Hello,
I'm starting the build for my 65g Peninsula
. I have the tank and I'm currently building the stand, but other than that most of this is still in the planning stage. The main thing I am having trouble with is internal air circulation. I have a few questions pertaining to it...
1) How many/What size computer fans should I be using? Is there a rule of thumb?
2) How should I place them in the vivarium? Like Grimm's Peninsula setup? Or just mounted to the walls?
3) How do I power them? I've seen James's video but I'm still left a little confused. If someone could point me to a good thread about making a set up it would be greatly appreciated.
Any help/advice would be great. Thanks!
the number of fans needed will depend on their placement as well as the volume of air the fan is capable of moving.
the mounting style is up to you but mounting it in a way that will provide easy acess to the fan in case of failure will be important. this will of course be much easier if the fan is mounted outside of a duct system.
there are a few options for powering your fans.
yes you CAN use old computer power supplies or cell phone chargers but ONLY if the unit can power the fans safely. using an inappropriate power supply is a fire hazard.
Thanks for the advice Eric. Greatly appreciated. I plan on using
this fan for air circulation. I was wondering how many I need, though. They are fairly expensive so I'd only like to purchase 1 or 2 if that will work.
Also, what can I use to power the fans? I will be plugging them in into an outlet and would like for them to be adjustable.
Thanks for any more help!
i do NOT suggest using that fan. it has a low RPM (revolutions per minute) and therefore doesnt move much air. (under 6 cubic feet per minute)
i suggest finding the fans i showed in my video. they are delta FFB0412SHN-R00. they operate @ 12V and push 24 cubic feet of air per minute. one fan will probably work fine, but id suggest 2 fans and i strongly recommend using a fan controller which will allow you to change the amount of air being moved to perfectly suit your viv. you will be hard pressed to find a single channel fan controller that can handle both fans (amperage) so you should look for 2, 3 or 4 channel controllers (even if you only use 2 of the channels, since 2 channel controllers are surprisingly difficult to locate)
If you cover in screen expect a substantial loss of air flow volume!
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remember that the screen is rated a few ways, first the mesh. this value indicates how many wires there are in each direction per inch. of course the higher the mesh value, the smaller the openings will be. the next value is the diameter of the wires. meshes of the same values (like, as an example, 80x80) will have different size openings if the width of the wire is different. as the wire diameter increases the holes become smaller. which brings me to the final and most important value. open area. open area is the amount of unrestricted space for air to flow. it goes without saying that the more open space the less loss youll experience in terms of air flow. when you actually figure the open space of screens you might be surprised 50% or less would be a pretty common figure so your cutting the available space for air to flow, by a significant amount. putting one on both sides of the fan will compound this and its not surprising that you saw a huge decrease in the fans abilities. i suggest using screen wich is placed far enough from the fan that instead of protecting frogs fingers you need only to have mesh fine enough to seal the fan from froglets.
How is a cell charger used...? And how does it "hook up" with a computer fan??? I sure wouldn't want to electrocute any frogs...
the cable is cut, the wires are stripped and the leads are connected to the fan. i show how to do this properly in my video (using solder and heatshrink)
its ok im an engineer
no frogs will be harmed in the making of this.
see where it says output:12V 1000mA
that means this will supply 12V up to 1Amp of (1000mA=1A) these fans will specify their mA and you want a supply that is 10% greater than that #. if you have two fans the supply needs to be 10% greater than the sum of the two fans.
to figure the proper power supply requirements look at the fan's specifications.
voltage is important as this will determine how fast the fan spins. a 12V fan will operate usually from 3-12V and the amount of air moved decreases as the voltage is lowered (like by using a fan controller) do not supply more voltage than the fan is rated for since this can cause the fan to actually break apart and become very dangerous.
next and most importantly look at the amps that the fan draws. your power supply needs to produce a minimum of 10% more amps than the fan will draw. you can supply as many amps as you want (like to allow for more fans to be attached in the future) and the fan will be unaffected. its amperage rating of the fan is what it draws and it will draw that amount regardless of how much is supplied by the power source. (1A = 1000mA) the fans i suggest, for instance, draw .6A or 600mA. i would need to have a power supply capable of supplying 1320mA to draw 2 fans. thats 600mA each plus 60mA each for the 10% extra needed to ensure safety.
james
