connecting PC Fan to power supply

[Batman]

I haven't made it over to Frys yet, and I'm planning a trip there tomorrow, but...

Is it pretty easy to build a custom circuit of PC fans in sequence that will plug into a wall outlet? Never done it before, thinkin about adding a set of three or four to my canopy. Thanks!

[seahorse_man]

I would go to industrial Liquidators by OG they have fans that you can just hook up to the wall.I bought som e let me find the pic

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w302/seahores_man/_MG_7675.jpg

[iVgOnMaD]

jordan is right, you will probably only need one too

[Live Water Aquariums]

If money is the issue Industrial Liquidators is the place to go. I get my power supplies there for 4.99. I go to fry's for the fan because you can get super silent ones. I used to use the Vortech fans, but recently I found the Silenex there at fry's. They are pretty pricey for a fan but with a 5.00 power supply it makes up for it. The silenex come in different sizes and they are like 17 dba which is by far the quietest fans I have found. And they put out an amazing amount of air for the amount of noise. If you are venting a canopy or stand for that matter it helps a lot to have 2 fans one blowing in and one blowing out but one might do the trick. The covers are sold seperately.

You can wire them in series to one power supply but I would bring them to I.L. and have them help you with that. Or for 5.00 each it might be worth buying seperate power supplies so you can run only what you need. The fans have three wires coming off of them. And the power supply has two. To run the fan you have to connect the right two wires to the right two wires, this is where it gets tricky. The power supplies will have writing or a white stripe on the positive wire but the fan's dont tell you which is which. I strip all three wires on the fan and touch two at a time until the fan runs. I remember it is the center wire and one of the outside wires but I don't remember which worked or if it was positive or negative.

Be careful, I think I ruined one fan testing it because it started up for a second and now it won't work no matter what I try and after cutting the wires I don't think Fry's will take it back. There is probably something that tells you which wire is positive or negative on the fan, maybe online, and it may be worth looking up if you are really woried about ruining one. I have wired up a couple dozen of these things and only one wouldn't work so odds are in your favor. Good luck.

[iVgOnMaD]

BTW, the 120v fans only have 2 pins and a threaded hole for grounding the unit.

:)

[mazilla]

I wonder if the different wires on the three wire unit are so you can make the fan a pusher or a puller? My 2 cheapo radio shack fans only had two wires, and I ran them in series off of one power supply. piece of cake

[Live Water Aquariums]

Mostof the dc fans have a third wire, I believe it is for hooking it up to a potentiometer so you can control the speed. The air flows toward the sticker on the front and I think it has to blow that way because of the way the fan blades face. The 120 vt fans are way louder than any dc fan btw. But you're right their cheap and easy to wire.

[goody]

Not an electrical guy, but when you say you ran 2 fans in a series does that mean that you spliced the wires of the fans together and then ran it to the power supply? Curious because I also went to Industrial Liquidators and bought 2 fans and one PS. I only have one fan hooked up to the PS, but would like to add more since my tank runs around 81degrees.

[ajn81]

Right now, I'm running 4 fans from Industrial Liquidators on one power supply. The fans are spliced together onto a switch and then from the switch to the PS. The only thing is that you need is to make sure that the output from the PS is enough to run the fans. You should see DC output on the power supply in either amps or milliamps, and the fans should say how many amps they use. So just be sure that the combined amperage of the 2 fans is not more than the power supply output (I blew a power supply this way ;)).