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Wiring a 12V DC fan in an AC enclosure

M

miston

Member
Sort of off topic, but I need help! 🙂

I will be building a wooden enclosure for a single 13watt power compact flourescent bulb that will be placed flush against the back of my aquarium. I purchased a kit with a ballast and reflector. Since it will be flush against the aquarium glass I will need to install a fan to help with the heat.

I am going for a clean, professional looking installation, and I only want ONE AC cord coming from the enclosure.

The fan I will be using is an Artic Cooling ARCTIC COOL ARCTIC FAN 3 low decibel computer fan which runs on 12V DC @ 0.12 amps.
How would I wire this? Would this work:

Purchase a 12.6V 300mA PCB-Mount Miniature Transformer from Radio Shack and wire it parallel to the ballast?

thanks in advance for any help and suggestions!
 
No, a transformer is not enough for a DC fan.

You will need a transformer to reduce the voltage (still AC),
a rectifier (could be 4 diodes) to create a DC voltage but with a lot of ripple,
and a filter (could be several capacitors and inductors and resistors) to remove the ripple.

Alternatively, you can buy an AC-to-DC power adapter, which contains all of those components.

Make sure there are enough holes in the box to allow air intake and exhaust. Otherwise, the fan alone cannot do any cooling!
 
A Junior Engineer hits the lottery for $60million. The next day he argues will his boss for several hours about the Senior Engineer's poor circutry design. THEN he quites 😛

I'm sorry I even posted it but I bet the dBA spec is more real than Antec's or ThermalTake's 😉

...Galvanized
 
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