Oust fan cfm rating???

[Zoomschwortz]

A number of BOTL have Oust fans in their Humidors, coolerdors and Edisondors/wine cooler and seem to like them.

I think I would prefer something without batteries for my Edisondor/wine cooler and would like to get an idea of what cfm is needed for a 28 bottle cooler.

Anyone know how many cfm an Oust fan pushes?

Thanks
Ken

[SteveDMatt]

My guess would be very low like <2 cfm.

The thought here is to just move a little air to keep all areas of the humidor the same humidity level.

Any computer fan would probably move more air than the oust fan.

[Shaun Raney]

Most computer fans are about 3 CFM for a similar size to the oust fan. One thing to keep in mind though, they spin ALOT faster than the oust fans and in turn make alot of noise.

I've had my oust fans hooked up to 9v batteries and they moved alot of air (enough to blow the pages in a book over from a foot away) but at the expense of being noisy and very little battery life. It was cool as hell to watch though.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that a humidor is a sealed system. So with a fan like the oust fans, you dont really need to move ALOT of air, you aren't taking air in from the outside to exchange it with the air in the humi. You are simply circulating the air in the humidor. So if an oust fan moves 1 cfm, my 2 Cubic Foot humidor would theoretically be completely circulated in 2 minutes. It doesn't really work that way, and the full 5 minutes that the fan cycles for is probably more the time it takes.

[Zoomschwortz]

Thank you for the input.

For less than $3, what do you think about this? http://www.buyextras.com/ev40x40x101x.html

Or, would something else be better? http://www.buyextras.com/fans.html?g...FQUBiQod1H-vWg

Thanks again
Ken

[Shaun Raney]

how do you plan to power the fan? are you going to hook it up to your house electricity, or are you going to use Battery power?

5v fans are easier to run off of battery power than a 12v fan.

[Zoomschwortz]

Originally Posted by Shaun Raney

how do you plan to power the fan? are you going to hook it up to your house electricity, or are you going to use Battery power?

5v fans are easier to run off of battery power than a 12v fan.

Not knowing how long a battery would last, I was thinking about going with house electricity.

If there is any chance of getting something like a year out of a battery powered setup, I wouldn't mind going that way.

By the way, I love what you have been doing with the box mounted fans. How long do your batteries last?

Any luck on a timing circuit yet?

Thanks
Ken

[Shaun Raney]

The oust fan in my box is pretty much unmodified and guys have been getting 3-4 months out of a standard oust fan.

As for the timing circuit, I hooked up with a Electrical Engineer and found a place where I can get the stuff to build a prototype fan circuit, and now I just get to piece the stuff together.

[Zoomschwortz]

Originally Posted by Shaun Raney

The oust fan in my box is pretty much unmodified and guys have been getting 3-4 months out of a standard oust fan.

As for the timing circuit, I hooked up with a Electrical Engineer and found a place where I can get the stuff to build a prototype fan circuit, and now I just get to piece the stuff together.

Would it be possible to use 4 batteries and get 12 to 16 months before needing to replace?

I think I would be wise to wait and see what you come up with, before I make a decision.

Thanks again.
Ken

[Shaun Raney]

Originally Posted by Zoomschwortz

Would it be possible to use 4 batteries and get 12 to 16 months before needing to replace?

I think I would be wise to wait and see what you come up with, before I make a decision.

Thanks again.
Ken

Haha I tried that and I managed to blow up the board beccause it raised the voltage.

I will be attempting to work something out sooner hopefully than later, I just started a new job.

[Zoomschwortz]

Originally Posted by Shaun Raney

Haha I tried that and I managed to blow up the board beccause it raised the voltage.

I will be attempting to work something out sooner hopefully than later, I just started a new job.

Did you have all of the + sides connected together going to one wire and all of the - sides connected together going to the other wire or did you run the batteries - to + to - to + etc.?

If done the first way, it shouldn't have raised the voltage

[shilala]

Yesterday I put a 12v Papst fan in a cooler that I was using for conditioning RH beads.
I just used an old 12v adapter to power it. You know, like an adapter that goes on damn near every electronic appliance in the world? I have a whole box of them that I've collected over the years in all voltages.
I have one that covers a whole range of dc voltages and I use it all the time for all different things.
I used the Papst fan because it's very quiet and moves a huge amount of air.
If I was to use a particular fan in my wine coolers, I'd use Vantec Stealth. They are a few more bucks but they are EXTREMELY quiet and long lasting.
Another option is to get a 120volt "muffin" fan. They look exactly the same as the computer fans you were considering but they run on 120v. They are used in all sorts of control panels for traffic lights, cnc machines, damn near every single control panel in industry. You can find them at ebay by searching "muffin fan" or "muffin fan 120".

When I retrofit my wine coolers I'll likely use very low cfm vantec stealths and power them with a low voltage adaptor. I saw one around 1400 mah(?) at Radio Shack today. It was about 10 bucks and would drive 4 fans easily.
That would move the air very well and very softly.
I'd suggest grills for the fans to keep stuff out of them. Stuff like your fingers. They're about a buck apiece with screws from any computer parts store on the internet.
I use frozencpu.com and svc compucycle at svc.com. Both good vendors, one Ohio and one in CA, if I remember correctly.
Hope this helps!!!

edit:
If a pic would help, I'll grab one for ya.
It'll just take a few minutes...

[Shaun Raney]

I wired them in series raising the voltage, next time i will try parallell.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by Shaun Raney

I wired them in series raising the voltage, next time i will try parallell.

You might want to try doing away with the board altogether and resistorize the paralleled batteries.
That way it'll run all the time real slow and the battery pack would last a long time. I think.

[Shaun Raney]

I will try that tonight, i have my one original box that has two fans with no boards.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by Shaun Raney

I will try that tonight, i have my one original box that has two fans with no boards.

I had to resistorize a drive motor on a puter mod I did so I could get the speed I wanted. Played hell getting it to go as slow as I wanted it to go.
It didn't want to start once I got it choked down enough. Needed a bump capacitor and I was already tired off dicking with it so I tossed the whole project and started from scratch.
If you send a fourth of the power out to the oust fan it might be the same problem, who knows?
I'm thinking they run for 15 minutes out of an hour and last 3-6 months on a battery.
If you choke it back to 1/4 power and it'll start spinning, four batteries should last 3-6 months running 24/7. Probably a bit longer cause you'd save the extra juice you burn when you're starting the fan motor.
Lemme know what happens, will ya?