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Re-purposing radiator fans - electronic help


natedogg624

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Need a little electronic thinking help to make sure I have this thought out correctly. 
 
I'm taking the radiator fans from my r6 that I removed and building them into a work table.  Ideally I'd like to run them off my inverter/generator.  
 
I can't find the exact specs on the fans, but the fuse rating for them is 15A per fan, x 12V would be ~180W/fan, ~360W total. 
 
Where I'm stuck right now is figuring out how to get these to run off my generator.  Could I use something like this (eBay link), or would I need an inverter?  The only problem I have is I can't find an inverter that takes a 120V input and outputs to 12V. 
 
Or, an alternate easy solution would be to re-use a spare LiIon motorcycle battery I have lying around and just keep battery plugged in with it's charger adapter. 
 
I know this is an oddball project and there are easier ways I'm just trying to see if this can work as a fun side project.
 

 

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Computer power supply would work wondrful. I have built 2 work radios out of them. One in an old ammo can. For $20 on ebay and some googling you can get a 450w power supply to run fans, test 12g and 5v. Very easy to do. Just make sure you connect all wires that are doubled to a pin and connect green to black as magley said.

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Computer power supply would work wondrful. I have built 2 work radios out of them. One in an old ammo can. For $20 on ebay and some googling you can get a 450w power supply to run fans, test 12g and 5v. Very easy to do. Just make sure you connect all wires that are doubled to a pin and connect green to black as magley said.

 

You lost me here. What do you mean by test 12g and 5v?  Also, what gauge wire would be appropriate?  I believe the wire running off the fans are 14 gauge. 

 

I've built pc's before but have never dove into a PSU, normally just plug it into the slot on the m-board. 

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You lost me here. What do you mean by test 12g and 5v? Also, what gauge wire would be appropriate? I believe the wire running off the fans are 14 gauge.

I've built pc's before but have never dove into a PSU, normally just plug it into the slot on the m-board.

If it's being used on a work table, you could leave some extra leads out to test electronics or sensors. Guess that all depends on what kind of work you are doing. All the yellow leads off the power supply are 12v, I believe all the blue are 5v, black is ground, etc.

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Seems like a lot of work, but does look clean, I just cut off the connectors for the disk drive leads, and use the yellow and black for my 12v needs. Then use electrical taps to ground the green to one of the blacks on the board connector.

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Seems like a lot of work, but does look clean, I just cut off the connectors for the disk drive leads, and use the yellow and black for my 12v needs. Then use electrical taps to ground the green to one of the blacks on the board connector.

That is what I did for my radio. I didn't need the extra power, so I just split 2 yellows off a disk drive and a ground and powered the headunit. You could do the same for the fans.
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see that green wire in your first pic, cut the end off and connect it to any black in that loom. This will turn the power supply "on" If you want a switch to turn the power supply on and off, use a Single pole single throw switch between the green and any of the blacks.

 

Then in your third pic use the Yellows for 12V+ and Blacks for Ground... reds are 5V+ and 3.3v+ if you want to 2 or 3 speed your fans (lower voltage, slower spin)

Edited by magley64
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also keep in mind this note from the link mango posted  (i've never used a Power supply this new for this purpose)

 

 

Note that some power supplies may have either a gray or brown wire to represent "power good"/"power ok". (Most PSU's have a smaller orange wire that is used for sensing-- 3.3V- and this wire is usually paired at the connector to another orange wire. Make sure this wire is connected to the other orange wires, otherwise your lab power supply won't stay on.) This wire should be connected to either an orange wire (+3.3V) or a red wire (+5V) for the power supply to function.

 

 

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I'd probably suggest you combine them just for peace of mind, so you don't run the risk of putting too much current through any 1 wire...but I suspect it won't be a problem either way, and If it were me doing it, I probably wouldn't bother, and just run 1 to 1.

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OK and when you say to connect the green wire to any black in that loom, do you mean the same 20 pin m-board loom it's in, or any black ground I'm using?

 

 

Any ground should do it, but when I do it i usually use one from the same 20 Pin, since that is essentially how the computer would do it when you push the button.

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