Kite day is tomorrow and the Phantom II thread gave me an idea for a nice visual aid that I can use for this event. What I need is a small fan to keep the 24m Synergy filled throughout the day while using minimal power drain from the car battery.

What I have: 400 watt power inverter that I can run a small extension cord to the Syn. I know Angus had talked about using a computer fan and I think this would be ideal. Do you think this would hold up for maybe 8 hours? Later on in the afternoon the wind should be there to assist with inflation but I need something for the low wind hours in the morning. I'm also thinking of a small fan, dryer hose and a ton of duct tape. I'll have some pictures and possible video up soon.

Yeah those muffin fans are designed to run continuously for years and use very little power. Yesterday I used mine to inflate the Phantom 18 in light winds and it was strong enough to inflate the kite enough to push the sand off the upwind wingtip! Just close the zipper around it with the fan aligned diagonally along the zipper and it stays with no tape. I had to unplug it before the sand was pushed off and the kite blew away. I use a 17v RC Car battery also from Radio Sack.

[edit] Oh, and it's completely silent and had the kite overfilled before I had time to attach the lines.

I can attest to how well the little fan works. After Angus finisihed inflating his 18 METER!!! Phantom before he even got his lines laid out, I grabbed it stuck it in the back of my 11m Neo. This thing prefilled it in about 3 mnutes. The wind was about 6 mph. The little fan saved me a lot of backward running.

Thanks for the replies now for the tough question... can I pick one of these fans up and power it with either 12v or 110? I'm off to Google me some Radio Shack.


Edit: Found a 12vdc brushless for $17.99, hope this will do the trick. Thanks again!

Todd.

I have some doubts that a little CPU fan will keep the pressure that high. You are trying to anchor the front lines and set it up as an archway right? I tried to do that with a 10M Venom once for an indoor expo thinking it would make a great display. It didn't cut it and it was all floppy. Blake used to pull it off on the ground level when there was enough wind, but without any it's tough. When he went to Surf Expo the kite they had had a huge spar that ran from one end to the other internally to keep the kites arc shape and the little fan just kept it poofy. Not enough pressure to keep it upright. That 24M will be even tougher. Fans do a great job of inflating the kites to launch, but to keep it's shape it needs quite a bit of pressure.

The biggest challenge to creating an arch with an arc is with the phannies have only the center inflate zip where the apex of the arch would be. It might support the fan if the battery wires were long enough, but it would have to be dead calm. any wind and.....

That's what the plan is right now, arch out of an arc. I plan on picking up the fan in a couple of hours and hope to have a test run by this evening. I've been thinking about the anchoring it with tent stakes on one end and sandbag the other in case of a gust it could flag itself out.

Can't stand the curiosity any more. Off to the phront yard with the Phanny nd muffin phan....

Doooit!

Well that was interesting. Good thing the neighbors are used to seeing strange sights in the front lawn and have pretty much already written me off.

Within 3-4 min I had achieved a pretty high sleep number on the phanny 18 and could have bounced a baseball off of it but I think rudeboysaude is right. Using long wire leads to keep the weight of the battery off I could get it erect on the trailing edge, but you will have a hard time getting it hold the shape of an arc without some external bracing. This would be tricky because there are not points on the kite to fasten it without using tape and that would create its own troubles. And when a puff breeze comes along, oh my, what a disaster. I was by myself (I was not even going to TRY and explain to the wife...) but even with helpers it would be tough.

Maybe if you created slings around the chord at a few points and then used banner poles?

i was thinking about those inflatables they use on the holidays, like the gigantic snow globes. if you can find one at an odd-job or other surplus store. just pull the pump out...

Those are just the same muffin fans but 120v so maybe a bit more ooomph.
Many of them are even just 3"

Here you can see it easily supports the weight of the 9.6v battery pack

Thanks for giving it a go Angus! I'm stopping by West Marine to have a look at a bilge vent blower. The only thing I fear with that is the amount of drain on the battery along with the personal DVD player playing. Ouch, I need a small generator for all of this.

On the beach you can just fill some sandbags and anchor the two front lines, the wind will give it it's shape. It still flops around, but it does make a decent ground display. It's just trying to get it to work in no wind. Tough job. I would assume tons of pressure would make it happen, but like I said, When PL went to Surf Expo years ago, the only solution they came up with was an internal spar that ran tip to tip.. I'd have to figure those guys spent some time experimenting and it was the only solution to really get it to stand upright in no wind.