Quote Originally Posted by OhhWatALoser View Post
as a matter of fact I have used a light dimmer on cpu fan before, common 120mmx120mm, way back in 5th grade. part of a rube goldberg machine

amperage doesn't matter one bit, rheostat is just a variable resistor, they come in different ranges of resistance, I don't know the specs of the rheostat or fan your trying to use or what range a common dimmer is, but you broadly say rheostat, which light dimmer falls under that category. hence my confusion on why you said it wouldn't work. sorry for trying to help, ill be quiet now.
Maybe dimmers that had variable transistors worked with the fans back in the what? 90's? but today, they only use the variable transistor as a mechanism to make the overall dimmer work the way want it to ( to not waste energy/cause unwanted heat). So the variable transistor doesn't complete the dimmers main funtion, just aids it.

So when I said Dimmer, I meant what common people know as a light dimmer.

When I said rheostat, I meant Potentiometer/Variable Resistor/Rheostat. There is and isn't a difference, it depends if you play semantics or not.