TexanGent Posted May 26, 2020 Share Posted May 26, 2020 (edited) This blower claims 135 cfm, do y’all think it would work for a blown gas burner? It is for cooling race car suits but since it is dc should be able to wire it to be adjustable Commercial link removed per TOS. Edited May 26, 2020 by Mod30 commercial link Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted May 26, 2020 Share Posted May 26, 2020 Is your forge large enough to park railroad cars in it or small enough to fit in a coffee can? Hard to rate a blower as sufficient without knowing the details...My 10" diameter 14" long one burner forge used a 150 cfm blower on it and I never had it open all the way. Not even the time we melted a billet in it accidentally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexanGent Posted May 27, 2020 Author Share Posted May 27, 2020 Thomas, I wasn’t asking so much about if it would work for a specific forge (though I am planning to build a propane tank forge since you asked) I was mostly just asking if anyone had ever used a motor like that. The forger blowers I have found are $80+ so this is significantly cheaper. Was curious if there was a reason not to use this. It is also smaller than most comparable blowers I have seen. (Reposting pic, sorry about link. Wasn’t trying to sell just show what I was talking about) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 Have you tried a car heater blower; also 12 VDC and you should be able to get one free or cheap used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latticino Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You need two numbers to get even a glimpse of what a specific blower is capable of (Airflow at a specific External Static Pressure), and better yet an actual fan curve showing the relationship of these numbers at differing conditions. A typical fan curve is pictured below. Most likely the airflow listed for the blower in question is under "ideal conditions" with no restrictions either before or after the blower (free air). However this does not give a good picture of how the blower will respond when you start adding restrictions like mixing tubes, pipe elbows or multiport outlet burner nozzles. The stable range of a fan curve (red lines in the image below) are to the right of the parabolic "max system curve". The slope of those parallel fan rpm curves shows how quickly the airflow drops off given upstream or downstream restrictions on the fan or blower. The fuel you use can also have an influence on the best blower selection. I recently replaced the 140 CFM squirrel cage blower I purchased from a blacksmith site with a better quality medium pressure blower that I had left over from my glass studio furnace system. I fire my forge with residential pressure natural gas, which with a lower BTU content than Propane needs more fuel to get the same heat output. More fuel and more air, so this increase in blower capacity gives me a hotter forge (though I could forge weld HC steel before, now I can forge weld mild more easily). Now I just need to upgrade to a multiport outlet nozzle to slow down the flame and keep it inside the forge longer. A 12V, 2.9 A motor will give you 34.8 watts of power input to the blower. That is only 0.047 HP. Likely not all that different from a pancake computer fan, but I'm not sure of that. For comparison, gas forge blowers sold by blacksmith depot are rated for 125 CFM at free air conditions and draw 260 watts. No real substitute for motor power... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HojPoj Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 Latticino, most computer muffin fans top out at 200-500 mA at twelve volts, so the fan in question should conceivably push more than a computer fan. As for the fan's performance, even as a shrouded axial fan it's unlikely to develop sufficient static pressure to do the job reliably. Also note that it's probably louder than you'd expect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latticino Posted May 27, 2020 Share Posted May 27, 2020 Agreed, I was certainly not advocating it, just trying to give some relatively simple reasons why the info supplied was first, insufficient and second, indicating a blower that probably wasn't adequate. Not sure noise is an issue for a forge, based on the combustion roar from most, but I get your point there also. Axial fans are typically significantly louder than centrifugal or mixed flow. Thanks for the heads up on computer fans. Didn't want to be bothered looking it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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