Quote Originally Posted by geezer View Post
The wattage draw on the fan it self is peanuts, the main juice is the watercooler, when you shut the water cooler off the 1.6 amp draw will reduce dramatically.

one other thing, you don't need microproccesors and all that high tech stuff to control a fan, a simple bimetal strip will move back and forth just like your house hold thermostat and open and close the switch. there are simple thermal switches that start and stop your furnace motor, that kinda stuff. placing them in the right location so they do the job is another challange for the would be DIY guy.

Bottom line: nice idea, but not worth the hassle, would not want my machine to go into over heat and burn up because I was trying to save a few pennies.
the fan on the 256 pulls .6 amps and the cooler was a little over 1 amp. You're still not getting what I'm saying as a bi metal strip takes too long to react to a change in temp and by that time the components have already heated up and you're behind the power curve. Hence the hall effect sensor. If/when I get around to building it, I'll post up pics