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

[Isaac Carlson]

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?

 

[rwhite]

Is it controlled by a rheostat?

 

[woodgeek]

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: (broken link removed to http://www.zorotools.com/g/00011668/k-G2151326)

The exception would be vibration noise....wrap loose metal pieces in tensioned rubber bands.

 

[rwhite]

Is it controlled by a rheostat?

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.

 

[Isaac Carlson]

It is not an insert, it is free standing. I will put a rheostat on it and see what happens.

 

[rwhite]

It is not an insert, it is free standing. I will put a rheostat on it and see what happens.

I don't have enough electrical knowledge to know if any blower can be wired to a rheostat. Curious to see how it works out for ya.

 

[jrems]

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.

 

[rwhite]

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.

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.

 

[jrems]

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.

 

[rwhite]

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.

Thanks for the explanation. Somehow I knew that it probably wasn't as easy as putting in a new control.