help, noisy blower..... but BOY does it move air!

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Isaac Carlson

Isaac Carlson

Minister of Fire
Nov 19, 2012
1,131
NW Wisconsin
We did not want to spend the $300 for a factory blower on the lopi answer, so we picked up an outdoor boiler draft fan for $80. It moves about 150 cfm and is real noisy. Noisy enough that I almost have to type in capitals.

How can we quiet it down? I have thought about making some kind of muffler for the intake and putting sound insulation around it.

Any ideas?
 
I'm pessimistic. Any mufflers that would work would also reduce the flow. I got a new 125 cfm blower for my insert, with roller bearings, to replace the (30 yo nearly dead) bushing motor blower, and it is way quieter.

this one: http://www.zorotools.com/g/00011668/k-G2151326

The exception would be vibration noise....wrap loose metal pieces in tensioned rubber bands.
 
rwhite said:
Is it controlled by a rheostat?
Click to expand...
Reason I ask is all blowers when ran at full speed are loud. Mine's on a rheostat and I have to turn it way down to be quiet. The idea with an insert is not to blow hot air into the room as much as it is to just keep some air moving around the jacket.
 
Rheostats don't work very well with motors. If you want to slow a motor you are better off changing the phase angle of the incoming power itself. Harbor freight has a cheap router speed control that will do that. It's made to slow the motor of a router and would work fine with a fan motor.
 
jrems said:
Rheostats don't work very well with motors. If you want to slow a motor you are better off changing the phase angle of the incoming power itself. Harbor freight has a cheap router speed control that will do that. It's made to slow the motor of a router and would work fine with a fan motor.
Click to expand...

What do they normally put on stove blower fans to control speed? I may be using the wrong terminolgy. My fan does not have high and low. It is either on or off with the fan speed controlled by the knob position.
 
Some motors are wired for multiple speeds. If your fan is one speed a rheostat doesn't work. It's for dimming lights. Motors don't like the power being "dimmed". a phase angle controller is a pulse width modifier that still gives full voltage to the motor it just changes the amount of time between cycles to slow the motor. Hard to explain. You can google pwm.
 
jrems said:
Some motors are wired for multiple speeds. If your fan is one speed a rheostat doesn't work. It's for dimming lights. Motors don't like the power being "dimmed". a phase angle controller is a pulse width modifier that still gives full voltage to the motor it just changes the amount of time between cycles to slow the motor. Hard to explain. You can google pwm.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the explanation. Somehow I knew that it probably wasn't as easy as putting in a new control.
 
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