Cooling 8 Sunny Boys [RE-wrenches]
Jeff Clearwater
clrwater at earthlink.net
Tue Apr 6 23:35:41 PDT 2004
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Hi All,
Anyone out there have
Before the sunny breeze was introduced, I installed 4 sunny boys with
a cooling fan set up consisting of a tranformer-based 4 A, 12V power
supply powering four 12 V, .6 amp ball bearing fans controlled by
running the AC input to the power supply through a standard line
voltage make-on-rise thermostat mounted above one of the sunny boy
heatsinks. It also powers a fifth fan for the power shed. It's
worked perfectly for almost 2 years.
Now I'm adding 4 more sunny boys to the shed and coincidently while I
was pondering how best to expand the system the power supply failed.
It may have failed because the on-time is high since it senses
ambient temp - not heat sink temp.
So my options as I see it:
1) Tear that all out and buy 8 sunny breezes - $700 and live with 3
wall warts with questionable life
2) Buy four more fans, a 50 watt solar panel and run them direct.
$400. Concern: Fans will have short life if run during all
sunlight hours without heat sink thermostat control.
3) Buy a high quality solid state 8 amp power supply (like a
MeanWell) and four more fans and either move the thermostat closer to
the heat sink or get a heat sink thermostat rated to the AC input
amperage and control the power supply.
SO QUESTIONS:
1) Does anyone know of a reliable off-the-shelf heat sink mountable
thermostat that can handle the amperage of the input of the power
supply (perhaps .1 amp at 240VAC or 2 amps at 120) (I've used
standard electric water heater thermostats in the past for custom
solar hot water systems - their double pole double throw so you can
use one side for make on rise - Thier temp range is about right and
surely can handle the amperage - but are really bulky and
unprofessional looking! (and no way to cover exposed wires)
2) Does anyone have experience with high reliability fans and/or
power supplies and/or heat sink thermostats?
3) Generally what do we think the life of a sunny breeze is? Is it
the fan or the wall wart that'll fail first? How long?
Any help before I go out and spend money would be most appreciated
from such esteemed colleagues as you.
Best,
Jeff C.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeff Clearwater
Village Power Design Associates
http://www.villagepower.com
jeffc at villagepower.com
Sustainable Energy & Water Solutions for Home & Village
NABCEP Certified PV Installer
Office: (413) 256-6777, Cell: (720)480-8455
Fax: (413) 825-0372
61 Baker Road
Shutesbury, MA 01072;
PO Box 115
Boonville, CA 95415
(877) 765-2784
Council Member - Ecovillage Network of the Americas - http://www.ecovillage.org
Advisory Board - Living Routes - Ecovillage Education -
http://www.livingroutes.org
Founder: Ecovillage Research, Development, and Demonstration Program:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~clrwater/RDD/rdd.html
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