edennis Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 Hello, I just purchased a used windjammer blower and an electronic signal generator to use for smelting, but I need help- I know very little about wiring electronics. Link removed I understand the signal generator needs it own power supply, but I'm confused about what is needs to work and how to hook up that power supply to the device. Would something like this work? Likewise, I don't know which of the blower wires should connect to what on the signal generator. Will the blower get all of its power through the signal generator? Here is the diagram for the blower. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 If you have to ask if a 24V DC transformer will run a 120V AC blower, when all the info is right in front of you, I suggest you hire it out, wont cost much, in fact the cost will be less than wiring it up wrong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 Smelting? You will be turning ore into metal? Which ore do you plan to use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edennis Posted June 12, 2018 Author Share Posted June 12, 2018 18 minutes ago, Steve Sells said: If you have to ask if a 24V DC transformer will run a 120V AC blower, when all the info is right in front of you, I suggest you hire it out, wont cost much, in fact the cost will be less than wiring it up wrong Yes, I figured out immediately after asking that i do indeed need to hook up the AC-input for the blower separate from the generator. 18 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said: Smelting? You will be turning ore into metal? Which ore do you plan to use? limonite Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edennis Posted June 12, 2018 Author Share Posted June 12, 2018 SLowly answering all my own questions. Just found an old laptop charger and stripped the wires to give power to the generator: worked like c charm. Found out from the company which wires are what based on color. Now I just to give the blower power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 crucible or bloomery? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edennis Posted June 12, 2018 Author Share Posted June 12, 2018 bloomery Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 small one....Though I spent over a decade as one of the hand crank blower thralls on bloomeries at Pennsic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edennis Posted June 12, 2018 Author Share Posted June 12, 2018 oh, very cool. I didn't know Pennsic has bloomery smelts. What do you mean by "small one"? The blower was smaller in size then I expected when I received it. However, I believe the specs are up to par for a bloomery smelt. We'll see soon I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 I don't know if they still do; but we did them onside for over a decade; in the early years we would dig the clay from the creek. Starting out we had very poor yields; but by the end we were getting 15 pound blooms from a short stack scandanavian bloomery. Flaxy and Steve even presented on it at the academic IronMasters Conference! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edennis Posted June 12, 2018 Author Share Posted June 12, 2018 Oh, very cool! Awesome that you were able to get it to work with hand dug clay. That's a future step for me. Right now I'm using clay of a known composition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted June 12, 2018 Share Posted June 12, 2018 Our later mix was a 3:2:1 cobb: 3 shovels full of sandy silty soil (onsite); 2 headsized bundles of chopped straw, 1 shovelful of powdered clay (animal feed additive) mixed with so little water is was absolutely painful to work---looked like muddy straw but it worked the best of all the others we tried. One year we even used bellows: fast turnover in bellows thralls and one person was dedicated to putting out sparks that rained down on the bellows thrall. You've been reading the Rockbridge bloomery pages I hope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edennis Posted June 13, 2018 Author Share Posted June 13, 2018 I've also found that I know the clay is good when it hurts to work. I like the term bellows thrall, hah. I have read the rockbridge bloomery stuff- Lee is the person who taught me this stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted June 13, 2018 Share Posted June 13, 2018 Often as not bouncing questions off of others solidifies the concepts in your mind and you end up answering your own questions. Most of us want to help but it’s more satisfying to see the light go on than give you all the answers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edennis Posted June 13, 2018 Author Share Posted June 13, 2018 I would rather figure it out on my own- but in this case I really know very little about this stuff and a push in the right direction can be really helpful for me to even know where to start looking.first configuration. However, it only runs at full blast and the sig-gen dial does nothing until I turn it way down and then the blower cuts out and wont go on again until the power plug is turned on and off again. With the blue wire on "OV" andthered on "0-10v" the motor just starts to run and then cuts out. Something doesn't seem right. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edennis Posted June 13, 2018 Author Share Posted June 13, 2018 woops, the previous post is supposed to read" I tried hooking up the blower and I'm having trouble. I'm wondering if the blower's electronics are shot. The only way I can get the blower to run is in the first configuration. However, it only runs at full blast and the sig-gen dial does nothing until I turn it way down and then the blower cuts out and wont go on again until the power plug is turned on and off again. With the blue wire on "OV" and the red on "0-10v" the motor just starts to run and then cuts out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edennis Posted June 13, 2018 Author Share Posted June 13, 2018 Well, with the blue (low supposedly) connected to "OV" and red (high supposedly) connected to "0-10V" the blower actually does slow down from 10V down to about just under 7V. After that it just turns off... bad blower electronics? bad signal generator? I'm baffled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted June 13, 2018 Share Posted June 13, 2018 why do you expect a 120 volt motor to run at 7 volts? I am confused Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edennis Posted June 14, 2018 Author Share Posted June 14, 2018 It's running on it's own 120V AC line- but it has a DC control panel that accepts 0-10vdc for speed control. This is the input that is acting up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Olson Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 Steve, the motor does have a 120v ac input. And if read this right its a dc motor. So that 120v would get rectified into dc inside the blower. From there an electronic speed controller (esc) in the blower controls the speed of the blower. The esc get its control signal from his signal generator. The lower the signal voltage the slower the blower. The higher the signal voltage the faster the blower. Looks like a treadmill configuration. You plug a treadmill into your outlet but its really just powering a big dc motor. Edennis, I see in the blower diagram there is a mechanical wiring diagram that would eleminate your sig. gen. It says you can set the blower speed through a potentiometer in the blower. Try that configuration and see if you can raise and lower the the speed with the potentiometer.. If that works, it might be your sig. gen is not compatable or your wiring it wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted June 14, 2018 Share Posted June 14, 2018 I dont see where it shows what the range is for the control voltage? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edennis Posted June 14, 2018 Author Share Posted June 14, 2018 11 hours ago, Kevin Olson said: Steve, the motor does have a 120v ac input. And if read this right its a dc motor. So that 120v would get rectified into dc inside the blower. From there an electronic speed controller (esc) in the blower controls the speed of the blower. The esc get its control signal from his signal generator. The lower the signal voltage the slower the blower. The higher the signal voltage the faster the blower. Looks like a treadmill configuration. You plug a treadmill into your outlet but its really just powering a big dc motor. Edennis, I see in the blower diagram there is a mechanical wiring diagram that would eleminate your sig. gen. It says you can set the blower speed through a potentiometer in the blower. Try that configuration and see if you can raise and lower the the speed with the potentiometer.. If that works, it might be your sig. gen is not compatable or your wiring it wrong. Thanks for the reply. I believe a different blower model has the mechanical speed control, while mine is strictly electronic. If you scroll down on the specs page for the blower is shows different models having different types of speed control. I'm pretty sure the sig-gen is compatible since someone over on the bladesmithforum has used these exact pieces together- but you never know. It feels like the wiring is incorrect to me, but I can't think of any other configuration to put them in. I'm scared to try hooking the blue/red wires to the AC input as I don't want to fry the blower (hoping I already havn't!). Maybe the sig-gen is busted... but I'm out of ideas at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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