NolanF Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 Hello everyone, I posted few weeks ago to show you my first forge making, and I had a lot of interesting advices from peoples on this forum. I made modification to it to increase it's possibilities. People told me that using a leaf blower was too much air provided to fire and could burn up blades. Talking with these persons made me think about a old computer I didn't used for years that had a huge fan in the power supply part. So I transforme the utility of this fan to forge air supplying. I also planned it to be removable to be able to completely clean out the ashes stucked in my forge air duct. Anyway as always I made a video of it to share the evolution of my project. If you want to see it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-KL_vs-aw4 Have a good day ! Nolan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 May I suggest putting some still pictures up, as a lot of members don't have high speed internet or have to pay for data usage and videos are a chore to try and watch. The only thing I can think of is how are you controlling the amount of air in the fire? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc1 Posted July 26, 2020 Share Posted July 26, 2020 Great job Nolan. Particularly love the air funnel Make some more photos or videos about heating up steel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 Good job Nolan. You have a proper blacksmith's approach to problem solving. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wirerabbit Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 Nice, Nolan. Hope to see some picture of what your doing with your tricked out forge. Taylor, near Jeddo TX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisCA Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 You could probably control the fan speed with a PWM. Or just a sliding gate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NolanF Posted July 28, 2020 Author Share Posted July 28, 2020 On 7/27/2020 at 12:02 AM, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said: May I suggest putting some still pictures up, as a lot of members don't have high speed internet or have to pay for data usage and videos are a chore to try and watch. The only thing I can think of is how are you controlling the amount of air in the fire? I dropped down some pictures of the final look for you. And currently I cannot control the amount of air going into the fire, it's constant. On 7/27/2020 at 1:03 AM, Marc1 said: Great job Nolan. Particularly love the air funnel Make some more photos or videos about heating up steel Thanks Marc ! I will soon make video about my first axes and knives forging. I'll upload them to my channel, and I'll also make a post on the forum to show you. On 7/27/2020 at 3:16 AM, Frosty said: Good job Nolan. You have a proper blacksmith's approach to problem solving. Frosty The Lucky. Hi Frosty Thank you very much =) On 7/27/2020 at 3:58 AM, wirerabbit said: Nice, Nolan. Hope to see some picture of what your doing with your tricked out forge. Taylor, near Jeddo TX Thank you Taylor ! You'll see it soon I promise ! On 7/27/2020 at 8:08 AM, DennisCA said: You could probably control the fan speed with a PWM. Or just a sliding gate. I thought about it but I really do not know where to get a variable resistor for the 12V fan. Do you got an idea ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wirerabbit Posted July 28, 2020 Share Posted July 28, 2020 I ordered one off ebay for a little over 8 bucks. I searched for DC motor speed controllers. Works for 8 to 60v or something like that. I bought one with an on/off button and a display that will show me 0 - 100% modulation. It will be worth it to discover the minimum of air needed for a particular heat. I'm sure I'm burning up charcoal faster than I need to airing by hand. Oodles of information on the interwebs regarding making your own PWM board as well. Ain't nobody got time for that. Taylor, near Jeddo TX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted July 28, 2020 Share Posted July 28, 2020 It is important to be able to control the air going to the fire. I like your blower setup and it would be easy to add an "air gate" between the blower and tuyere to control the air instead of the speed of the fan. If you Google coal forge air gate there are many pictures of them. In a forge I used, the air gate was made from an automotive exhaust heat riser valve with a rod attached to the lever push the rod to close and pull to open, more pictures on Google. