Portable Mini-Fan

Welcome to How to make your own portable mini-fan!

I am going to show you how to make a portable mini-fan in a few steps and in a really cheap way with (maybe) stuff around the house.

Requirements:

Pc mini-fan with a voltage range of 5V to 12V

Battery, 9V or an old controllable car battery which you can charge, Max 12V

On/Off switch

Screws

A long piece of wood. I used MDF 90 cm by 60 cm and 1,5 cm thick.

A piece of wood of 5 mm (0,5 cm) thick with max. 3 layers of wood on each other.

If requirements can't be made:

Pc mini-fan with an other voltage range, but nothing with a higher minimum range of 9V.

For the battery of the car it is way better to use since you dont have to worry about buying a new battery since you can charge this one.

Not required but can be used:

More mini-fans!

If so, you have to match the amount of batteries with the total voltage of the mini-fans together. This also means that you need more battery-slots and a bigger place to put them in.

A piece of rope if you want to hold it easier and probably easier to take it with you.

Do not!:

Use battery with other voltage, will only make you use more batteries and will take more space to put them in.

Tools:

Glue

3D-Printer

Laser-cutter (optional), otherwise a knife (won't have the same beautiful effect, since the wood is bit thicker).

Circular Saw table (MDF is thick and has a lot of glue in it, makes it easier to cut through).

Cordless drill

Soldering iron

First of you need a mini-fan.
The mini-fan that was used in the picture is a 12 cm by 12 cm mini-fan.

As you can see you need four different pieces of wood, two little less big than the other two pieces.

Big ones are: 25 cm by 15 cm.

Little ones are: 25 cm by 12 cm

Use the circular saw table to cut the wood in the right shape.

It is also possible to make the fan cable longer by connecting a three-pin cable to the original cable of the fan.

As you can see, the best way to connect the parts together is to drill the holes before you screw them in so that the wood won't rip apart.

This is best done with a cordless drill since they are faster than doing this with only your hands.

Don't drill the screws too deep since it could still rip the wood apart, but if the wood rips a little (as in the picture) it is not a huge problem, since you can cover that up.

First you connect one big piece to two little pieces of wood. This is so that the fan can fit right in without problems.

If the fan is still to big, you can use some wastepaper to make the wood less so the fan would fit. (see picture)

In this step we are covering the cables and the battery we use.

Connect the fan cables (second picture) with the battery (first picture) and the switch (4th picture) with the same colors. The only difference is that you need to connect the yellow and black wires together and use a soldering iron to make sure they always make a connection, same goes for the red wires.

To save space you can use ducktape to tape the fan cable to one side of the inside of the box, the cables won't bother the speed of air coming out if done this way. It is better to tape them up so that they can't accidently get in the fan and destroy the cables nor fan.

Also possible is to tape the battery on another side of the inside of the box, but far enough so that the switch can be on the outside of the box. Will be covered in the next step. In one of the pictures you can see the battery and the cables being taped on the inside of the box.

Last but not least for this step is to cover the wires where you did solder the wires together in tape. (second to last picture)

After this, you can do the same as in step 2, make holes in the last big piece and screw that on the last open side of the box (last picture).

If the battery is charged, just turn the switch and see if the fan works.

If the battery is not yet charged, plug the charger in the wall socket and turn on the fan with the switch and see if the fan works.

For this part we use the same wood (MDF in the picture).

This part has to fit in the box like the fan, exactly 12 cm by 12 cm. This can be done with the ciruclar saw table again.

After doing that you need to measure how you want to put the switch and the chargable ending of the battery on the outside of the box.

As seen in the picture, it is possible to use a saw or chisel for this part, since it is a small important part to do so.

After doing that and the switch and chargable ending are on the outside, you can use glue/kit to stick the parts and the wood together.

After this is done, you can dig holes on the backside so that the fan can take air from that side and push it forward.

These holes are not possible to get out of a laser cutter since MDF is too thick with glue.

Here are the files you need for laser-cutting and 3D-printing.

The laser-cutting part is for the front part, to protect your hands or hair getting in the fan.

For the laster-cutting part you need Adobe Illustrator.

The wood for using a laser cutter has to be 5mm (0,5 cm), with max. 3 layers of wood, otherwise it can't cut through.

The 3D-printing part is just to cover the chargable ending.

Now you can glue or kit the parts onto the box.

This is the result :)

If you want you can even paint it or leave it as it is.

Good luck!