Tales from a Ventilation Lunatic

[Cammalu]

Do you get a lot of fans that break quickly or are faulty from the start?

[sternwake]

Never got a faulty fan. The damaged 80mm Nidecs were shipped pre damaged.

THE usual form.of fan failure is the solder joints where wires.enter the hub. This failure point has been eliminated by covering them.with amazing goop.

Happy to.report the DELTA FFB1212EHE, my workhorse.120×38mm fan, is fine, as is.its voltage bucker/speed controller.

Broken wire. Cheap zip18-2 zip wire.seemed.to have the insulation get brittle then crack, then the copper stranding said enough.

The shroud and fans were due for a cleaning anyway.

I have a rotating grille.on intake.fan, which spreads the flow wider and ~30 degrees off axis.

I always suspected that a portion of the exhaust fan flow, got sucked into the intake, but was unsure the amount. Some.fiona fur stuck on the intake fan grille confirmed.suapicions.
The exhaust now has rotatable grille to divert exhaust away from intake.

ONE DELTA fan.spit.out its hub c clip, which holds impeller to fan body. Likely spit when slamming the door.
Remedied.with new clip and using a small socket to push it back in place instead of.spreading it oPen to slide into the slot.

So much easier to clean fan with impeller removed. But c clips love to go flying into next dimension.

[sternwake]

Record heatwave continues now, extended through friday, at which point, t the remnants of hurricane Kay might give  us upto 3 inches of rain.  Bring it on.. wind too.

Been brutally hot  at times, and now humid too.
Been washing bath and beach towels, aiming fans at them,.achieving several f less than ambient within the van.

All hail evaporative cooling, and needle nose vice grips.

I moved papst clamp.fan into van.  It needs its clamp feet  to be padded, for traction and vibration suppression.

A plan for a papst ceiling exhaust fan, is in the works.



Not having the papst clamp fan in workshop to aim at myself, intolerable.

I pull out the one remaining Jaro fan, which has the bucker speed  ontroller and dial ready to go.  It used to be on the acrylic shroud, but the delta ffb1212ehe is just better.

The 120mm Enermax rotatable grills, which flatten the airflow and send it off at ~30 degree angle from.perpindicular,.the black ones, are both now on the front passenger door acrylic shroud the exhaust fan directing its flow down and away from intake fans backside, for less recycling.

Wanted more rotateable grills. Black ones 55$, red, 14, done.

Put one on the jaro fan,, gave it an anderson powerpole.

Adds.stability and impeller protection

New.worktable Jaro fan already found its way into van.

All my  normal 120 mm fan  finger guard grilles are painted black.
If they are screwed directlyly on intake side.of the fan, they restrict flow and make fan louder.
Moving them even 1/8" farther away, yields improved flow and noise and id have to make an effort to get a pinkie finger scalped by fan blade.

I made 1/8" spacers from the clear tubing which i use to bleed my brakes.  Perfect size to fit over the screws.


I have some other 120mm fans.  One counter rotates., another is old poor.design, not very efficient, likely about 90 cfm.
Attach counter rotating fan to it it gets quieter and moves way more air.

This duo needs a speed  controller to be acceptable.
 The jaro fan moves far more air at same wattage, and also has 2500 more rpm on demand for another 1 amp of draw.

The 50x20mm 7k rpm delta fans are pretty lightweight.  I have these goosenecks with internal wires from some ancient usb lights.  They might get a small  binder clip clamp and a bucker .speed controller and be mini clamp gooseneck adjusto fans, because i can. 
 I was thinking about aiming them at Fiona belly when she sleeps paws sky high.

[Cammalu]

Ick. This severe heat thing is just going to get worse in years to come. I see sweet Fiona is cut pretty short.

[Scott7022]

Great sexy Fiona pic. Love when dogs sleep like that. Belly cooling isn’t a bad idea and I bet she’d love it.

My cat used to back up to fans and stand tail up Butt Conditioning I called it. Lol.

Yeah still as hot as Satans third testicle up here in the valley. I see it’s better near the beach. It not so much the heat of the day, although that ain’t no picnic, but the fact it doesn’t cool down at night. Usually it cools at night, and the humidity dumps.

I wish I had put in a maxxfan when I did the AC to pull the heat soak out of the van. What was I thinking? One more 14x14 hole and run the wires with the 4G cable going to the AC. Easy and breezy. But stupid is what stupid did. Keep it stealth, save real-estate for additional solar, or just tardo thinking. Probably the latter.

The AC eliminates the humidity in seconds. Small space with jet level sound and movement. I had it set on 20C auto. Ran it most of the night two nights ago and had 80% remaining battery Last night I set it to 21C and let it run all night so 1degree less cooling and it was 2degrees cooler ambient temp inside at 2300 hours. Woke up at 8, having slept through the night to a battery sitting at 88% charged. So she most certainly sips electrons and a little change has a pretty dramatic effect. The solar will recharge it with three hours of sun to spare. The issue and why ventilation vans are so important is what if I couldn’t put out solar. Beach camping, where beach camping is discouraged and you need to stealth…three to four days and I am flat.

Rule one for vanbuild. Design the interior around your fridge and it’s placement.

Rule two. Sort your ventilation out and have that locked down before getting fancy.

People reading this in the years to come will be well served.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Cammalu]

There are cooling pads for dogs. Heard they work pretty good for people too.

[sternwake]

I have a gel cooling matt for Fiona.
She does enjoy it, while it is still cool.

however, such a matt basically sucks the heat out of her belly but once it has heated up, it itself needs to be able to radiate/convect this heat away, to continue to be effective.
So airflow hitting the pad outside her body, to keep the heat cycle going, is required.

