Question RGB splitter hub amp question

Flamebrander

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Trying to find out amp info for this or one of the ten zillion identical copies of it on Amazon and Aliexpress. https://www.amazon.com/Splitter-PMM...9Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

Closest I can find is some are saying 4.5 amps, some are saying 5 amps. But my question is, is that in total, or per header? I have no idea how many amps a sata power cable can provide.

That's made for all headers to be occupied, so a SATA will be able to power it without a problem. Hope this helps!
 

NadeMagnet69

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I bought it and it's working with 6 Phantek fan frames, 2 Airgoo led strips, and 1 Thermaltake ram cover. I added all that up and that should be 7.3 amps. So even if 4.5 or 5 amps, that must mean per header and not in total? I only have the most basic knowledge of how electricity works. If it was overloading the box with amps shouldn't it be getting hot at least?
 

Flamebrander

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I bought it and it's working with 6 Phantek fan frames, 2 Airgoo led strips, and 1 Thermaltake ram cover. I added all that up and that should be 7.3 amps. So even if 4.5 or 5 amps, that must mean per header and not in total? I only have the most basic knowledge of how electricity works. If it was overloading the box with amps shouldn't it be getting hot at least?

Amps are the measurement of current, or how much power is flowing through a wire. More amps means more watts of transfer, meaning more power goes to a certain thing. Now, the splitter's job is to take the current from your 12v power supply, and convert it to a 5v rail for the adressable rgb leds. In other words, think of it as a mini vrm just for your leds.

Since we know that the leds take their power from the box, it is limited to the amps that the box itself is drawing from the power supply. Now, I'm not sure where it saves the power, but I'm guessing that it takes a bit more than a 12v rail to do suffice. So, it won't break anything, but it will most likely heat up, so give it some passive airflow, like around your hard drive and power supply.

Hope this helps!
 

NadeMagnet69

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Just checked again after it's been running for 5 hours. It's not even warm much less hot. I tired to ask the Amazon seller if it's 5 amps in total or per header. lol Got a response "Dear customer. 5amps." Obvious language barrier going on there. Which isn't surprising since aside from the few which have ROG printed on them, numerous of the rest on Amazon are identicle to each other. Aliexpress has ten zillion more times than Amazon. They're obviously being made at the same place in China.
 

Flamebrander

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Just checked again after it's been running for 5 hours. It's not even warm much less hot. I tired to ask the Amazon seller if it's 5 amps in total or per header. lol Got a response "Dear customer. 5amps." Obvious language barrier going on there. Which isn't surprising since aside from the few which have ROG printed on them, numerous of the rest on Amazon are identicle to each other. Aliexpress has ten zillion more times than Amazon. They're obviously being made at the same place in China.

Honestly, it sounds like your leds amperage was just a tdp, just like how they say cpus can go up to 95 watts but usually use like 20-30 watts. Since theres no heat, your splitter will be fine.
 

NadeMagnet69

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Honestly, it sounds like your leds amperage was just a tdp, just like how they say cpus can go up to 95 watts but usually use like 20-30 watts. Since theres no heat, your splitter will be fine.
I made sure to contact everyone except thermaltake. I just went off their site to get the figure of 1.3A for the ram cover.
The airgoo strips are .84 each so that's 1.68. The Phantek digital ARGB fan frames are .72A each so that's 4.32A. (For anyone who comes across this thread, the non digital RGB Phantek frames are .42A each.)
So my total is 7.3 amps. The person that responded from Airgoo said that figure was if it was white which should be the highest power to achieve. I didn't get such info from Phantek but I also tried switching everything to white and still no heat. So I don't know, maybe you're right. All I was worried about was frying something or worse case scenario, a fire. So at least I now have a ballpark figure for my other ARGB header. That one just has 4 Airgoo strips daisy chained without the powered splitter box. So I could get another box and add more if I want down the road.
 

Flamebrander

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I made sure to contact everyone except thermaltake. I just went off their site to get the figure of 1.3A for the ram cover.
The airgoo strips are .84 each so that's 1.68. The Phantek digital ARGB fan frames are .72A each so that's 4.32A. (For anyone who comes across this thread, the non digital RGB Phantek frames are .42A each.)
So my total is 7.3 amps. The person that responded from Airgoo said that figure was if it was white which should be the highest power to achieve. I didn't get such info from Phantek but I also tried switching everything to white and still no heat. So I don't know, maybe you're right. All I was worried about was frying something or worse case scenario, a fire. So at least I now have a ballpark figure for my other ARGB header. That one just has 4 Airgoo strips daisy chained without the powered splitter box. So I could get another box and add more if I want down the road.

If it's not heating up, then I'm assuming it means 4.3 amps to each individual led, so it has different channels that all split off from the single sata power connecter. Now that I think about it, I think that's how a fan splitter works either way.
 

NadeMagnet69

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If it's not heating up, then I'm assuming it means 4.3 amps to each individual led, so it has different channels that all split off from the single sata power connecter. Now that I think about it, I think that's how a fan splitter works either way.
Well it would be even less than 4.3. I have 2 140mm Phanteks daisy chained which is 1.44A, 2 120mm Phan Frame chained, another 1.44A. Another 2 120mm chained, 1.44A. The 2 LED strips chained, 1.68A. And the RAM cover, 1.3A. So I'm only using 6 out of the 12 headers on the box. 5 for the ARGB items and 1 for the signal to the MOBO's Polychrome sync to control it all. lol Makes me wonder if I can populate the other 6 headers. I do still have 3 empty Noctua 140mm on the top as exhaust. But you can't really see them so I wouldn;t waste the money. I wouldn't mind a couple more of those airgoo strips though. They're bendable and are great for direct viewing. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08DKPYZ7L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
View: https://imgur.com/a/zwWdtms

View: https://imgur.com/a/RH8xxRL

View: https://imgur.com/a/zyxR6lc

lol Yes I know the cable management is a rat's nest. I'm making a PSU shroud and waiting until I can get a 3080 to finish the rest of the management.
 

NadeMagnet69

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Got a response clarifying.
"Each interface can support up to 5A current, the actual current is related to the number of light strips and fans you connect. The amount of this current depends on how many light strips and fans are connected, because it is powered directly by the SATA power port, not the motherboard, so it is no problem."
lol So not only is there no danger of frying anything, I can add a ton more items since I'm not even close to 5amps per header. Not sure if I'll bother to buy anymore since all my visible fans already have frames now. But I'll at least be able to take the 4 other LED strips I have daisy chained off my other MOBO ARGB header and have one less cable visible.
Now if I can only find a RGB program to replace the crappy Asrock Polychrome sync that can't even sync with itself properly. lol Which makes for quite an ironic name they picked since they put sync in it. For some reason on the Z490 Taichi at least, the 3 motherboard LED are only synced with the 2 RGB headers, and not the ARGB headers. So modes that don't let me pick color like wave or water mode, they'll start off as different colors and then run through the color cycles. On wave mode the ARGB all start off as neon green, and the MOBO and RGB headers start off as redish orange, they end up clashing colors and it doesn't look good. On water mode the ARGB usually start off red and the MOBO and RGB start off yellow. But here's the weird thing. Sometimes water does sync properly and everything starts off red if I turn everything off and go to water mode several times until they all show red. But that doesn't work for wave which of coarse is the mode I most want to use. lol Damn Murphy's law... So far the only fix I've found is running rainbow mode since it already has so many different colors at once, you can't see them clash. Or by simply turning off the 3 MOBO LED and not use the 12v RGB headers.