Video: Discovering 12v Off-grid Devices in Unlikely Places

If you’ve ever gone looking for 12v fans that are marketed as 12v fans you might get some sticker shock. So I was pleasantly surprised last year when I was in Walmart and ran across a dual power fan (110v or “D” size batteries). Of course, it wasn’t the “D” size battery feature that excited me, it was what I found on the back where the cord went into the fan. It clearly indicated it was a 12v fan! Yet nowhere on the outside of the box did it say that.

When I tested the fan I found that it uses about 5 watts on high and 4 watts on low… making this an excellent fan for off-grid use. Of course, you could run the fan straight off the inverter with the standard 110v plug, but it is more efficient to run a 12v device directly as a 12v device. It also means you don’t have to leave your inverter on when you are running the fan, which is handy for conserving power if you want to be able to turn your inverter off at night.

By the way, this fan is fairly quiet, so it works well for sleeping in hot Texas weather.

The video above demonstrates a quick way to convert the cord of the above 110v fan to tie directly into a 12v power system. You can learn more about ideas like this in The Doable Off-grid Homestead.

To learn more about some of the products we use in our homesteading projects visit our new Homesteading Products page.