Solar Powered Fans

I've been planning for a while to incorporate some solar powered fans into my pop can solar furnace. They should help to draw air through the panel and thus circulate the air better. Today, I was able to get started on this part of the process.

I found a few old computer fans kicking around the house. Each is surprisingly quiet and draws a little less than a Watt of power. I also happen to have a small PV solar panel that puts out a couple of watts, but I will test that further as the design goes on.

Today, I simply trimmed the wires on the fans and connected them to the solar panel. Sure enough, they worked! I'm going to gather a few more and test how much air flow I can get before building a new panel with the fans built in. Ideally, I'd also use a PV collector that is just big enough to run the fans, but I will play with that next.

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