Wall Wart Question

[starhawk]

So I have a random 92mm fan that someone gave me, hooked up to a random wall wart from god-only-knows-where as a sort of a desk fan. Power switch is from an AT system. LOL.

Wall wart is a "Hon Kwang" DC12-50, rated 12v 500mA output.
Fan is a SproFan SJ-92X12A, rated 12v 150mA input.

After an hour or so of steady fanning, the wall wart is hot enough to fry bacon on. It's not quite literally painful to pull it off the power strip, but if it gets much hotter, it will be.

Is that something I should worry about? will the heat kill the wart? (and if so, will the dying wart kill the fan?) or is it just fine if not expectable for a cheap wall wart to heat up significantly during use?

 

[evilsofa]

Since they are both 12v and the fan is using less than 500mA, that is okay. The fan will only pull 150mA from the wall wart; the wall wart won't push 500mA at it, if that's what you were wondering.

The wall wart is getting really hot because it's inefficient. More efficient wall warts make less heat. Efficiency is expensive. Almost all wall warts have one virtue: being really, really cheap.

If you want an efficient wall wart, I don't know of any. If you have a PC nearby and have it on when you want the fan to be on, you could just use its power supply to power the fan.

 

[starhawk]

I'm fairly familiar with how electricity works mostly I was looking for "will the heat damage the wall wart...?" type info.

I can get a switcher wart (not a well-put-together one tho) for ~$6+shipping from SparkFun Electronics. But I don't plan on doing that meh, if this one dies I guess I can get one from eBay. Those are cheap enough that I can justify 'em...