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyBones Posted July 28, 2020 Share Posted July 28, 2020 My air gate is a lid from a veggie can. I cut a slot in front of my fan in my tuyere little more than 3/4 of the way through. Inserted lid into slot. All the way closed i have about a 1/8" gap for air to pass. By lifting the lid out of the slot i can go from 1/8" to 2" opening. Since my original blower failed i have had to switch to hair dryer till i can get out again for a new blower i also drilled 6 holes between my blower and gate. Even with just a 1/8" opening the hair dryer was to much. I used exhaust pipe for my tuyere, the part that is flared to be the "female" end of the pipe i cut off and it makes a nice sleeve that goes over the holes to adjust air flow with. Keep it simple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NolanF Posted August 3, 2020 Author Share Posted August 3, 2020 On 7/28/2020 at 12:53 PM, wirerabbit said: I ordered one off ebay for a little over 8 bucks. I searched for DC motor speed controllers. Works for 8 to 60v or something like that. I bought one with an on/off button and a display that will show me 0 - 100% modulation. It will be worth it to discover the minimum of air needed for a particular heat. I'm sure I'm burning up charcoal faster than I need to airing by hand. Oodles of information on the interwebs regarding making your own PWM board as well. Ain't nobody got time for that. Taylor, near Jeddo TX Yes it seems a good idea I'll take a look. I am sure I burn too much charcoal too, finding the perfect amount of air seems not easy. I thinks it needs time to understand exactly how much air you need for you workpiece to be heated efficiency. On 7/28/2020 at 1:33 PM, Irondragon ForgeClay Works said: It is important to be able to control the air going to the fire. I like your blower setup and it would be easy to add an "air gate" between the blower and tuyere to control the air instead of the speed of the fan. If you Google coal forge air gate there are many pictures of them. In a forge I used, the air gate was made from an automotive exhaust heat riser valve with a rod attached to the lever push the rod to close and pull to open, more pictures on Google. On 7/28/2020 at 2:24 PM, BillyBones said: My air gate is a lid from a veggie can. I cut a slot in front of my fan in my tuyere little more than 3/4 of the way through. Inserted lid into slot. All the way closed i have about a 1/8" gap for air to pass. By lifting the lid out of the slot i can go from 1/8" to 2" opening. Since my original blower failed i have had to switch to hair dryer till i can get out again for a new blower i also drilled 6 holes between my blower and gate. Even with just a 1/8" opening the hair dryer was to much. I used exhaust pipe for my tuyere, the part that is flared to be the "female" end of the pipe i cut off and it makes a nice sleeve that goes over the holes to adjust air flow with. Keep it simple. Yes it seems to be a good idea maybe with a lot of tiny holes to be more precise on the amount of air you want to remove. I'll keep that idea in mind maybe I'll do it on my forge =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted August 3, 2020 Share Posted August 3, 2020 Another reason why I like a hand crank blower for charcoal! You can vary the cranking speed as needed for changing conditions! As air needs depends on the size of the fuel that changes constantly as you use it; finding the one perfect air setting is a lost cause! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natkova Posted August 6, 2020 Share Posted August 6, 2020 I tought about it and considered making it bu i generaly don't like noise from fan. I have some from old airbed fan that can be wiered and made but i don't like too much noise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wirerabbit Posted August 6, 2020 Share Posted August 6, 2020 The great thing about using a dc motor is that you should be able to use different voltage batteries. More volts, faster fan. Less volts, slower fan. See the possibilities? When I checked the hair dryer motor, I used a 9 volt battery. When I tested the speed controller with the 18 volt battery, it was smoking at 100% peak voltage. Those computer fans should be able to run off lower voltage batteries. I'm not sure how long they will last. The PWM can make a motor produce more annoying sounds. If you hate that sort of thing, try lower voltage battery and air gate methods for control. I still didn't pick up charcoal for my forge, so I'm sidelined for a bit. Hope to hook things up soon. Taylor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wirerabbit Posted August 11, 2020 Share Posted August 11, 2020 Nolan, Here is a picture of my fan controller hooked up to a 12v battery pack from the wife's power driver. You can see more pictures on my JABOD thread. Sorry I don't know how to put a link to that thread. The controller I purchased (black bezel display with controls) has both a pot for speed and a green, on/off switch. I put everything into a weather proof plug cover. Taylor, near Jeddo TX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NolanF Posted August 13, 2020 Author Share Posted August 13, 2020 (edited) Ohh you assemble a nice little device ! What does the LCD show ? I followed your exemple I ordered a small voltage controller part on eBay for 4 dollar. We'll see if it's going to be nice ! Edited August 14, 2020 by Mod30 Remove excessive quote Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wirerabbit Posted August 13, 2020 Share Posted August 13, 2020 LED display shows percent pulse width from 000 to 100. In effect, it shows motor speed. Max speed is relative to battery voltage. Taylor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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