Should Pwr Converter Fan run continuously ?

Absolutely right LY. I was thinking the 120 mm fans I am working with-- thank you for the correction. Wearing something out for no reason is not a good plan. Funny about wattage my 120 mm AC fans draw 14 watts and are not noisy (to me).

beemerphile1 wrote:
The owner's manual for the converter would be a marvelous thing to read and have on hand. If you don't have one, Google the brand and model number and find it online.

LOL....Since most are the highly regarded, super high quality, WFCO brand good luck. Have you ever read a WFCO manual? I did once. Are they still written in Chinglish? Since then the manual gets tossed in the trash along with the WFCO guts while I am swapping out to a Boondocker board on a new rig.

The 80MM fan I pulled from a failed Wfco converter pulled 0.28 amps at 12.8v, or about 3.6 watts. Its was quite a loud high rpm fan and I was relieved when its cheezy sleeve bearing started clicking and buzzing and I could put the dang thing under the sledgehammer and deliberatley swing and miss the first dozen swings to really convey my contempt for it. And then buy a Noctua.

Sometimes exaggerating for effect has the opposite of intended effect.

An 80mm fan pulling 10 watts would be ridiculously loud for such an application.

Constantly running a fan without intelligent control is a loser. Even a small fan sucks ten watts. I build my boards to have a thermistor next to a heat/load reactive choke or transformer. Trigger at 50c (122F). Until they make a reliable 10-year lifespan fan, my stuff will remain temperature controlled.

I could use landyacht's experienced comments here but there are better fans on the market that have special bearings.

Normal. Some are temperature based, some are output based to regulate the fan. Some are fixed speed, some might be variable speed.

Switching to LED lights will tend to keep the fan off.

Sounds normal
I'm guessing you think something is wrong, that it shuts off
Most time we get this question is because it is not shutting off
And that is usually because of a bad battery

The owner's manual for the converter would be a marvelous thing to read and have on hand. If you don't have one, Google the brand and model number and find it online.

There is a temp sensor on the convertor board the modulates the cooling fan so fan operation is entirely dependent of component temp.

The fan is temperature controlled. And may be a 12 volt device. If the converter gets HOT. due to working hard.. or due to sun light or ambient temp heating it up. the fan comes on.. Once it cools off the fan shuts off. DOES NOT EVEN MATTER IF YOU ARE PLUGGED IN. fan will come on if it gets too hot.