Can this Raspberry Pi fan be used for RPi 3 or Pico? It was included with an RPi 5 but not needed because I also purchased an ‘active cooler’. It has the same plug as for PiicoDev. Is there any information available about how to use it on RPi 3 or Pico?
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Hey @John265780,
This fan should work with the RPi 3 and the Pico through the GPIO pins so you may need to break out the connector for this to work using some Male to Female Jumper Leads.
Connect:
- Red wire to GPIO 2 or 4
- Black wires to any GPIO pins labelled ‘Ground’ (6 and 9 are probably easiest)
The Yellow wire is used for PWM control which has a more complicated setup. Let me know if you would want speed control for this fan, otherwise it should run whenever the Pi is booted.
Hope this helps! 
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Thanks Samuel,
I’ve got some ‘PiicoDev adapters for breadboards’ so can use those. Not keen to have a fan running all the time, so I’ll look at temperature control. Interested in PWM if details are readily available for MicroPython.
Hey @John265780,
Those PiicoDev adapters should work just fine, and seeing as you’ll just be using GPIO pins for the fan, PWM should also be quite simple to set up.
You can read about MicroPython PWM here, it’s a built-in function for the machine class in micropython.
Let me know if you have any questions about the setup!
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I’d like to point out the use of the same physical style connector for very different purposes is not good in my book. The power pins are different for the fan and Piicodev / Qwiic connectors. The voltage level is also different.
Why Raspberry Pi Corporation chose a connector, which a lot a manufactures have standardised on for I2C connections, using the same pin wiring; is something I will never understand.
But far be it from me to question the mighty Raspberry Pi Corporation.
If I was the physical design engineer I would have resisted using that type of connector due to the possibility of damage if the wrong thing was plugged into it.
Rant over. Jim.
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From a design perspective, introducing distinct connectors or clearly labelled pinouts for different use cases could help avoid these issues. Color coding, physical keying, or even adopting a different connector for power-related devices would mitigate the risk of damage.
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