I am building a portable A/C (really it's just a box with a fan and ice packs) and I want to use a 200CFM case fan. It's rated 12V 1.6A. I was hoping to direct connect this to a solar panel and keep it running (with a slower speed during cloudy conditions), but from what I've researched, I'd need a 25W-35W panel and the one I found was relatively huge in comparison to my cooler box. So now I'm thinking I'll just use a battery and charge the battery at night. So if I have a 30000mAh battery with 2 5V 2.1A port and 1 5V 1A, is there some way I can hack it to 12V 1.6A? Or should I just Amazon a 12V 1.6A drill battery? Any suggestions are welcomed, even negative ones.
Electrical – Running a 12V 1.6A fan on a battery
batteriesfanportable
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That was a long question :-) You are not out of your mind and think in the right direction.
In fact you can get twice much amps you need for your fan. So yes, get one of these modules, and add some extra capacitors on the output (some 10'000 uF) to help it deal with FAN's pulsed current consumption & startup current.
You can even get way bigger fan, cap will help to start it and it will work even if you have just 30-40% of the power it needs. You just need separate switch for DCDC board and FAN - so that you turn DCDC first, and after 1 second - FAN (so that cap is charged).
And finally, direct sun gives much much more juice than 60 Watt lamp. So you really need more powerful fan & more powerful DCDC.
The device, or circuit, you are looking for is called an inverter. You are right that it has a transformer connected backwards, but it also has a lot more besides. A block diagram of a typical inverter system might look something like this:
simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab
The H-Bridge is used by the controller system to generate an alternating current (AC) waveform. The transformer then steps the waveform up to the target voltage.
It's not a nice clean sine wave like you'd get from the mains, but instead what is called a "Modified Sine" wave (green line in this graph):
Due to limitations in the way the H-bridge works there has to be a gap (or dead zone) between driving in one direction and driving in the other. This gives the waveform its characteristic three-level appearance.
Inverters are not a very efficient system, since a proportion of the power is wasted as heat and even noise (they usually hum). It is far better to find a low voltage solution to your problem. Most appliances nowadays (excluding normal white goods) actually run on low voltages, and contain a power supply to reduce the voltage down to the typical 12V/5V/3.3V that you find everywhere now. A much better solution is to find products that allow you to bypass that power supply and provide the needed voltages (or a subset of them - typically 12V is used) directly to the device.
Best Answer
I'd use a surplus automotive battery, but for portable weight a LiPo box 72W 132WH 12V/11000mAh $65
For a fan , dual VW Passat turbo fans with Buck Reg speed control using 15A 50kHZ PWM choke, 10Amp ripple cap. to run it quiet at slow speed with a mini vortex maniform to get rid of eddy current (fan blade interface) noise
Surge current on a 1.6A fan is at least 10A and if you stepped up from 2.5V to 12V that becomes at least 4x battery surge current... or as much as the boost reg can handle without overheating.