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Posted

Hi,

I have a Leister blower for my solid fuel forge. It just about gets the job done but sometimes when I want to shut the air down a little bit closing the air valve off just makes the blower obnoxiously loud. Does anyone know if I would be able to tell if I could use a plug in rheostat to adjust the power going to the blower?


Thanks in advance! 

Posted

Depends entirely on the kind of motor you have running the blower. I have a variac (variable transformer) controlling the speed on my own blower, but that only works on universal motors (the kind with brushes). Take a look at some of the other threads on controlling the speed of your blower; those will give you an idea of some of the issues and possibilities.

Posted

Are you cutting off the output air---making the back pressure go up and making the blower work harder. Or are you cutting off the input air making the back pressure lower?

Posted

Cutting off the output, not input. I know that it would be better to cover the input but I was hoping that I would just be able to lower the voltage and reduce the noise anyway. 

Posted

Once again, that depends very much on the type of motor in question. Universal motors run loud, so a variac will definitely quiet one down substantially. What kind of motor is on the Leister?

Posted

Just to complicate things a bit...some blower motors rely on the input air to cool the motor, so if it's a unit, restricting the input might make the motor overheat.

Posted
12 hours ago, arkie said:

Just to complicate things a bit...some blower motors rely on the input air to cool the motor, so if it's a unit, restricting the input might make the motor overheat.

I took it apart a few days ago and from my crude understanding of it I would guess that it does use the input to cool it. 

Posted

One option would be a valve that dumps the extra air rather than simply choking off the blast. I made one out of scrap lumber for my old JABOD, and it worked really well. Take a look:

 

  • 1 month later...
Posted

"DID YOU KNOW????  The best way to shorten the life of any blower is to overheat it. Common causes of overheating comes from low voltage and not allowing blower to use its own mechanisms to cool itself.   This is why we do not recommend rheostats - variable speed controls; they slow the speed and lower the voltage." Is it true?

 

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