Terrarium question

[ATester]

I know several here are terrarium hobbyists, so here's a question. I have pondered setting up a small terrarium for my humidity lovers (Masdies and Restrepia). I have a cooling fan pilfered from an old computer (the one that sits over the heatsink for the processor). Does anyone have any designs for setting up one of these types of fans? I tried to find stuff on the web, but some the websites that I tried finding designs are no longer in existence. I have some of the components from when I was into Theramin building, so I am not scared to make some simple circuits. I guess one can get even more sophisticated and set up something that can detect temperature and humidity too.

[jtlqh]

I had a processor fan that I could not turn it on in the past. This fan has 3 wires, red, yellow, black, and it is +12V powered, 1.6w fan. I had tried with my old DC adaptor from my cell phone that only gives out 9V, that could not drive the fan. I later connect a adjustable DC supply to the fan, and found out it needs exactly 12V, I counlt not even drive it with 11.8V. I was lucking that my office has a lot of scraped equipments that has case fans, so I can take the fan home. These fans are a lot more easy to power, they take any voltage from 7V to 24V. Higher voltage will drive the fan faster, but noisier. I read some people will buy a 12V DC adapter, then connect the light dimmer to adjust the speed.

[jtlqh]

Oh, I forgot to mention that you need to connect the red wire to +12V, and the black to ground, and leave the yellow disconnected.