David_Nelson
Well Known Member
With summer heat solidly upon us, a bit of moving air can sure help. If you've an old squirrel fan from a HVAC / furnace lying around (or know of somebody who's getting their HVAC/furnace replaced), here's a fun little project to convert the blower into a handy and portable fan. Just to clarify, this is not the fan that sits outside in the condenser unit.
Depending on the blower design, you may have to build some kind of a support to keep the blower stationary. For the one pictured below, I built a cradle out of some scrap cedar pickets and 2x4's. The 2x4's were ripped down the middle and bevelled to increase the friction between the cradle and the blower. The entire cradle assembly is glued and screwed. The blower wedges itself (there's about a 3/8" gap between the bottom of the blower and floor of the cradle) and it's surprisingly stable. With the cradle, I can rotate the fan from about 30* downward (great for when working under the RV) to straight up (great when hanging those new lights in the hangar).
I like adding some chicken wire, an on/off switch, a couple of plugs, and a carrying handle. I'm thinking of adding a SPST On/On switch to select between High and Medium fan speeds as High can be little noisy (but it sure does blow some air!).
As for wiring things up, there should be a schematic either on the motor or the blower housing. Follow that and you should be good. If you're not comfortable, ask around to some of your buddies for some help.
Some motors have bearings that require a bit of oil. The galleys are usually capped with small plastic caps, located on the motor's end caps. The plastic caps pull right out. It's probably been forever and a day since they've been touched so a couple drops of light machine oil (3-IN-1) is not a bad idea and then replace the caps.
Secure any loose wires (which I've yet to do on this one) and make sure all screws, nuts, bolts, etc are tight.
As most things in life, there's a trick to these things. You can't just wire it up, turn it on, and let it go. Doing so runs the risk of the motor overheating and possibly failing. Of the ones I've repurposed, I've always had to choke the exit a bit to get the airflow up and amperage draw down. Sometimes there are small dimples on the exit flange that are good guides other times it takes some experimenting by placing a small piece of plywood / board / aluminium sheet / etc. Just be careful of the moving parts. Once the proper exit size is determined, permanently affix the material of choice in place. In this example, I used a piece of aluminium left over from an elevator skin that I borked.
And there you have it - for a few bucks, you've got a fan that is portable, blows a good breeze, and can be positioned to blow in just about any position.
Depending on the blower design, you may have to build some kind of a support to keep the blower stationary. For the one pictured below, I built a cradle out of some scrap cedar pickets and 2x4's. The 2x4's were ripped down the middle and bevelled to increase the friction between the cradle and the blower. The entire cradle assembly is glued and screwed. The blower wedges itself (there's about a 3/8" gap between the bottom of the blower and floor of the cradle) and it's surprisingly stable. With the cradle, I can rotate the fan from about 30* downward (great for when working under the RV) to straight up (great when hanging those new lights in the hangar).
I like adding some chicken wire, an on/off switch, a couple of plugs, and a carrying handle. I'm thinking of adding a SPST On/On switch to select between High and Medium fan speeds as High can be little noisy (but it sure does blow some air!).
As for wiring things up, there should be a schematic either on the motor or the blower housing. Follow that and you should be good. If you're not comfortable, ask around to some of your buddies for some help.
Some motors have bearings that require a bit of oil. The galleys are usually capped with small plastic caps, located on the motor's end caps. The plastic caps pull right out. It's probably been forever and a day since they've been touched so a couple drops of light machine oil (3-IN-1) is not a bad idea and then replace the caps.
Secure any loose wires (which I've yet to do on this one) and make sure all screws, nuts, bolts, etc are tight.
As most things in life, there's a trick to these things. You can't just wire it up, turn it on, and let it go. Doing so runs the risk of the motor overheating and possibly failing. Of the ones I've repurposed, I've always had to choke the exit a bit to get the airflow up and amperage draw down. Sometimes there are small dimples on the exit flange that are good guides other times it takes some experimenting by placing a small piece of plywood / board / aluminium sheet / etc. Just be careful of the moving parts. Once the proper exit size is determined, permanently affix the material of choice in place. In this example, I used a piece of aluminium left over from an elevator skin that I borked.
And there you have it - for a few bucks, you've got a fan that is portable, blows a good breeze, and can be positioned to blow in just about any position.