all your wiring sited nice
and tidily now, use the fan screws to guide the wires wherever you want them, just don't tighten them fully.
Once you are happy with the positioning and you've got enough wire to reach the supply cabels you can carefully tighten the screws taking vast amounts of OCD type care not the pinch or tear any of the wiring wrapped round the fan cases. They don't need to be super tight but they do need to be evenly tight as if you warp the fan casing even slightly it can make it noisy and eventually bugger up the bearing.
Now it's just a case of snipping the old two pin connectors off the power supply cables and connecting red to red and black to black. I've used insulation tape which is good up to 600w but you can use your connector of choice.
A quick tidy up, replace the cable ties I snipped to get the wire lengths and if you're happy it's all secure then you can slot the two halves back together.
Et voila, you've got a whisper quiet panel that uses a little bit less power than before, moves more air and controls itself.
I've had it on for a couple of hours now and there is a noticable difference in that the case hotspots that were present where the drivers are located have now gone. I can feel the heated air blowing off the top now and since previously the heat wasn't noticeably dissipated out the sides I can only conclude that reversing the fan direction is more efficent at pulling the heat away from the drivers this way round. The other side of the panel feels the same as before, the glass is warm but not too hot.
That's just an initial impression, I'll be running it for a couple of days checking it regularly for any overheating issues and I'll take it apart after 48hrs continuous use to check visually for any problems inside.
I'll decide if it's worth doing to the other panels after I'm happy it's not done any harm and it's doing a better job than the stock fans. I'll get hold of a thermal probe and take a few heat measurements from the upgraded V240 and the stock V300 over the next month and let you know the results on here. I'll then upgrade the V300 as well and see what the difference is like for like.
The only thing I can say for now is that it's much quieter, can't hear it at all at full speed over the noise of the extractor fan at half speed. It's also added to the thermodynamics of the tent pulling cooler air up from below and venting it towards the extractor so if I do the other panels the extractor fan will be that bit more effective at getting the warm air out of the tent come summer
As always any questions welcome either by PM but preferably on this thread for all to share!
This is just a guide, not a factory manual or a diy walkthrough, so if you can, for example, change a fan in a PC case and wire a plug you should be able to do this.
As with any home upgrade it's all down to you to make sure you don't blow yourself up, electrocute yourself or burn your house down or all 3 at once!
If in doubt I'd really, really recommend you don't and just save up for a silent panel like the HS1 or the new Clevergrows.
The stock fans in the panel are capable but very basic and loud standard 8cm 2 pin PC fans.
They run at 1400rpm continuously, draw 12v and 0.25amps and are not controllable even in a PC case as they are missing the 3rd yellow wire that reports rpm to PC motherboards, don't worry, it's definitely not an earth as you'll see later! Each fan moves about 25cfm.
Ideal for the job Vipar need them to do and they cost pennies in bulk but I want to find something better.
I decided to go for Arctic Cooling's F8TC Swiss-made 8cm high performance fans at £12 for 3 on ebay.
They have built in temperature control and a thermal probe but if you don't fancy that you can have the standard F8 model that runs constantly at 2000 rpm. Stay clear of the PWM version as that requires a PC motherboard to control it. Each fan moves about 25cfm.
They run at 500rpm until the temperature is above 32c when they switch up to 2000 rpm. They run on 5v to 12v and draw a maximum of 0.18 amps so a small saving on power use and therefore less heat already (cooler 12v converter box for a start). Even the non TC models will save you power and cool more efficiently at higher speeds. Each fan moves 31 cfm @ 2000 rpm
The fans have one extra silent blade and run at 0.3 sone @ 2000rpm which is about 60% quieter than the stock fans at 1400 rpm.
Anyway, on with the job in hand!
