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yoyoseby

Newbie

Farbwerk 360 and Quadro power usage combined

Tuesday, January 28th 2025, 6:17pm

Hello everyone, I'm planning a massive MO-RA IV 600 build and want to use many ARGB fans connected to a farbwerk360 for rgb and quadro for rpm. My questions are as follows:
1) farbwerk supposedly runs 360 leds in total but also has maximum 8A, so in that case, when using Arctic P14 PWM PST ARGB fans which use 0.4A, I can really only use 20 max, that means 240 leds.
If number 1 is true, the following question is: Is every port on the farbwerk getting max 2A, meaning that if I do decide to go full 20 fans I need to chain 5 fans on every port? I ask this because I want to route some fans from the case and as well and chaining maximum 5 fans to each port isn't really ideal to me. I would have preffered to chain them 6 - 5 - 5 - 4
2) quadro can give 25W max on each port, I don't really think I have a problem here, my plan is to chain 8 fans to one port and 8 to the other, that would be 16.32W per port, and use the other two ports for pump rpm, I just put this here to be sure.
3) and probably the most important one: can a single molex cable, run from the PSU, use some phobya molex extenders and a molex Y splitter at the end and power both the quadro and the farbwerk360 that will be powering all these fans i've been talking about?

WaterBoy61

Full Member

Saturday, February 1st 2025, 6:46pm

If you do not wish to daisy chain the RGB cables, you could use 2 Farbwerk 360`s. The only drawback is, the Farbwerk`s will not be sync`ed with the Quadro. You will have to control them separately. I did my RGB this way on my Octo.

Speedy-VI

Senior Member

Monday, February 3rd 2025, 4:08am

The only drawback is, the Farbwerk`s will not be sync`ed with the Quadro.
The 2 Farbwerk 360s will not be in sync either. I learned the hard way that RGBpx ports on different devices cannot be synched when I put 2 x Farbwerk360s in my last build. RGBpx port sync between devices, at least between 2 Farbwek360s, is something I asked about several times. A few years ago Aquacomputer said they were going to add RGBpx port sync, and they were going to greatly enhance the RGBpx platform in general with new features. They never did any of that.

I also asked them if they could add a simple Marquee lighting effect which is a pretty common effect. They said if I sent them a video of the effect, they would add it. When I sent the video, they said they would not add that effect, or any new effect, and I should just pick another preset from the list. Aquacomputer's presets are pretty basic and some of them have controls that are quite unintuitive. There are other RGB control programs out there that can do so much more. I guess Aquasuite had to put out something to cover the RGB craze, but they don't seem interested in improving RGBpx. I don't think they are ever going to add RGBpx port sync across devices, so when you are assigning RGBpx ports, keep in mind that there is no sync between RGBpx ports across devices.

Note - The RGBpx ports on the Farbwek360 can stack effects with transparency, which is a very powerful feature. The RBBpx ports on the Quadro, Octo, and other devices do not support stacked effects with transparency. There are other differences, like the total number of RGB controllers that can be used concurrently. Check the owners manuals for details.

Molex - Most LED effects do not consume anywhere near the max current the LEDs can draw when set to worst case White at full brightness. Whether you need to worry about total current draw from the LEDs depends on what lighting effects you are using, and what you set the brightness to. The fan motors will draw more current than the LEDs. A standard 18AWG 2-foot long 4-pin Molex power cable can pass 6 to 8 amps per conductor. Max power is ~96 watts on the 12VDC conductors and 40 watts on the 5VDC conductors. I suggest wiring up one of your 8-fan groups and measuring the current draw on the 12V and 5V conductors with a DC Ammeter. Check it when the fans are at max speed, and with whatever lighting effects you are planning to use. It probably will not be as high as you think it is. Make your decision based on measured values. If you need more power and don't have another Molex output on your PSU, you could use a SATA to Molex adapter for the LEDs, bearing in mind that SATA power is limited to 22.5W on the 5VDC rail. Since the fan motors will draw more current than the LEDs, I would leave the fan motors on Molex power.