Thumper Club Forum
Club House => Chatter => Topic started by: guest27 on March 21, 2009, 09:25:25 PM
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To all who answered my last Q about the camera - thanks, I think I may well buy some D cell NiMh from Maplin and a cage to let me wire 4 into the camera - it takes 4 AA so I would guess 4.8V will do rather than the 6V the input is rated at. That one is sorted.
Puter Q. My digicard reader only talks to my computer if plugged into the primary USB ports, not through an expansion card. Pain in the bottom as puter sits under the desk. It does not work through a poered hub plugged into any of the USBs - though plenty of other things do. I bought an extension lead so I could plug in near the front - this will not work for the card reader but does for other things - any ideas as to what I can do apart from a new car reader to get the reader talking to the puter afer I have unplugged it or turned the puter off?
Second and more interesting question. I have an old electric kettle that is essentially a glass globe with an element fitted under the base. I have an itch to have it sat in the kitchen bubbling away with some neon tetras in it. Now I could do this with a bubbler and some NTs aclimatised to cold water - but they do not look so bright to my mind, so I want to run the kettle as a small tropical tank. It is out of commission due to the spout breaking off, not an element problem, and it seems to me that if I could use the element to heat the water, without cooking the fish it would look better than with a heater hanging into it.
The kettle is 240V 2KW, looking at some of the tropical tank heaters they tend to run at 15 to 25W. If I were to buy a thermostat kit and a 2V to 6V powersupply would the element still run and should I be able to stabalise the 'tank' at then 28 to 30c that would be good for the fish? The power supplies I have (tend not to throw away a lot) will be sending out a DC output - that will not be an issue as the element is a big resistor and these do not care if you are throwing AC or DC at them?
Maybe I should have done physics rather than Biology at school?
R
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My head hurts!
(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/one.pot/pout.jpg)
GC