Home-Brew Cooling Fan
(Click on pic for larger image)

My Sunny Boy 2500 is mounted in my garage. That means it's out of
the sun but does not have much air circulating around it. I built a
thermostat controlled fan to help the cooling fins dissipate heat in
hopes of preventing the inverter from going into "de-rated" mode.




The photo above shows the thermostat mounted above the inverter.
The fan is a case-cooling fan from a from an old PC case.
The power comes from a "wall wart" power adapter for some
electronic device I used to own. The fan is designed to use 12 volts DC
but the adapter only puts out 6 volts DC. It makes for a gentle breeze
over the fins, and I can feel it carrying away quite a bit of heat. If this
turns out to be insufficient I may switch to a 9 or 12 volt supply.



The fan I took out of an old PC case was already mounted in a metal housing.
The housing had tabs originally intended to allow it to be fastened to the
PC case. I gently bent these tabs so that they would just press against
the sides of the cooling fins and hold it in place. In the photo above
I've tipped up the fan so it can be seen better.



I purchased the thermostat at the local home improvement store for about $12.
Now the one trick with a heater thermostat is that it is designed to turn the
heater OFF when the temp gets high enough. But in my case I needed it
to turn ON my fan when the temp gets too high. I accomplished this
by carefully removing the mercury switch, turning it around, and then
carefully pushing it back into its mount. In the photo above the cover is
removed, and the mercury switch can be seen at the top of the thermostat.


If you try to duplicate any of this make sure you don't exceed the rating of the thermostat
or the power supply. Keep in mind that this solution worked for me, but
if you try anything similar you do so at your own risk.