Stir plate help

Attempted to do one of these and afraid i am in over my head. I got the project box from radio shack, the fan, and a fan controller. My problem is the first cell phone charger i got didnt work. I dont know whether is the charger itself or not. I dont know whether i am attaching it tot the rught wires on the fan controller or not I got a blackberry charger and plugged it in and both wires are hot. Can i send the pics to someone for help please? Thanks.

Hi

If both wires are physically hot, then you have shorted something out. It's a pretty common thing to do wiring stuff up. If you happen to have a multi meter (DVM / VTVM / VOM / what ever) set it to ohms and start looking for < 2 ohm readings.

Take a look at all the gibberish on the Blackberry Charger. Somewhere it's going to say: 5.0 Vdc 1.2A or something like that. There is a lot of worthless info to deal with on there as well. What you want is a wall wart that puts out 12 volts at more than 0.1 A. Lots of amps are fine, just don't use one that's below 0.1

Lots of fun...

Bob

carlisle_bob said:

hi

if both wires are physically hot, then you have shorted something out. It's a pretty common thing to do wiring stuff up. If you happen to have a multi meter (dvm / vtvm / vom / what ever) set it to ohms and start looking for < 2 ohm readings.

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while it is unplugged!!!

With the blackberry charger i just cut the plug off and used one of those pencil meters thats shows you whether somethin is hot or not. I wanted to find which of the two wires was hot and it was going off for both. I tried another plug for a LG phone and it didnt go off at all for that one so i assume its bogus?

get an actual volt/ohm meter of some sort, and try again.

middie8 said:

With the blackberry charger i just cut the plug off and used one of those pencil meters thats shows you whether somethin is hot or not. I wanted to find which of the two wires was hot and it was going off for both. I tried another plug for a LG phone and it didnt go off at all for that one so i assume its bogus?

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Hi

The gizmo you have isn't designed to test what you are looking at. It's likely that the wires are only "hot" relative to each other.

Bob

Touch the two wires with the two wires on the fan, if it does not spin reverse the two wires. mark them once you figure out which is which.

tgreene7 said:

Touch the two wires with the two wires on the fan, if it does not spin reverse the two wires. mark them once you figure out which is which.

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This. Nothing bad is going to happen by connecting them backwards, it just won't spin.

this presents another problem as well. i have a fan controller as well. that is what i have been trying to attach the power to. the actual fan has plugs that go to the fan controller and a plug that is black and red. but to this point i have been trying to hook the power to the black and yellow wires to the fan controller. should i be hooking the power straight to the fan?

Hi

The power leads to the fan should be black and red. The yellow lead on the fan it's self is a tacometer output. You do not connect anything to the yellow lead from the fan.

Bob

check your fan to make sure it isn't a 12 volt unit, a blackberry charger will only put out 5.5. a 12v fan wont even budge for less that 9 or 10 volts.

madcow_number_6 said:

check your fan to make sure it isn't a 12 volt unit, a blackberry charger will only put out 5.5. a 12v fan wont even budge for less that 9 or 10 volts.

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I just checked and it is. What to do now?

middie8 said:

I just checked and it is. What to do now?

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You're pretty well hosed without a 12volt wall transformer .... radio shack might have one or at least a variable output version. You might even have one around the house. Laptop power cords put out 12-14volts so does some cordless drill chargers. I scavenged mine from a small room humidifier that was laying around.

Alternatively, you could find a PC fan that runs at 5volts. They cost about a dollar on eBay or you could snag one from a computer repair place. I'm not positive that a 5volt PC fan will have enough umph to spin two magnets and a liter of wort though.

well, a 12v fan may spin with a 5v supply, just maybe not very fast.

Get a 12v adapter of some kind, though. that is the best idea.

your local goodwill store has lots of wall warts (chargers).
bring a magnifying glass if needed, and find one that puts out 12 volts.

Then, after testing which color needs to go to which wire to get it to turn, attach one leg of the charger to one leg of the fan - permanently. The other leg of the charger will go to one side of your fan controller. and the other leg of the fan will go to the other side of the controller.

View attachment fan.bmp

Look in your basement or attic. I had power supplies all over the place. Old powered computer speakers, old answering machine, old computer joysticks that had to plug in. I tried a couple until I found the one that worked! It was the one from the answering machine. It was junk anyway. Who would want one that uses those little mini tape cassettes?

Hi

eBay will deliver a 12V 1A wall wart to your door for about $3.

Bob

Ok thanks for all of the input. I am off to get some more parts. Update to follow.

Gentlemen we have success. Found a 12v power supply to a router. Connected it to the fan controller and we are rockin. Thanks for all the help.

middie8 said:

Gentlemen we have success. Found a 12v power supply to a router. Connected it to the fan controller and we are rockin. Thanks for all the help.

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Good deal! Happy brewing