Modding My Radial Blowers Thread

As we have been getting a few questions asked about radial blowers recently, i decided to give a few simple facts and share my experiences with them.

Facts:
Radial blowers:
have no "dead spot" when installed correctly, (ie they blow through a small duct)
are capable of pushing higher pressures than axial (standard) fans, this means that more of the rated cfm will go between the fine fins of a heatsink compared to an axial fan.
tend to have less ("unloaded") airflow than axial fans.
look cool

 

The most common blowers available for pc enthusiasts are the coolermaster aero's, and this type of affair:




Having had an aero, and having a few of the above, go for the aero, it gives out more air, but a bit more noise, i was disappointed in the evercool pcac pictured above, is it supposed to be 21db & 100cfm, i guess it at ~26~db and ~20~30~cfm.

I wanted something more hardcore.

 

Of i went to a local scrapyard, to emerge with this



courtesy of a j-reg cavelier sri.

more pics:




for size comparison, i'd say the diameter of the blades is a little larger than that of a cd.

I connected the terminals of the motor to a 9v battery (which was actually giving out about 7v) and got nothing. Needed a 12v power source capable of sustaining a high currrent, I had just the thing, designed for such a purpose:




The battery terminals were too dirty to get a connection, I didnt have time to clean them this morning, so I will update when i get time.

 

I had no luck whatsoever getting the motor running. So I removed the blades:


I included my old atx psu in the pic for size reference.
It looks messy atm:



I will be making a small wooden cylinder, the same diameter as the are I highlighted in red, then bolting the two together, once I am happy that they are centered together. Before that the blades will all be cleaned up. After cleaning I will make a small dome from whatever the UK has to replace bondo in the centre to make a smooth hub. The eventual finish will be uv white/uv blue/black blades.

I start my hunt for a suitable motor, to replace this one:


RIP.

 

Think I'll move my own thread to the right place

 

you could always grab a 120mm delta and use the motor out of that

 

is that your car?

 

no, really he just stole one and hotwired it specially to test out his new radial blower...

 

well it could have been a parent's/friend's/brother's/sister's

 

Well unless i missed something in this thread... that was most likelt an AC motor not a dc on and (0% of them are AC ans most applications for them are AC Powered.

just my .02 can't wait to see you get it working though

 

i find it unlikely that it would be AC coming from a car, i would have though it was 12v or 24v DC

 

what if it was coming from the alternator though?

 

Alternators have a built in rectifier and output DC.

Sorry about short post but Im on IRC a lot tonight

 

Mums, allthough while im home from uni she doesnt get a chance to use it

As for the delta motor, too much hassle to remove from the fan imho, and too much £, probs try mappers or RS 1st, see how that goes.

The blades are in a bucket of degreasing solution atm

 

i believe woodshop meant that the original fan motor ran on AC power because he found the fan at a scrapyard, not from a car

 

Replacement motor found:




12v motor, brand new, from a black and decker strimmer. Wouldnt start turning from a 9v battery, blew my old atx psu (not the fuse, checked that), connected it to the car battery, the torque threw it out of my hand 1st time round, it drew about 4 amps, so I rate it at 50 watts or so.

Cleaned up some of the blades, forgot to use gloves when using detergent/degreaser so i'll carry on with that in a few days (with gloves).

Need to remove the peice of strimmer from the motor shaft, then attach the block for attaching the blades to once they are clean. Any ideas on a psu? I need a variable one, like a fanbus, I want to be able to limit the current to between 1/8 and 1/4 of full speed.

 

Xen0, ur mad

Dude, thats gonna rule!!!

is that for personal cooling or PC? i can't remember, but i'm sure thats what ur original plan was...

Golygus

 

Its for my cpu, I will be making the rest of the shroud that i need, and integrating the blower into the top panel of my case when i get to that stage of the build.

I will also be making a shroud or two for the bottom of the sp-94, to direct exhaust air away from the board, so that if i turn it up to max, i dont blow components off my sp-94, I may also direct the air from one side over some custom heatsinks over the mosfets and out of the case that way, as I was planning on replacing the OTES system anyway, the fan has become too whiney.

 

i hope you re not planning on sleeping with it on in your bedroom... unless you re like 75+ yrs old , deaf anyway and still in uni, well... it won't be whiney i guess...

i'm also curious about how you are going to fix the intake for that fan since it draws air from the middle ....

<edit> just klicked your rig linky... is that a 24 port switch on your desk ? planning some serious upgrades or just in case of parties ?</edit>

 

i'd expect a fan of this sort to be seriously noisy, hope you have earplugs!