Squirrel Cage Blower

[downer]

I purchased a squirrel cage blower (it's AC, 1/17 hp) on ebay a couple years ago, while planning out a wood box enclosure for my water cooling equipment. The plan kind of fizzled out, but now I'm interested again. The blower currently is much to loud and powerful for what I need. I'd like to know if there would be a way to modify it to maybe half power. I've included a couple pics of the unit.

[Korndog]

well, its not a good idea to put a resistor or rheostat to decrease the voltage on fans, it can make the fan overheat and die, so that option is out. the best way is to buy a PWM (pulse width modulator), i dont' know much about building them though, i bought one ready made a long time ago when i was into water cooling, but they don't seem to sell them on ebay anymore..

one of our ocforums member has a tutorial to build one, but i think it works for dc only..
http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=4253263&postcount=1

[Agentorange88]

I believe you can lower the the HZ from 60 down to a lower number and that should slow it down. I'm not totally sure about it.

[Skeith]

I believe you can lower the the HZ from 60 down to a lower number and that should slow it down. I'm not totally sure about it.
Yes you can but you have no idea how difficult it is. Not only do these motors require a high power output but they also require a pure sine wave to get them to rotate. (sine wave reflects a circle). The problem is it is quite hard to reproduce a sine wave on a high power level into an inductive load (the motor) as the inductive load wreaks havvoc on the sine waves purity.

It depends on the type of motor. Is is capacitor start, capacitor run, shaded pole etc? Maybe a model number could help.

The type of motor will help us determine the best low cost alternative. Some types could be as simple as hooking them to a light dimmer, while this will fry others.

[speed bump]

Yes you can but you have no idea how difficult it is. Not only do these motors require a high power output but they also require a pure sine wave to get them to rotate. (sine wave reflects a circle). The problem is it is quite hard to reproduce a sine wave on a high power level into an inductive load (the motor) as the inductive load wreaks havvoc on the sine waves purity.

It depends on the type of motor. Is is capacitor start, capacitor run, shaded pole etc? Maybe a model number could help.

The type of motor will help us determine the best low cost alternative. Some types could be as simple as hooking them to a light dimmer, while this will fry others.

Thats going to get fried if he tries to hook up a motor that big to one.

You will need a Variac which you can probably pick one up on ebay for not to huge of an amount of cash.

[billb]

The blower currently is much to loud and powerful for what I need. I'd like to know if there would be a way to modify it to maybe half power...It would cost many times the price of the blower to change it's speed. Also the advantage of a blower over a fan is the much higher pressure that a blower will develop. Reducing the speed of the impeller will greatly reduce this advantage though.

You'd be better off starting with a suitable blower.

[nd4spdbh2]

how many amps does the thing draw?.... just pop it on a dimmer switch and ur done.

[Xenocide]

how many amps does the thing draw?.... just pop it on a dimmer switch and ur done.

did you not read anything that was posted after the main post?