The only issue I have with my PVC cages is that they don't have the greatest airflow. I have tried adding more holes but due to the internal volume of these cages holes just weren't cutting it. So yesterday I was doing some repair on one of the robots I've built and when I powered it back up to test it I noticed that one of the fans that cools some of the circuitry/motors wasn't running. So I pulled it off and fixed it, but that got me thinking what if I put a few of these on my cages to increase air flow. They are dirt cheap (I buy them by the dozen) and can really take a beating.

They are 40mm (approximately 1 1/5") diameter fans 12 volt DC, 1 Watt



Size comparison:



They are nearly silent and can run pretty much indefinitely.

So I grabbed a 40mm drill bit for plastic from the workshop I build robots in, and installed 2 on them to test:





For testing purposes I have them running off of the 12 volt DC rail on my prototyping board



So far these fans have been working great, no more stale air when I open up the doors of the cage.

I still need to screen off the fan holes, but I seriously doubt that these fans could injure even the most curious snake as the motor will stall if anything touches he fan blades.

Warning Techno-babble

I will build a microcontroller based fan controller (to give me individual control of fan speeds as well as real time based on/off cycling) I will be using an AVR microcontroller and program it in assembly for those who are into that type of thing, I am hoping to get 24 fan control channels when it's all said and done, but we'll see how things turn out. I'll keep everyone posted on it progress.