Centrifugal hair dryer fan?

Quailane · Apr 25, 2004

I was volunteering at some senior center yesterday and they had a flea market there. Besides picking up something for my mom on mothers' day, I had to buy a hair dryer for only $1. It is the only one I have seen with a centrifugal blower and not a straight fan. I want to use it for something. That hair dryer must put out at least 300cfm. I will mod it to run at lower voltage so the sound waves don't blow up my computer. Only problem is that I don't know what kind and how much electricity it uses. I want to be able to run it off a pc power supply and not plugged in separately to the wall. I'm hoping for at least 50cfm out of this. Any way I can go about doing this?

chkptcharlie · Apr 25, 2004

the hair dryer i took apart years ago ran on AC so i don tknow how much sucess you'll be looking at with tis one. good luck though.

k3nshin · Apr 25, 2004

yeh i tried to do this once. i tried to hook up the hair dryer so that it bypassed the heating element.... lets just say make sure yiou knwo what your hooking up before you try this.... i think i accidently hooked up two positive powersources....losta blue sparks and smoke...ghood think i had the cover on the hair dryer because the red hot bushing shot out and melted into the plastic...scared the hell outta me..

chkptcharlie · Apr 25, 2004

yep. like he said. i'm not saying it cant be hooked up, because anything can. i'm just saying that it's probably not going to be just as easy as any other DC fan.

Zerileous · Apr 25, 2004

i think i figured out how to cut the positive line to only the heating element on a blower that i have laying around. The neg line is shared between the blower and the heater. Would this work to disable the heater? Would a negative still running through be problematic with out some termination? I do not know much about electronics.

Quailane · Apr 26, 2004

I opened it up, and it is a regular looking kind of large electric motor with a wierd centrifugal fan around it. Wouldn't I be able to just shoot DC current through it? I don't see how it could spin with AC. If I chop everything off in the handle and tear out the heating element, it would look really cool, like a turbocharger. Can some motors run AC? If it does, it wouldn't be able to run DC, would it?

teezer · Apr 26, 2004

ac and dc don't mix ~~~ measure the voltage to the motor to find your correct voltage needed to run the motor ~~~ chances are it's 120v ac, if it is, i would think cost would prohibit using an inverter here, you could try a dimmer switch(for lighting) to control the speed but still has to be plugged into the wall

fletch · Apr 26, 2004

I don't think you can run that AC motor on DC. There are some 'universal' ones that can run with either, but from what I understand, it's most likely it can't. You could always just try it

ares350 · Apr 26, 2004

I didnt know you could run any motor on AC, which I think is what he is saying, alternating current wouldnt work so well.

it should have an inverter in the plug or something. simply put, the motor has 2 wires, red and black(hopefully). use a meter to find out how much and what kind of voltage these wires are carrying, it will tell you what the motor runs on.

greenman100 · Apr 26, 2004

ok wow.

so much mis-information in this thread it amazes me.

AC motors will not operate on DC.

You cannot slow down an AC motor more than 10% by reducing it's voltage. Reducing it's voltage more than 10% will result in overheating.

LMK if you have any more questions.

Quailane · Apr 26, 2004

ok wow.

so much mis-information in this thread it amazes me.

AC motors will not operate on DC.

You cannot slow down an AC motor more than 10% by reducing it's voltage. Reducing it's voltage more than 10% will result in overheating.

LMK if you have any more questions.

You just killed my hopes! Maybe I will still try it if I can use any way to slow it down? I know there has to be because there are different speed settings you can use.

greenman100 · Apr 26, 2004

Quailane said:
You just killed my hopes! Maybe I will still try it if I can use any way to slow it down? I know there has to be because there are different speed settings you can use.

The speed settings connect and disconnect different sets of windings. The only way to do it is to change the frequency of the electricty.

don't even think about hooking it up to a dimmer switch.

teezer · Apr 27, 2004

Quailane said:
You just killed my hopes! Maybe I will still try it if I can use any way to slow it down? I know there has to be because there are different speed settings you can use.

3 speed ceiling fan switch?????? or any electric variable fan switch

could of sworn i've used a dimmer switch on a small electric motor before..... to many beers in such a short time

greenman100 · Apr 27, 2004

teezer said:
3 speed ceiling fan switch?????? or any electric variable fan switch

could of sworn i've used a dimmer switch on a small electric motor before..... to many beers in such a short time

greenman100 said:
The speed settings connect and disconnect different sets of windings. The only way to do it is to change the frequency of the electricty.

don't even think about hooking it up to a dimmer switch.

Quailane · Apr 27, 2004

It was only $1 anyway.......

prankstar008 · Apr 29, 2004

thats the way to look at this.....just dont die

chkptcharlie · Apr 29, 2004

yep, now here's an idea for you.

if you could find you a nice strong quiet motor, you could replace the AC motor with a DC motor.... viola you now have what you were looing for.

Quailane · Apr 29, 2004

Good idea. I'll try to get the plastic fan thingie off, but it is connected very wierdly. It is almost part of the motor shaft. I don't think I could get the fan off without breaking it.

Centrifugal hair dryer fan?

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