12v fans

[Nick]

I've bought two 40mm fans, I think they are 12v, as I wasn't wanting to trail around looking for 6v ones and I was buying other things from the same place too (the fans were £2 each anyway).

Is it safe to put them on my main circuit? That would be like 24v on fans, would this noticably reduce power/runtime at all? Would it be best to limit them to 6v each by using a UBEC?

[BrianG]

Running 24v on a 12v fan will shorten it's life considerably, not to mention spinning incredibly fast... that is if it doesn't blow.

Running 6v on a 12v fan will cause it to spin quite slow. Also, some fans may have difficulty even starting up at that low voltage.

If you are using just one fan, you can try this.

[glassdoctor]

Just wire the fanes in series so each one gets 12V... should work great for you situation.

[Nick]

So both fans in series on 12v rather than through a UBEC to supply both with 6v?

[glassdoctor]

If you have 12V fans and about 24V from the main battery, then yeah... hooking up two fans in series would split the 24V between them.... each gets 12 volts.

12v fans on 6v probably won't push a lot of air.