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I have a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+. I am currently installing the Pi into a Super Tinytendo case, which came with a built-in mini fan. However, I'm not sure which set of pins I should plug the fan into.

According to the specs, the mini fan is 5 volts. It has two pin holes with red and black cables.

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ with a disconnected 2 pin fan

Where do I plug in a 5 volt mini fan on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+?

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  • 1
    What is the voltage of the fan?
    – dlu
    Commented Apr 7, 2018 at 1:04
  • 2
    have you looked at the FAQ link in the page you posted? collectorcraft.com/pages/faq-1 - FAQ: Where do the fan and LED plug in to the Raspberry Pi Board? ... clear instructions, red to 4, black to 6 ... bottom right of your picture ... leave end pin alone, red to second from right, black to 3rd from right
    – Jaromanda X
    Commented Apr 7, 2018 at 1:07
  • Ok. I’m can’t easily get to the GPIO header pinout right now but IIRC there are 3 adjacent pins in the lower right corner of the header as you’re showing it in the photo. One is 5v one is ground and one is 3v3. Check the pins and connect to the ground and 5v.
    – dlu
    Commented Apr 7, 2018 at 1:13
  • @JaromandaX I was able to connect the fan with the linked FAQ. Can you post those instructions as an answer?
    – Stevoisiak
    Commented Apr 7, 2018 at 2:08
  • Just looked at the link provided by Jaromanda and there is indeed a very clear photo. Basically, you want the plug to be way down at the other end of the connector, where on the fan side (in your photo) the pins are +5, +5, GND. You want to plug it into the second and third pin on that row. Pull up that link and look at the photo.
    – SDsolar
    Commented Apr 7, 2018 at 7:33

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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If your fan is a 5v fan you need 5v (or 3v for slow spinning) and ground pins. If your fan is a 3v fan DO NOT use the 5v pin: use 3v instead.

Raspberry pi has an utility called pinout which tells you the phisical layout of your board. Just open a shell and run:

pinout

The output will be something like:

pinout output

If you prefer to trust documentation, this is the layout the documentation states:

Left side first or second pin for 5v and third for ground. I won't give numbers since they vary depending the schema you follow, so I think providing images is better.

Images: Diagram

Raspberry Pi photo

source: Raspberry Pi GPIO Doc

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GPIO pins 4 (+5v) and 6 (GND). I peeled back the two leads from a GPIO-to-breadboard ribbon cable and soldered to two female-ended breadboard cable leads and connected them to the GPIO pins.

Pi 3B/Ubuntu Ma'te desktop.

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  • Does the black cable go into pin 4 or pin 6? I have a red and a black cable and I hope black is black, independent of the manufacturer?
    – Robert
    Commented Jan 2, 2020 at 8:22
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soldering leads from the usb power worked best for me allowing the fan to stop when Pi is halted then using gpio3 to wake..

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  • Could you elaborate? I'm looking to do something similar.
    – SMBiggs
    Commented Aug 4, 2023 at 3:04
  • Here' the thing I have a breakout breadboard that connects the GPIO 40 pin header with a ribbon cable, so I can't have the fan leads in the way also. I may have to solder the fan leads to some 5v/gnd PCB traces somewhere.
    – Chris Wolf
    Commented Aug 19, 2023 at 16:28

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