Unique connection for hood fans

S

Steven

[I have an idea but I am not sure if it will work, especially with the chance of it getting wet.

My tank is viewable from three sides so the hood is not hinged. It is just a top that is removeable and is made out of acrylic.

I have been thinking about putting some cooling fans in the hood but the problem is the connection for the fans since the hood comes completely off.

The fans would be computer cooling fans so they would be low voltage. The one option is to have a conncection somewhere that I can plug and unplug each time I take the hood off.

This morning I thought of the idea of having contact strips along the edge of the hood and on top of the aquarium. When you put the hood on the tank the contacts complete the circuit and the fans come on. The two contacts would be on opposite sides of the tank to decrease the chance of accidentally completing the circuit with water.

With the fans being low voltage, 12V, than there is no problem with being shocked. The thing that I'm wondering about is what materials are there that I could use for the contacts that will not corrode. Also, I'm sure the contacts will sometimes get wet. If they get wet when completeing the circuit could this some how damage the fans.

Any thoughts or material suggestion would be helpful. Also, where to get the material such as Home Depot or Radio Shack.

I just thought of the concept this morning so other options would be helpful.

Thanks,
Steven]
 
[I've got no idea, but odds are that exists.

Option #2 is to create a tray that fits in your acrylic piece, that you can lift off when you do have to remove the entire piece.]
 
[In the long run, I think you will save more time just leaving enough slack in the power lines. Then, you can leave it hooked up while taking it off. Having to plug/unplug or keep contacts lined up and clean possibly many times a day seems a bit tedious.]
 
[No matter the connection of the electric supply.

If I have two 12V fans can I connect the two together and connect them to one AC to 12V DC adaptor. Would both fans get 12V of power or would they get less like 6V each.]
 
[Easy solution. Buy 2 extension cords. Cut the female end off of 1 extension cord, and wire it to your fan. Plug the lights into the full extension cord, plug the full extension cord into the wall. You can make the modified cord that wires to your fan any length you like, if you just make it 6" long, staple it to the to of the canopy next to the fan, then just unplug it there before removing the lid. Similar to a MH setup, but the short end is by the fan not the ballast. Sounds like you need to put a 12v convertor in there somewhere, or change to 120v fans.

Also if your worried about wire nuts and connections etc, I found a liquid electrical tape at Home Depot as well.]



Edited By mwolek on 1086713463
 
[Steven,
If you have two 12V DC fans then you need to connect them in parallel so that they both get 12V. If you connecrt them in series then each fan will only get a portion ~6V of the total voltage drop.

As for the connector idea there are literally thousands of them out there but most of them at Frys and Radio shack will corrode over time. A nice selaed waterproof one would be the best bet but this would not be a simple left off the hood and the connector disconnects. It would be more like a trailer hitch style connection with a form fitting rubber style housing that you would have to disconnect prior to lifting the hood off.]
 
[Andy,

When you say Parallel, do you mean you would twist the two red wires from each fan together and twist the two black wires from each fan together and then connect the twisted wires to the power source?

I'm still toying with the idea of a contact strip. I figure if it does not work I can still convert it easily to a plug type connection.]
 
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