First thing is to undo the screws holding the two parts of the case together and then carefully lift one piece up and disconnect the wiring from the heat sink to the drivers so you can lay the two sections side by side. Notice I left one driver connected but that's just because I can't be arsed labeling which is which. It shouldn't make a difference which driver is connected where but I prefer to stick with the factory choice that I know works.
Now you can see the fans clearly and it's very easy to just unscrew them and disconnect the wires. I haven't cleaned the panel yet as I wanted to show you how surprisingly clean it stayed and by extension how clean the tents stayed over the past year. Nice to confirm the other panels should be clean without having to open them up until I see if this upgrade works.
Now you've got your fans out you can start getting the new ones ready for fitting.
First you need to separate the yellow wire and snip it off close to the fan case, it's the same yellow wire I mentioned earlier that we don't
need. Once you've done that you can snip the black and red wires from below the connector at the other end.
Now you've got the same wiring as the old fans plus the sensor probe.
Wrap the sensor probe round the fan case and leave the probe sticking up as pictured, I've married the case parts up already with one fan
screwed in to make sure the probe is just shy of touching the heatsink. Don't worry about overheating, these new fans will move enough air to avoid overheating issues even at 500 rpm and the built in control is very sensitive so they will switch up to full speed within 0.1c of 32c.
Once your probes are in place you can wrap the power cable round too obviously leaving enough to work with but we'll get to siting the fans and probes in a second.
One thing to bear in mind now is that I've decided to reverse the airflow direction to the factory fans.
They suck air in from the 3 vents on top of the case and vent out the sides, I can't work out why as that means that not only are they sucking the hotter air in the tent in from above but they are venting the hot air out of the sides straight at any other panels you may have in the tent. I guess I'll find out really quickly if I'm wrong but you'll have to wait and see what happens just like me
After giving the case a bit of a clean you can take your fans and slot them in, I've positioned them so that the probes are closest to the
drivers because those are the hottest parts of the panel to touch when the light is running. It's a good idea to get all your wiring sited nice
and tidily now, use the fan screws to guide the wires wherever you want them, just don't tighten them fully.
Once you are happy with the positioning and you've got enough wire to reach the supply cabels you can carefully tighten the screws taking vast amounts of OCD type care not the pinch or tear any of the wiring wrapped round the fan cases. They don't need to be super tight but they do need to be evenly tight as if you warp the fan casing even slightly it can make it noisy and eventually bugger up the bearing.
Now it's just a case of snipping the old two pin connectors off the power supply cables and connecting red to red and black to black. I've used insulation tape which is good up to 600w but you can use your connector of choice.
A quick tidy up, replace the cable ties I snipped to get the wire lengths and if you're happy it's all secure then you can slot the two halves back together.
Et voila, you've got a whisper quiet panel that uses a little bit less power than before, moves more air and controls itself.
I've had it on for a couple of hours now and there is a noticable difference in that the case hotspots that were present where the drivers are located have now gone. I can feel the heated air blowing off the top now and since previously the heat wasn't noticeably dissipated out the sides I can only conclude that reversing the fan direction is more efficent at pulling the heat away from the drivers this way round. The other side of the panel feels the same as before, the glass is warm but not too hot.
That's just an initial impression, I'll be running it for a couple of days checking it regularly for any overheating issues and I'll take it apart after 48hrs continuous use to check visually for any problems inside.
I'll decide if it's worth doing to the other panels after I'm happy it's not done any harm and it's doing a better job than the stock fans. I'll get hold of a thermal probe and take a few heat measurements from the upgraded V240 and the stock V300 over the next month and let you know the results on here. I'll then upgrade the V300 as well and see what the difference is like for like.
The only thing I can say for now is that it's much quieter, can't hear it at all at full speed over the noise of the extractor fan at half speed. It's also added to the thermodynamics of the tent pulling cooler air up from below and venting it towards the extractor so if I do the other panels the extractor fan will be that bit more effective at getting the warm air out of the tent come summer
As always any questions welcome either by PM but preferably on this thread for all to share!
