Tower Cooler help, No power!

[mcirish05]

Hey Everyone,
This forum has been a great resource and I have hosted lots of people since adding the kegerator. I just finished off my first keg and wanted to make several changes in order to better my draws. I bought everything for a tower cooler and cant get it to power up. I dont have a soldering iron so I was planning on just using butt connectors. Even when I wrap the wires ends together I get no fan power. Here is what I have:

115VAC, 220mA Cooling fan (273-0241 Radioshack)

Old Cell Phone charger AC Power supply Input: 100-240V
Output: 5.9V~400mA


Is my fan and power source compatible? I hope someone can steer me in the right direction or give some advice. I thought I was making a good choice by buying an AC fan and using an AC charger. Maybe not...

Thanks

[psychodad]

That fan needs 120 vac to run, your adapter is putting out about 6 vdc. Ain't gonna work. Hook it up straight to AC, but only if you are sure you know what you are working with. This can kill you, burn your house down or both.

[mcirish05]

Well I am certainly no electrician and dont know the first thing to do. What would I need to do to run this fan?

[psychodad]

You would likely do best to return the fan to Radio Shack for a DC model. Then use your DC power supply as originally planned. I'm really hesitant to go in depth on how I'd wire the AC fan as it is easy to hurt yourself with electricity.

[mcirish05]

So is there a 12V DC fan anyone recommends specifically? Thanks

[KillianBoy]

mcirish05,
It depends if you have a box and tube ready made, then go with any 12 VDC computer fan, if still working on design from scratch I'd go with a blower, do a search and a bunch come up, my favorite is the 12 VDC blower, your 6 VDC adaper might blow enough air.

KB

[mcirish05]

Has any member used a blower on here that is reasonably priced? The ones on micromatic are too expensive for me, and Ive only read about the blowers around 50 and higher or the computer fan coolers. I was hoping to do the whole project for around 30 dollars. Thanks guys

[pvs6]

Has any member used a blower on here that is reasonably priced? The ones on micromatic are too expensive for me, and Ive only read about the blowers around 50 and higher or the computer fan coolers. I was hoping to do the whole project for around 30 dollars. Thanks guys

Hey how ya doing?
Check out Vince on this site, I think he said he got a blower for under $20. a dc. Here's what I did and works but a little less. Oh and the reason why is because there UBER quiet. One 1 1/2 " computer fan blows cold air up from the bottom of the chill plate through a 1 " flex tube to the top of the tower and the same fan ie: a 2nd one just like the first at the bottom sucking air out of the base of the tower. High pressure in low pressure out. They draw less than 5 watts but do the job. The fans were like $5.00 a piece but shipping was 5 too. I order one and then added the 2nd so I paid $20. But if I order both of them at the same time it would have been $15.00

[TomK]

Do you know anybody that can wire up the 115Vac fan you already have? They don't have to be an electrician. Just someone that has experience with home wiring.

[mcirish05]

Thanks so much. I really like that idea and it sounds like it would work pretty well. However, I was hoping to get this done sooner rather than waiting on shipping for these fans. I think by the time I would buy all the materials in addition to the fans and set everything up, I would be right around $35 not including the labor on my part. I think I might go with the premade kit made by ....

One memeber on here (I cant remember at this moment) said his kit worked excellent. And for the difference of 10-15 dollars without committing any time to assemble and tinker with it, I like the idea of going with a premade kit that would arrive by the weekend.

Does anyone else have input on these kits?

[cubby_swans]

My input is that these started showing up for sale on e-bay shortly after the idea was brought up here. People are taking other people's ideas and selling them on e-bay. If you read a few posts on tower coolers here, you'll see it's quite simple.

My advise is get yourself a $10 DC fan to replace the AC fan you accidentally bought.

[mcirish05]

Thanks Cubby. The radioshack I went to had fans that were all 15-25 dollars. I couldnt find a good 10 dollar fan, which is why I went with the "better" AC fan. I was thinking, "AC to AC, perfect!" Then did not work out as planned. The ebay seller also claims to use a 24cfm blower, not a fan. So am I wrong in assuming, that a blower would be better than a computer fan?

Thanks again for the continued help in improving my home beer quality!

[pvs6]

As always in life there seems to be a trade off. The blower will push more air giving perhaps better cooling but might be a lot noisy than a computer fan or two and less wattage with the computer fan, Blowers will force a a lot of air but the squirrel cage results in lot of noise that can be heard out side the KEGERaTOR. where as the computer fans are un-noticeable. Your choice.

[TomK]

A 3" tower has less than 0.05 cu ft of volume, so you really don't need to be moving much air to cool it. 24 cu ft per minute seems like overkill. Lots of people here have described successful tower cooling mods using PC fans.

[pvs6]

A 3" tower has less than 0.05 cu ft of volume, so you really don't need to be moving much air to cool it. 24 cu ft per minute seems like overkill. Lots of people here have described successful tower cooling mods using PC fans.

Indeed, right on the mark. and you can't hear a computer fan inside your unit like you might with a squirrel cage. Don't know I tried both the noise drove me to distraction with the blower and the fans invisible sound wise.