crossflow fan for amplifier?

[Goldtaz1 10+ year member]

I bought a crossflow cooling fan for my amplifier and it came with two wires that have me a little puzzled. One of the wires is red and the other is blue. From what I understand about car audio my thinking is that the blue wire should be wired into my remote and the red wire should be wired into a positive power source. From the research I have conducted on this topic, so folks say to just hook the wires up to the amplifiers remote and positive terminal blocks, whereas some say the remote needs to run through a relay switch. I am not sure how to wire this thing up, can someone please provide the absolute correct way to wire this fan up?

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[hoaxci5 10+ year member]

If it's like any other cooling fan (computer fans) which it looks like from a quick search a found a stinger branded fan.

Then Red is positive (remote wire on amp) and blue is ground (ground on amp) if you reverse the wires all that will happen is the fan will spin in the opposite direction.

If you hook to remote and positive on the amp it won't be a complete curcuit. all DC electronics need a ground connection.

 

[jrz126 10+ year member]

The red should go to +12 and the blue should go to ground. It'll just spin backwards if you wire it the opposite way (its kinda dependent on the type of fan though)

The fan wont work if you wire it as you said though, since the remote wire goes to +12V when turned on. You'd end up with both wires on +12V.

You should run it from a relay. The remote wire is typically capable of driving 500 milliamps. and with the 2 amps you're running now, I'd say you're drawing ~250mA from it now. It might work, but its best not to chance it.

 

[jujumantb 10+ year member]

come on man! If you've learned ONE thing about how electricity operates, its that its needs to be in a complete circuit, meaning power AND ground. If you hooked one wire up to a 12+ constant, and the other up to a 12+ when they deck is on, you wont have a ground hence no complete circuit, one of them has to ground... and considering red ALWAYS should mean positive, the blue is your ground.

 

[Goldtaz1 10+ year member]

Ok, well if the blue is the ground then should the red connect to a relay switch that is in line on my current remote wire? I already have three appliances (two amps and a crossover) running off my remote wire with no relay switch. At what point will I create problems for my headunit to turn everything on?

 

[Goldtaz1 10+ year member]

Let's answer my last question.

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Put a 500mA inline fuse with it, if it pulls more current than that, at least you won't fry something internally on the head unit. The Xover shouldn't take too much current to start up.