u/Ambitious-Pressure-2

This thing is basically a 5vargb to 12v rgb adapter. So I had a 12V single-color RGB fan (the kind with a plain 4-pin RGB connector, not ARGB) and wanted it to sync with my case's ARGB lighting instead of running off the motherboard's separate RGB header. Problem: ARGB headers are 5V/3-pin WS2812 data, RGB fan rings want 12V, and I didn't want to run a SATA/Molex power tap just for a converter.

Ended up building a small ESP32-C3 board that:

- Decodes the WS2812 stream straight off the ARGB header

- Takes the color of LED #1 and applies gamma correction

- Boosts the header's own 5V up to 12V (MT3608 module) so there's no separate power connector at all

- Drives the fan ring's r/G channels via PWM

- Has an optional "strobe" mode that fakes the rotating-dashes look you see on stuff like AORUS fans, tuned live over serial to match your fan's actual RPM

It's a single-color output (whole ring shows one color, synced to whatever your ARGB software is doing) — not a full addressable re-transmitter, so don't expect per-LED chase effects, just color sync.

Firmware + Altium PCB files are up here if anyone wants to build one or just judge my wiring: [S2340610/5V-ARGB-to-12V-RGB-signal-converter-without-discrete-power-supply]

Ive only implemented it on the breadboard but it works and I've been running it for a while now without issues, and im sure that its gonna work on the pcb, ill try to solder it on when the pcb arrives