Vivarium Circulation 101?

[Green Ghost]

Originally Posted by Waterkeeper

BINGO! on the nose green.. Thank You sooooo much.



I plugged in the PS and touched the wires together and got nothing. I touched both the wires with my same finger and felt nothing... and I touched the positive to my left nipple and the negative to my right.. and got nothing..

.15Amp is NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT!

over time loose connections might cause some heat and a hazard, but from what my Nips tell me, this amperage isn't much to worry about. bigger fans and higher amperage power supplies will be a different story however. but in my experience you don't really learn anything about electricity till you temporarily blind yourself with a fireball spark or two..

You're welcome, bud.

and I touched the positive to my left nipple and the negative to my right.. and got nothing.. <- Silly



Waterkeeper keep in mind 1A can stop your heart. The voltage is not really a factor with circuits like these but 1 Amp of current can kill you.

To be safe just make sure you never complete the circuit when touching one open lead with the power connected. Means don't touch one lead to one part of your body and another lead to another part. The current will always take the path of least resistance and go through your body if it can.

A good visual would be if someone was holding a positive lead in one hand and accidentally touched the negative in the same hand, then the circuit is completed but only passes through the same hand. If the same situation were to happen but instead of the same hand the other hand touched the negative lead then the circuit is completed but goes from one hand to the other through the body (and through the heart) to the other hand.

I'm not trying to scare people just want everyone to be careful. If you don't respect electricity it will burn you.

[Waterkeeper]

I realize this.. but it dawned on me that 300mA (0.3amp) is less than that of a standard watch battery so why not see what kinda real trouble I could get myself into..

had I received a spark from touching the 2 together (my first test, and I was pluggen into a GFCI by the way) I never would have given it the nipple test.

[Jason]

HEHEHE. nipple test .... Next time you try that , tape and post it

[Waterkeeper]

Try the nipple test with a car battery, some jumper cables and a wet sponge on the ends.... you'll love it!!!

anyway

what fun this has been.. the boards are full of fan questions with no fan answers.. thanx to Green_Ghost for coming through with some wiring diagrams comparing Series, parallel and Series/parallel wiring. turns out the easiest way is the best way... GO FIGURE!??

I bought my stuff from RadioShack in the store (I don't shop online)
the kit consists of 1 adjustable 1.5-12volt 300mA PS, 2 1.5amp 12volt 40mm laptop replacement fans, and 1 pigtail for the PS so I didn't have to cut off the end of the wire. the quarter is for size reference. COST: $45 including tax



So take the ends of your fan wires and twist them together. black to black and red to red. Put some kind of connector on there. if it's just a splice then don't worry about making them different, but if you are going to put a removable connector on them. Make the positive a male and the neg a female or whatever just so you can tell them apart, and not possibly reconnect them backward in the future.


Now get your pigtail or cutoff cell charger or whatever your PS(power supply) is and put on your connectors, just remember which is + and - so you don't have to go back and do it again... You see I'm using 2 different kinds.. you'll find out why in a minute.


I decided I want a kill switch right on top of the viv for when I open and close the hood, or just for quick access for whatever reason, so I put this toggle inline (always put switches on the positive)


Now I'm ready to install it when time comes. it will be in an eggcrate box, well out of FrogBert's reach at the top front of the viv.

some things to remember with electrical wires..
either Black or Striped should be the Negative, switches should be installed on the Positive. always disconnect the Positive first with live wires.

hope that helps some of you with wiring. now...

before I got to getting it wired properly, i decided to flop it in my 10g and see what happens.... so with wires twisted together in the most halfass fashion I could, I fired up the fans and hung them inside my viv.

see that condensation on the glass......

five minutes later it was as clear as could be.

[bareass]

so thats where you put them... so whats the differance between that and on top of the mesh screen on top of my tank?

[Waterkeeper]

That tank is covered completely by a glass lid.. no fresh air at all. all those 2 fans are doing is pushing around the air within the tank.
sitting on the screen top you are pushin in your air from the room around the tank.. I put up a post on your thread a min ago....

[Green Ghost]

Great!

[Waterkeeper]

Originally Posted by Green Ghost

Great!

Yes it is.. thanks for your help on the wiring... I just hope it works as well in my 44 as it does on this 10!

[alex1976]

Thanks for all the photos and diagrams! I can't tell you how helpful all that is to someone who has only a basic understanding of wiring.

I've got a pretty good idea on how I want to wire up my future big tank now thanks to everyone's help.