The gel cooling matt also requires frequent cleaning. no matter how many options I provide her, often, the dirt is the option she chooses. The gel cooling matt can get stinky all too quickly and frequent cleaning is needed, and sometimes dawn dishsoap and scotchbrite scrubbie falls well short of diluted bleach and time, and then scrubbie.



Some overlap with the 100 amp powermax thread, but the 109 cfm, 1.19 amp, 8500 rpm Nidec 80x38mm fan I had force feeding the powermax, proved it could not handle being fed voltage lower than its minimum startup voltage.

I thought I had dialed in the minimum voltage to a safe and acceptable level, but I did so with an already warmed up fan., and every time I used the newly Modified 100 amp powermax adjustable voltage power supply, I revved the ridiculously powerful 80mm Nidec fan engine, and then settled it down to tolerable noise levels, and all was well.

however,
The cold fan fed a sane sub 6v voltage for a nice quiet flow at low dc output current levels, was not a happy fan , and when I cranked up the voltage to the stalled fan, magic smoke everywhere!

I had a backup Nidec fan.

I plugged it in, and discovered that when cold, it required 6 volts to start up on its own. Fed anything less it spun the impeller a few times then stopped, then a few seconds alter tried again, then stopped.

My favorite fans, are all Delta fans.
I searched for an 80mm Delta fan and the FFB 0812 EHE, is even more powerful than the Nidec fan. another ~20 cfm and 0.15 amp draw and 500 more rpm, 9000!!

The Powermax does not need such insane airflow requirements, but the hope is that it, like my other favorite Delta fans, has a minimum start voltage not much above its minimum spin voltage, and does not smoke itself when fed sub startup voltage for more than a few seconds.

The 4$ Nidec 80mm fan @ surplus center dot com, at 6v (minimum cold start voltage) is way too loud and powerful for anything less than the powermax making 75+ amps.

So, a Delta FFB0812EHE has been ordered(10$)




The Nidec currently attached to powermax, can be retasked for when I force feed my alternator. There will be no need for feeding it quiet sub 6v volts and it should have no issues, but I suspect the more powerful Delta fan will ultimately reside where I intend the Nidecs to be plumbed, sucking cold air and force feeding the alternator's
backsides/ rectifier.


I'm getting different specs as to ampdraw and max rpm than I did last night regarding the ffb0812ehe.

Glad I have an optical tachometer and many many ammeters and adjustable voltage sources.
I'll get it sorted and you'll know, shortly after i do.

[sternwake]

My 24v 140mmx 52mm Delta fan is the most powerful fan in my arsenal.

I've always been a bit perplexed at the cfm ratings of it. Some spec sheets say 252 cfm or 272 cfm, but the papst is rated at 283cfm, and the Delta seems to easily move double that of the Papst.

The seller of the fan, in China, said the fan I ordered flows some 465cfm, iIRC, which I find believable as the fan is a monster. Sounds like a jet engine when fed 24+ volts.

But Delta's own spec sheets say 272cfm max.

I did not have an optical tachometer back then, and the spec sheet says 272cfm at 3500 rpm. I think my 24v Delta 140mm x 52m fan is spinning far faster than this, judging by airflow and noise.
Getting a reflective sticker on the impeller for the optical tachometer to read rpm, will require shroud removal, and I have many other things to do.

I would be gutted if this fan failed, and I found another on Ebay from a US shipper, for 10$. Hoping it is as powerful as my existing monster.

During the heatwave I moved the papst clamp fan into the van leaving the workshop without a good fan to blow across me.
I returned the Jaro fan to service, and it is good to be on table aimed at me, but the papst clamp fan can be clamped to suck coolest possible air and blow across me from 6 feet away, and is way more effective than Jaro fan on table.

If the newly ordered, used 140mm delta fan is as powerful as the one in my intake shroud, it would be far superior as clamp fan duty in a heatwave. The sheer velocity of the air moved is very effective, via the wind chill effect.

I do have 2 unemployed buck boost converters in order to feed the fans upto 30 volts DC, one is only good for about 60 watts, the other about 150.

I do have an unemployed 16 inch microphone gooseneck, for making another clampfan, but without the nut for the weird 5/8" threads.

The clamp fans, clamped anywhere, aimed anywhere, with power to spare, are simply awesome. A bit loud at high rpms, but that power is not often needed for long, and is very nice to have when it is.

The 92 mm clamp fans I have are great in the van. I once had a 120mm fan that seemed a bit unweildy inside the van, and the papst is ~ 165mm, and heavy.

The little 50mm 7k rpm delta fans I have 2 extra of, would be nice on a nice small clamp and thin gooseneck.

So many fans, so little time

[sternwake]

The mother of all fans, the Delta ffb1424shg, turns 3500 rpm at just under 24v
At 29v it is ~4000 rpm

Its 272 cfm rating has to be wrong, or every other fan ive had, is well overrated.

[sternwake]

I had the bedding levitating with all 3 intake fans going mexium speed, and was outside 20 yards away, when i noticed the fan pitch change.

On inspection, i saw the Delta FFB1212ehe, was not spinning. Just trying.to start every second or 2, and fail like it was being fed too low a voltage.

No response to on off switch, or pot spinning.

No failed electronics smell.
I suspect the potentiometer(s) first, then the voltage bucker
But just turned it off slid the window closed enough to cover 120mm fan hole, and went back to other tasks.
The papst and 24v delta are more than strong enough to levitate all bedding layers on their own, at half speed.
I have more XL4005 buckers and 10k ohm potentiometers, and hope.delta fan itself did not fail.

The potentiometer.on this fan, and.other pots on other fans in this location, has been problematic in the past though. Its not been linear in nature for a few weeks now. I was meaning to caig faderlubeF5 it, again, but suspect its well beyond that now.