Case fans used as ceiling fans???

[Wiebenor]

Hey guys... I have an idea I've been wanting to try, and I'm wondering if it will work... I have a picture I uploaded to this post, of a fan setup my uncle's friend did for their fish house, to use as ceiling fans and, not pictured, I did a single fan setup where it sits sideways in my uncle's fish house and he seems to find a benefit of some kind for it and I'm wondering if such a thing might work for a shop that's around 7-ft by 18-ft... Also remember, that the shop isn't currently finished, as it is in a barn that is basically all studs with the exception of the outer shell in other words it looks more like a pole barn than it does a actual barn, on account of it's still unfinished... Also uploaded, is a couple of pictures of what it might look like when it is completely finished... Also notice that the fans appeared to be hovering in midair a few inches down from the ceiling, and that will not be how it will end up working on account of the obvious fact that It's completely impossible for a fan to hang down with nothing attached to hold it in place, and have it function as desired... It will however if I can get it to, work slightly better than or at least look better than the one picture taken in a fish house... One thing you will notice is that there is that weird light in the corner of the room, and that is actually a light strip in case anybody wonders... I'm hoping I can get it to where the light strips provide enough light to where I can do computer building or fixing or any of that without needing extra light although if I needed extra light I probably would have a couple of RGB strips or something above my work area... It's mainly just something to where I can avoid as much light as I can in the setup itself of the ceiling, although, I may do either a light loop or a similar design fan or perhaps a cheap fan off of Amazon like what Jay's two cents tested, although I would have to figure out how to get it hooked up properly to the fan hubs that it comes with, although I will say whether I use a cheap fan or an expensive fan it would be kind of sweet if you ask me, to use one that could somehow, change colors... Perhaps have somebody make me a raspberry pi on the cheap or something that would control the lights, And I was already thinking a PWM controller for the actual fans but then the question becomes is there is such a thing as a fan cable being too long and then the fans would then start to lose speed with the power loss over the cable length without having any boosters which I assume there is no such thing for this purpose...

 

 

Sorry for the long rant on all that, but it is something that I'm hoping somebody here might understand and might have some knowledge of... But before somebody posts about just using a ceiling fan, I am a computer geek, and therefore just having a couple of plugs hanging off the ceiling, that I can plug a ceiling fan into and then screw it to a couple of pegs or something hanging off the ceiling to me seems to be a more unique way of doing it than having even say a low profile actual fan... I know it would actually be probably less expensive to just have an actual fan, but again it's a PC nerd cave, for lack of a better term, that would also serve as a PC part storage room and as such I want it to be kind of unique...

 

Mainly what I'm looking for, in an answer, is whether somebody with some knowledge on this subject thinks this could work, and if it could work, what the best way to implement it would be... I know I can get extenders and splitters and stuff off of cablemod.com, but generally they are only in as much as 3-ft lengths or something like that last I checked, so I'm sure that would get kind of spendy if I went that route, But if I did go that route, then I could have a splitter which would have one end hanging down through a small hole in the ceiling, and possibly be glued into place or something for the fan to connect to, the only other real problem would be when I hooked up the pwm controller, The one I'm looking at is ran by SATA power, So really the only two ways to do that if I went with the PWM controller route would be to either wire up a serial ATA power cable into a 12-volt line going back to my junction/fuse box using a similar setup to what an RV does, with a 12-volt circuit, or possibly if I did a raspberry pi type controller, for the LEDs or whatever, I could have it control that as well possibly but again I have no idea if any of this would work which is where you all come in...

 

One last thing before I send this post off is the fact that I would not need a full 17-ft of wiring length  because obviously I would only be using five fans to go from one end to the other, and I would not be going all the way to the other end however if I did go with a PWM controller or some other controller way of controlling it, I would have some kind of a controller sitting on my desk whether it be a pi or something else, And so figuring approximately seven or eight foot of height in the room, minus the height of the desk unless I decide to put the raspberry pi or whatever controller, on a shelf above the desk which then instead of being an extra 4 ft might only be 2 ft depending on how close to the ceiling I put it... So figure maybe 14 ft of distance from one end of the line to the other as a guess... Also, I might not do five fans in either direction, I might only do four or I might do six I really don't know what my number's going to end up being but I just had this idea in my head of putting fans on my ceiling because it might not be cheaper necessarily than to get a cheap ceiling fan but it just to me anyway sounds cooler... So anyone with constructive criticism, or ideas on how to actually make this work are definitely welcome to add their thoughts... I would prefer if nobody told me that it isn't going to work, without backing it up with data to prove that it won't work...(note that all the fans have to do is move the air around in the room, as that is their sole purpose)

[kb5zue]

If I didn't know better, I would swear that first pic was taken inside a trailer of some sort or a mobile home.  The air conditioner at the top left is a dead give-away.

 

[DakotaWebber]

1 hour ago, Wiebenor said:

Hey guys... I have an idea I've been wanting to try, and I'm wondering if it will work...

