free 12 volt fan

[broken ed]

Okay, not completely free, you'll have to do a little work to obtain one, but no money is needed.


I've had this idea for a while and this past week I saw what I was looking. A desktop computer sitting out on the trash. In this case it was a Lenovo Windows 7 era computer. The memory and hard drive have already been removed, but it didn't matter. This computer had two fans, the one on the left was to cool the processor through a heat sink, the one on the right was used to cool the power supply.

Both fans are 12 volts DC, 0.66 amps and 0.30 amps respectively. They are quite, although noisier that I would have thought. And you may want to fashion some type of DIY guard or screen to protect your fingers if your not going to mount one somewhere, say as a exhaust fan.

Finally; You may have notice that the cooler fan for the processor (on the left) has four wires. I checked the manufactures website; two of the wires are for feed back (sensors) and two are for power. In this case; black is + positive and yellow is - negative. It runs just fine using the two power leads.

These are very strong fans for the size, both 3.5 inches square.

 

[AnonymousDog]

My brother used two of these to get additional airflow over the outside condenser coils on the fridge in his 5th wheeler. It's a common mode and these are cheap and easy to find. I had about a half dozen of them in a box left over from a few desktop PC rebuilds.

 

[WanderingCanuck]

How many of these, on average, would be needed to equal the airflow of one of the more common RV vent fans?

 

[5ilver5urfer]

We bought one of these fans on amazon for $15. It works great!

 

[broken ed]

How many of these, on average, would be needed to equal the airflow of one of the more common RV vent fans?

These are fairly aggressive for the size. But to be sure, you'd have to know the specs on each. The higher amp fan moves 83 CFM (cubit feet per minute). Yes, probably more then you wanted to know... so I think you could fit (maybe) four of these in a standard size vent which (just guessing) think would move more air then a standard vent fan. But just guessing :huh:  I also think four of these would drawl more current then a standard vent fan.

When you look up the specs (the fan of the left), it gets kind of interesting, ball bearing motor, lifespan 70000 hours, weight 220 g, voltage 12v, range 7 ～ 13.8 V.

Havn't found any specs on the fan on the right. But all these fans are different. :exclamation:

 

[bullfrog]

From the home made 5 gallon bucket swamp coolers sites the general opinion was I believe it took at least two of these to come close to a standard vent fan although I believed they used less current also. They would probably be good to vent condensation out when using propane to heat or pump cold air off the floor.

 

[LoveCareThinkDo]

How many of these, on average, would be needed to equal the airflow of one of the more common RV vent fans?

Computer fans vary quite a bit in how much air they push. There really is no "average." Fortunately, almost all of them have the CuFt/minute marked right on the little label, along with the volts and current used. You can also get them in lots of physical different sizes.

 

[Txjaybird]

Okay, not completely free, you'll have to do a little work to obtain one, but no money is needed.

These are very strong fans for the size, both 3.5 inches square.

  Thanks for this information.

Jewell Ann