USB Fan Help

[ascarygrunt]

My friend recently sold me a box of Xbox 360 parts for 10$. There are a lot of assorted parts and a few motherboards but for the most part just parts. I've recently taken an interest to things like wiring and electrical type stuff and I've been trying to do something useful with the parts. I just figured out a way to use an old USB connector from a broken mouse and hook it to a cooling fan from one of the broken Xboxes to make a USB powered fan. The fan (I'll post a picture below) has two fans that are supposed to spin. What I did was take the Red and Black wires from the first fan and connected them to the Red and Black ones from the USB connector. When I plug the USB into a port, the first fan spins up, but not the second one. I know why, because the Blue and Brown wires that lead to the second fan aren't connected to anything. My question is what would i connect it to? I'm not sure if all USB devices have the same wires within them but this one had the Red and Black wires, an uninsulated copper wire, a piece of string (don't know why), a green-ish colored wire and a white wire. Not sure if the Blue and Brown from the Xbox fan would go to the Green and White or if that wouldn't work. I would assume that the Blue and Brown ones do the same as the Red and Black but like I said i don't know what I would connect those to. Any help would be appreciated!

Fan Setup:

USB Wires:

 

[Rohit G Nair]

Try connecting the blue and brown to another usb wire(you arrange one) and connect both the usbs through an external usb hub and also check whether the second fan is functional or not.

 

[JOHNN93]

the green and the white are for data on the usb.the uninsulated is a grounded unshielded wire that wraps all of the four wires for noise canceling.
the red wire is 5 volts and the black wire is ground.
the usb can provide up to 5 volts 0.3 amps.
if the dc voltage on the fans are 12 volt they will turn on but do not expect major performance out of them.
to make both fans work while using one usb connect the red from one fan with the blue of the other and connect them to the red wire on the usb. do the same thing with the black and the brown and connect them to the black wire.this is how you connect them in parallel to ensure every one is getting the same voltage.
if one of them doesn't work the one with the blue and brown reverse what you did before.red with brown blue with black.

 

[ascarygrunt]

Try connecting the blue and brown to another usb wire(you arrange one) and connect both the usbs through an external usb hub and also check whether the second fan is functional or not.

Alright it worked. I took an old charger for a Blackberry phone and connected the blue and brown ones to the corresponding red and black and it works. Thanks

 

[ascarygrunt]

the green and the white are for data on the usb.the uninsulated is a grounded unshielded wire that wraps all of the four wires for noise canceling.
the red wire is 5 volts and the black wire is ground.
the usb can provide up to 5 volts 0.3 amps.
if the dc voltage on the fans are 12 volt they will turn on but do not expect major performance out of them.
to make both fans work while using one usb connect the red from one fan with the blue of the other and connect them to the red wire on the usb. do the same thing with the black and the brown and connect them to the black wire.this is how you connect them in parallel to ensure every one is getting the same voltage.
if one of them doesn't work the one with the blue and brown reverse what you did before.red with brown blue with black.

Ok I'll try hooking it to one USB tomorrow. Also, the fan is 12 volt. Say i were to not use a USB, what could I connect it to that would provide enough power for it to function at 100%. First thing that comes to mind is a 12V battery but I would need a switch and battery clamps and it would probably drain the battery pretty quick so a constant power source would be preferable.

 

[JOHNN93]

a 12 volt dc power supply.if its for only 2 fans don't go over 10 watts.you can find them at your local electric store.at about 8-10 $