Need for Speed - Astoria running Modified Class High Peformance Exhaust Blower!

Hello

First I want to say this will void the warranty and I do not recommend it for stoves currently under warranty. Now if you have an older stove you want to Rev up and ALSO with a quick wire change throttle back to stock this mod may be for you!

My issue was a dirty burn even though I cleaned the stove. I put a new stock exhaust blower in and it worked good for a few weeks now it is back to dirty burns!

So I swapped out the 1.0 Amp exhaust blower motor for a 1.5 Amp exhaust blower motor and wow, this stove lights in almost half the time! ! !

Here are the details

1. I took out the stock Fasco Travis large blower and removed the mounting hub.
2. Dissasembled the Fasco upgraded 2 Speed Magnum blower from impeller, housing and mounting hub
3. Drilled out Magnum 2 speed Fasco motor mounting holes to fit the stock Travis large blower mounting hub
4. Spray Dry Moly on new mounting hub and impellers for protection
5. Mounted 2 speed blower to Travis hub and installed Travis large blower impeller.
6. Put new lytherm gasket on stove and mounted 2 speed blower into stove
7. Changed female clips on blower to plug into female clips on stove. (Made a male to male jumper)
8. Fired the stove and let her rip!

The new 2 speed blower is 85 CFM on low and 105 CFM on high with stock impeller.
White is Common
Red is low speed
Black is high speed

So not sure in the new setup what CFM is.

What I am sure of is this.
Power = Amps x Volts
Stock Travis Blower Motor
P= 1.0 x 115 = 115 watts

New Magnum Blower Motor
P= 1.6 x 115 = 184 Watts.

So far it is running great and I had to really lower the damper. Don't need much air now!

More Power ! ! ! See pics below, click to enlarge

More amps does not mean more rpm as both motors you are using are rated for the same speed , yes ?

Where are you controlling your speeds from? Red to what, black to what

Yes, they are both rated at 3,000 RPM but more current means more power under a load!

The red is taped off, the black and white wires are stepped thru their speeds by the control panel.

Good job, The original motor was running slightly overloaded and not consistently producing the rpms needed. The higher current motor has more torque available and will be more consistent.
Your electrical theory is a little off:
Power = Volts x Amps x Cos(phase angle)
Phase angle between Volts and Amps is controlled by the motor's inductance and the amount of work the motor is doing. That doesn't change your results, but it wasn't correct.

Hello Harvey

Thanks for the info, I have a BSEE but never worked with motors much before now. I knew there is more to it. The current rating on these motors is that peak? I know the current draw is more on startup.

You may be right about the original motor being overloaded. The Astoria has a larger mounting hub and larger impeller blades for the 4" diameter venting compared to most other stoves running the same motor. I also know that my local Travis dealer service manager says they sell alot of the Travis replacement motors! ! ! Being overloaded and overworked would explain all this ! ! ! Even the small Englander 25-PDVC exhaust motors are 1.05 amps which is better than the OEM 1.0 amp motor that was in the Astoria!

The motor ran all night last night and I checked it this morning. No dirty burn!

Thanks for your comments!

Don,
The current rating is usually stated at max rated work load. So if it is a 1/80 hp motor they would rate the current at that work output. (hp = rpm x torque) At no load the motor is doing very little work and at stall it is doing very little work. Work peaks somewhere in between.
Peak current happens momentarily at startup and with a locked rotor. Under those conditions the current is limited only by the winding impedance and can be many times the rated motor current.
I felt funny about correcting you, but I hate to see what I consider to be mis-information on a forum. Soon it becomes immutable fact after being quoted many times. My apologies, it comes from being an Engineer for 45 years.
Harvey

You need to see some of the newer motors Don there are a lot of fractional amp units out there now that can move a lot of air.

Any examples?

Yeah, if you don't mind waiting for it to be time for me to remove both my combustion and convection blowers which isn't going to be anytime soon.

I replaced both last season with newer units that were lower in power consumption the convection blower went from 1.5 amps 160 CFM to 1.0 amp 230 CFM the combustion blower went from 0.95 amp to 0.6 amp and that airflow stayed the same.

The original convection blower was a 1.8 amp unit and the original combustion blower was a 1.2 amp unit.

As I understand it there were a series of efficiency changes that were required for certain electrical devices and electric motors were impacted.

Sure thing. I have an external DIY combustion blower rig on the top of my stack that works great. Fasco stock hi-temp squirrel cage blower from Grainger - not the greatest quality motor on the planet. Rated at 0.52 amps, 110 cfm - about triple what I need to run the stove, lol, though it's nice to be able to turn the speed control up to full after cleaning and get a baby (though pretty functional) leaf blower effect ;-) At some point I'll want to replace the motor (keeping the housing) and would go for a better unit. Post 'em up when you can - much appreciated.

That is a good idea to have an external one in the stack. Do you have a pic?

How old is your device it could be that it already one of the newer units.

I keep looking for parts that I can use in place of what I already have and always try to reduce the loads on my controller if possible.

Pretty Rube Goldberg, but effective. Reduces the overall noise of the unit radically...

Blower ordered from Grainger not even a year ago. See pix above.

It is highly likely a newer unit.

I can see the how your new setup reduces the noise in the stove room a lot, there are a couple of stoves that have optional outdoor combustion blowers.

In my stove room the computer makes most of the noise where I sit.

Nothing really new under the sun, but a nice "mod" midfielder. Enviro Mini has the outdoor comb. blower as an option.

To the OP: Is the new motor significantly louder?

Yes, a little louder. We have the stove in the basement and pipe the heat up, so it does not matter. It sure does work much better. In hindsight, I am convinced that the OEM blower is really under powered. It should be 1.5 amps to handle the larger blades for the 4" pellet venting.

Hello Again

One more update on this. I did find that a big part of my original problem was due to a dirty chimney. After I cleaned out the chimney, the higher 105 CFM was too much and the flame was too small to provide the same great heat as it once did. So I throttled back to the 85 CFM using the Red and White Wires and now it is cruising along with a nice big wide flame and putting out great heat. Still nice to have that extra horse power!