T E A M
My wife and kids are often baked under the heat of the sun, when we go flying. So, she bought some cheap Japanese fans from Daiso to chill off herself and the kids, but this can tire out her hands after a while.
Recently I bought a 12VDC fan unit from Homefix DIY store, which is supposed to be powered by car's cigarrete lighter. However, the cable is not long enough to reach the socket when I placed the fan at the back of my Freed. Furthermore, if we are not sitting right behind the car, the fan unit is completely useless.
As such, I decided to convert it to a portable electrical fan unit, using my spare RC equipment. Since the fan runs directly from car battery power with only 2 wires, it must be a brushed motor. Since I have many 3S Lipo packs lying around, they can be double employed as my fan's power supply.
However, running the fan directly from Lipo pack will stand the chance of over discharge if not monitor closely. So after a brief search, I found a spare brushed motor ESC which is Lipo safe. This can prevent the Lipo from being over discharged but it needs a controller to activate it. So I simply connect the leads to a servo tester, which I already have.
With all the equipment on hand, the next thing is to modify the fan unit structure itself. I removed the mounting clamp, which comes with the fan, by removing the mounting bolt. Next, I cut a piece of 7" by 7" by 1/4" thick plywood, drill a hole in the middle and mounted 4 balsa pads on the bottom. Using the same bolt reomved earlier, I mounted the fan onto the plywood and taped a few pieces of velcro over to secure the equipment.
The original cable was cut and soldered directly to the ESC motor leads. All these steps just took over a few hours job to achieve this far.
Although it looks rather ungainly, it serves the purpose well. By drawing only 1 amp on full power, a 3S 5000mah pack will last for around 5 hours with full charge. If you have a small pack, say about 3S 1800mah, it'll last you for below 2 hours. But don't forget, each of us hard core electric flyers probably already have many packs lying around in your room. Also, the ESC and servo tester allow you to have linear power control, instead of just discrete power settings. If you already have some of the spare equipment around, why not give it a try and put some good use to them?
Recently I bought a 12VDC fan unit from Homefix DIY store, which is supposed to be powered by car's cigarrete lighter. However, the cable is not long enough to reach the socket when I placed the fan at the back of my Freed. Furthermore, if we are not sitting right behind the car, the fan unit is completely useless.
As such, I decided to convert it to a portable electrical fan unit, using my spare RC equipment. Since the fan runs directly from car battery power with only 2 wires, it must be a brushed motor. Since I have many 3S Lipo packs lying around, they can be double employed as my fan's power supply.
However, running the fan directly from Lipo pack will stand the chance of over discharge if not monitor closely. So after a brief search, I found a spare brushed motor ESC which is Lipo safe. This can prevent the Lipo from being over discharged but it needs a controller to activate it. So I simply connect the leads to a servo tester, which I already have.
With all the equipment on hand, the next thing is to modify the fan unit structure itself. I removed the mounting clamp, which comes with the fan, by removing the mounting bolt. Next, I cut a piece of 7" by 7" by 1/4" thick plywood, drill a hole in the middle and mounted 4 balsa pads on the bottom. Using the same bolt reomved earlier, I mounted the fan onto the plywood and taped a few pieces of velcro over to secure the equipment.
The original cable was cut and soldered directly to the ESC motor leads. All these steps just took over a few hours job to achieve this far.
Although it looks rather ungainly, it serves the purpose well. By drawing only 1 amp on full power, a 3S 5000mah pack will last for around 5 hours with full charge. If you have a small pack, say about 3S 1800mah, it'll last you for below 2 hours. But don't forget, each of us hard core electric flyers probably already have many packs lying around in your room. Also, the ESC and servo tester allow you to have linear power control, instead of just discrete power settings. If you already have some of the spare equipment around, why not give it a try and put some good use to them?
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