In anticipation of finally getting around to building the canopy for the tank, I had to replace the nice purple cooling fan that was purchased at WalMart. It would not fit under the planned new canopy and was rather noisy. Here’s a mug shot of the purple fan:
I had five old…really old computers… that I originally thought I would use for something when I was upgrading, not to mention that I paid an arm and a leg for these in the early eighties. So I saved these in a safe place to eventually use. I finally figured out that the CPM operating systems wasn’t the direction computers were taking, and decided to take these five Smithsonian specimens to the recycling center in my town. But before I relived myself of these beauties, I took the cooling fans out of them that cooled the power units.
I can not claim this DIY….I actually found this in our forums where they also used computer fans to cool their tank. I additionally used this post to learn that volts are not additive, but amps are. HERE'S the original post.
Not doing any testing, I first made the bracket for three of these fans and put this thing together. I quickly found out that three wasn’t enough. Oh, I should tell you that I’m running these at nine volts to quiet them down a bit (and supposedly extend the life of the fans.) So now I redo the bracket to hold five fans. Here’s what it looks like.
This thing running at nine volts is quieter than the purple beast that I was originally running. As a matter of fact, it makes very little noise, in comparison to my skimmer, which I’m working on next to quiet down. So I mount this up on the tank and plug it into the Reefkeeper and here’s what is looks like mounted on the light unit, (and running):
Oh, and after reading the post and seeing the electrical schematic on the 90 gallon LED light unit, I think it only appropriate I explain the schematic for this unit. Take the five red wires and solder them to the positive post on the jack. Take the five black wires and solder them to the negative post on the jack. I hope I didn’t loose anybody on this schematic, because that is about the limit of my electrical knowledge.
One more thing, cost. Some might argue that this cooling fan unit cost me in excess of 10,000 dollars. That is, if I recollect correctly, each of these computers cost me over $2000 back in the eighties. If you take that out of the equation, I spent about $3.50 on the low voltage jack and about $5.00 on stainless steal screws. All the other stuff…1/2 inch acrylic, 9 volt power supply, wire, zip ties, I had laying around the house.
I had five old…really old computers… that I originally thought I would use for something when I was upgrading, not to mention that I paid an arm and a leg for these in the early eighties. So I saved these in a safe place to eventually use. I finally figured out that the CPM operating systems wasn’t the direction computers were taking, and decided to take these five Smithsonian specimens to the recycling center in my town. But before I relived myself of these beauties, I took the cooling fans out of them that cooled the power units.
I can not claim this DIY….I actually found this in our forums where they also used computer fans to cool their tank. I additionally used this post to learn that volts are not additive, but amps are. HERE'S the original post.
Not doing any testing, I first made the bracket for three of these fans and put this thing together. I quickly found out that three wasn’t enough. Oh, I should tell you that I’m running these at nine volts to quiet them down a bit (and supposedly extend the life of the fans.) So now I redo the bracket to hold five fans. Here’s what it looks like.
This thing running at nine volts is quieter than the purple beast that I was originally running. As a matter of fact, it makes very little noise, in comparison to my skimmer, which I’m working on next to quiet down. So I mount this up on the tank and plug it into the Reefkeeper and here’s what is looks like mounted on the light unit, (and running):
Oh, and after reading the post and seeing the electrical schematic on the 90 gallon LED light unit, I think it only appropriate I explain the schematic for this unit. Take the five red wires and solder them to the positive post on the jack. Take the five black wires and solder them to the negative post on the jack. I hope I didn’t loose anybody on this schematic, because that is about the limit of my electrical knowledge.
One more thing, cost. Some might argue that this cooling fan unit cost me in excess of 10,000 dollars. That is, if I recollect correctly, each of these computers cost me over $2000 back in the eighties. If you take that out of the equation, I spent about $3.50 on the low voltage jack and about $5.00 on stainless steal screws. All the other stuff…1/2 inch acrylic, 9 volt power supply, wire, zip ties, I had laying around the house.
