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Ok, I am converting a glass door cooler to an incubator. I ran 5 feet of heat tape down the back and I am using a Helix to control the temp. I thought I could use the stock fan that is mounted in the top of the cooler but as someone in a previous post said, it generated way to much heat. the fan alone kept the temp in the incubator 95 to 98 degrees. Obviously I have to replace the stock fan with a couple smaller PC cooling fans. I plan on mounting one on the top left side blowing down and one on the bottom right side blowing up to circulate the air. I wanted to use 120v fans since there was already wiring to accomodate this but I have found that most of the pc fans I find are all 12v. Any suggestions on where to get fans that I can wire in to my existing 120v power supply or an easy way to use 12v fans with my existing power supply? I tried asking a guy at Radio Shack but I think he was more clueless than I was. He told me that they had no cooling fans that were 120v and that there was no way to make a 12v fan work with a 120v power source? Sorry to ramble. Hope this makes sense.

My cooler/incubator is 23 cubic feet. What size fans are ideal if using 1 at top and 1 at bottom.
Thanks!

I am not sure how large your glass door incubator is. I am using an Avanti Wine fridge that is about 19" wide by about 32" high. I bought a 4 inch fan from walmart for 6 bucks and I mounted it in the back right side wall facing down at a 45 degree angle. I also set the flexwatt just like you did. It keeps perfect temps with just this one fan. If you want a computer fan type set up, Helix sells a really nice 3" and 3 1/2" fan that is made to with stand humidity, but it is 45 bucks. I have used the 3 1/2" fan and it works OK. But the fan from walmart is killer and it is cheap. It is just a bit bigger and you could have some space issues with it.

http://www.helixcontrols.com/Fans.htm

Bill
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yeah, i looked at the fans Helix has, i just didn't want to pay that much. I'll take a look at what walmart has and maybe try using one small fat at the top like you describe. I had the heat tape on all night with NO fan and the temps stay about 5 degrees warmer in the top half of the incubator. Thanks for the help.

I'm using an old computer fan with a 12V AC adapter salvaged off an old appliance (don't remember for sure what, probably a cheap rechargeable screwdriver that stopped holding a charge, but you might find 120V AC to 12V DC converters on other equipment like printers or old Ethernet switches etc.). I think I had to actually buy the PVC tubing that I stuck the fan on one end to pull cooling air down the corner and out over the heat tape I have sandwiched between two ceramic tiles at the bottom. But other than that my whole setup is salvaged.

The one thing I did learn was to watch to polarity on your 12 Volt DC side connecting to the fan. First try I hooked it up so that it spun the fan backwards. The only way I knew it was backwards was that the fan blades where recurved such that my original fan's spin direction eventually caused the blades to extend and rub the housing and burn out.

Thank You! I have old chargers laying all over the place, glad to know they might be useful for something now. I was wondering if this could be done. Thanks again.

>>Thank You! I have old chargers laying all over the place, glad to know they might be useful for something now. I was wondering if this could be done. Thanks again.

Pitoon is right,if the voltage says less than 12v on the dc converter then it will run at a slower speed.

The main concern you are looking at here is the milliamp output (Ma)on the dc converter..If it is less than the fan draws(which is usually 130-160 ma on the standard eighty millimeter fan)then the dc converter will either run hot,or simply burn out!

The cure to this is simple,make sure your dc converter is at least double in rated Ma output than the fan is drawing on it.

You're welcome.
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Charles Glaspie
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you keep asking the same questions over and over? if you look at your previous threads all your questions have been answered.

Pitoon

>>Ok, I am converting a glass door cooler to an incubator. I ran 5 feet of heat tape down the back and I am using a Helix to control the temp. I thought I could use the stock fan that is mounted in the top of the cooler but as someone in a previous post said, it generated way to much heat. the fan alone kept the temp in the incubator 95 to 98 degrees. Obviously I have to replace the stock fan with a couple smaller PC cooling fans. I plan on mounting one on the top left side blowing down and one on the bottom right side blowing up to circulate the air. I wanted to use 120v fans since there was already wiring to accomodate this but I have found that most of the pc fans I find are all 12v. Any suggestions on where to get fans that I can wire in to my existing 120v power supply or an easy way to use 12v fans with my existing power supply? I tried asking a guy at Radio Shack but I think he was more clueless than I was. He told me that they had no cooling fans that were 120v and that there was no way to make a 12v fan work with a 120v power source? Sorry to ramble. Hope this makes sense.
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I don't recall ever asking how to hook up a 12v fan to a 120v power supply in my previous posts? That is my main question in this most recent post. Thanks for your reply though, it was very helpful.

to hook up a 12v fan to 120v, you will need a ac/dc transformer.....similar to what you use to charge your cell phone. you could use a cell phone charger, but most are 3v-5v DC.....the 12v fan will just run at a slower speed. if you can find yourself a universal multi-volt transformer then you can move the switch thus controlling the speed of the fan.

Pitoon

>>I don't recall ever asking how to hook up a 12v fan to a 120v power supply in my previous posts? That is my main question in this most recent post. Thanks for your reply though, it was very helpful.
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