It can be done but  a ceiling fan will obviously be better, look at cfm (cubic feet per minute)

ceiling fans from basic googling usually do around 4000-10000 cfm depending on model and size obviously

 

a 120mm case fan would do about from 40-60

 

but then you are also able to spread out the case fans to apread out the movement of the air in the room than just the one central area of a ceiling fan

 

I would personally do 180mm fans as they would still look like case fans but actually be able to move more air

 

[Eigenvektor]

A fan is a fan. The issue is that such a small fan moves a relatively small volume of air fairly quickly. Your typical ceiling fan moves a large volume of air rather slowly.

 

I could imagine the noise being annoying and a small "stream" of fast moving air being somewhat uncomfortable. The rather slow moving air from a large ceiling fanis probably better in that regard.

[Shimejii]

That simply wont work, Plus all the Wiring youd have to do, as well as the actual air movement is quite minimal. There are reasons this isnt a thing

[Wiebenor]

11 hours ago, kb5zue said:

If I didn't know better, I would swear that first pic was taken inside a trailer of some sort or a mobile home.  The air conditioner at the top left is a dead give-away.

 

It's a fish house... You hook them up to your truck, and you go out onto a frozen lake something you might not be familiar with depending on where you're located, and you drop a hook down a frozen hole to catch fish... That's literally supposedly the purpose of that... And yes some models do come with air conditioners, and in fact if my uncle gets a new one he plans on having air conditioning and big screen TV and all that put in it if he can afford it... Them f****** are expensive(So obviously, he can't afford it) Of course, all I have is my uncle's word that that is a friend of his fish house but he does know fish houses, and as you can see whether it's a fish house or not it does have case fans in it that the guy does run and they seem to work really well for him... But again I am assuming that because it was nearing winter time at the time and my uncle saw a post from a friend of his where he actually did that to what he told me was a fish house I am assuming that because he said that it was a friend's fish house it had to be a friend's fish house... And not to mention that that fish house kind of sort of looks like my uncle's fish house except a lot cleaner and no cabinet on the wall although I have seen models that do have cabinets on the walls so yeah... Also, that bed in the background is a standard fish House bed I have had plenty of experience with them so I should know because my uncle has had plenty of them and I have gotten one or two of them off of him and in case you're wondering they generally suck because they're not a standard size and if the house you're putting them in is too small you have to almost curl up into a ball to fit

[Wiebenor]

11 hours ago, Shimejii said:

That simply wont work, Plus all the Wiring youd have to do, as well as the actual air movement is quite minimal. There are reasons this isnt a thing

I've done this in my room with just one computer fan and guess what??? It worked just fine and I actually rather like the feeling of a large windy rush of air hitting my face when my room is like 100° inside, But to each their own, and besides it's not like I would need to feel that anyway, because when the ceiling is six or seven feet tall, and I'm sitting at something more like 4 ft in height then if it's 6 or 7 or 8 ft tall I'm probably not going to feel the air anyway but believe me you when I say that just that one fan in my room made that much of a difference to me and my room was like 7-ft by 12-ft or something like that...Of course, it wasn't on the ceiling, but it was pointing down at my face or in my general objection and I could move it out of the way if I wanted...

[Wiebenor]

@Eigenvektor @DakotaWebber

 

Thanks for your thoughtful input, both of you... I will see if anybody else has any constructive criticisms or things they might do differently on the project, But I definitely liked both of your comments the best so far... The room that I am planning on using the fans in, isn't going to be that very big and I figure a 7 by 18 or so foot space really doesn't need something that moves like a thousand cubic foot of air or possibly even close to that... And as for the one comment where it was mentioned about the noise, I really don't care about the noise because more than likely I'm going to have either speakers going or headphones on and I actually don't mind the noise like some might... And the other comment regarding how hard it is to wire in, I will say that since I don't actually have a ceiling put in yet, and it is still as I mentioned open studs, the whole wiring it in is the easy bit, because if need be I can just run wires right through the studs, and as I said before I can always just hook a bunch of cable mod or other brand splitters and extensions together... However, the question still stands as to whether the power attenuation would cause a perceptible voltage drop, and/or RPM drop as it got closer to the end fan??? I have already mentioned it before, but because I did receive one comment basically stating how idiotic the idea was and that there were reasons people did not do that, I will say it again, that if anyone wants to say that it won't work, they are welcome to, as long as they provide the evidence and/or documentation for their belief that it will not work. And since I have done it myself with a single fan although not necessarily a computer fan, as it was slightly larger I think, and since I have heard and seen pictures of other people doing it, as well as me adding one in my uncle's approximately 5 ft by 12 ft give or take fishing Shack  albeit a smaller fan, which he finds to work just perfect for him in the winter, I can safely say that while a lot of people don't do that, it's not something that "isn't done" as the one person pointed out... the only issue is that, Even though it is done, I haven't seen anybody specifically say or show, how they did it or any information as to how well it works, aside from my experience with a single fan, and my uncle's experience with a single fan...