It is very hot in the southern regions; nothing will prevent you from acquiring such a “super-powerful” portable fan.
You can take an 18-volt electric drill motor, propeller radio controlled aircraft and a battery from a laptop. 4 volts is the best option, and it’s not too noisy during operation. At 12 volts, the device will be super powerful, loud, and will "rattle" (via vibration) on the table.
Required components
The motor and batteries are the most expensive parts. You can buy a cheap used drill with a bad battery and just use the motor. Used laptop batteries usually have 6 cells and will not work if one cell is dead. You can buy these batteries for next to nothing and take the working cells to make a powerful battery (http://www.instructables.com/id/Free-lithium-Ion-Battery-Pack).
Required parts:
- electric motor direct current electric drills;
- laptop battery;
- plastic fan blades;
- 1/8" plywood;
- plywood and 2x1" blocks for engine mounting;
- switch (in our case, 2P2T switch for 2 speeds); - electrical cable.
Checking the engine and batteries
Secure the motor and fan to something solid.
You can try applying different voltages to it to adjust the desired wind strength. In our case, for a 4-volt battery, the ideal current was 1.5A. An 8-volt battery for good power corresponds to a current of 3A.
Use 4 batteries, 4 parallel 4V and 2 sets of 2 parallel 8V batteries. So on low power They will last about 5 hours, and on high power for about 1.5 hours.
Connect the 2P2T wires with a switch to switch between series and parallel circuits.
Creating an air duct and mounting the engine
First, glue the 2x1” pieces together to form a T. Measure the pieces to give the propeller about a half inch of clearance on each side.
After gluing the bars, round their edges to make them streamlined.
To mount the engine, cut 2 triangles out of wood. Soak a piece of 1/8" plywood in water, then bend it and let it dry. You can cut 3 3.5" strips of wood grain perpendicular to the piece to make it easier to bend. Use timbers held together in a T as a base and cover it with 3 pieces of plywood, overlapping the joints and leaving one joint. Then glue the 3 ends of the T to the duct plywood. It is also important to try on the engine mount to make sure there is enough clearance.
Then cut two pieces of 1/4" plywood about 4.5 x 1.5 to form the duct support at the top. Glue these supports to the duct and to the "T".
Glue a piece of wood to the "T" to stop the motor from sliding backwards as the motor pushes the air forward and the motor then pushes back.
To secure the motor from below, you can use 2 zip ties.
Battery layout
Use a 6-cell laptop battery to power the fan. For a bicycle fan in motion, you need a 12V fan. As a desk fan, 4V or 8V is more than enough.
Wires to the motor
Solder two 14 gauge wires to the motor. Insulate with electrical tape. To prevent wires from getting caught in the blades, secure them to the fan support.
Testing
Power the motor in parallel with 2 sets of 3 combined cells. The voltage should be about 11.8 V. Even the multimeter should show 3.38 A. The multimeter has some resistance, so the current is actually about 4A. More than 47 W. This is already a very powerful little fan. At 16 V, this fan can already push a bike decently.
Installation of protection
The propeller rotates too quickly, so protection will need to be installed.
Using wire cutters, cut a circle from the large fan guard so that its radius is about half an inch larger than the duct. Loop the wire around the duct. Then hot glue the protection to the front and back.
Switch installation
Install the switch. The fan can now be turned on and off easily. You can use a 2T2P switch and get two rotation speeds.
Creating air flow with high density possible in several ways. One of the effective ones is a radial type fan or “snail”. It differs from others not only in shape, but also in its operating principle.
Fan device and design
Sometimes an impeller and a power unit are not enough to move air. In conditions of limited space should be used special kind design of exhaust equipment. It has a spiral-shaped body that acts as an air channel. You can make it yourself or purchase a ready-made model.
To form the flow, the design includes a radial impeller. It connects to the power unit. The wheel blades have a curved shape and create a discharged area when moving. Air (or gas) enters it from the inlet pipe. When moving along the spiral body, the speed at the outlet increases.
Depending on the application, the centrifugal fan volute can be general purpose, heat-resistant or corrosion-resistant. It is also necessary to take into account the amount of air flow created:
- low pressure. Area of application: production workshops, household appliances. The air temperature should not exceed +80°C. Mandatory absence of aggressive environments;
- average pressure value. It is part of exhaust equipment for removing or transporting small fraction materials, sawdust, grain;
- high pressure. Forms an air flow into the fuel combustion zone. Installed in many types of boilers.
The direction of movement of the blades is determined by the design, and, in particular, by the location of the outlet pipe. If it is located on the left side, the rotor should rotate clockwise. The number of blades and their curvature are also taken into account.
For powerful models, you need to make a reliable base with your own hands to secure the body. The industrial installation will vibrate strongly, which may lead to its gradual destruction.
Self-production
First of all, you need to decide functional purpose centrifugal fan. If it is necessary for ventilation of a certain part of the room or equipment, the housing can be made from scrap materials. To complete the boiler, you will need to use heat-resistant steel or make it from stainless steel sheets yourself.
First, the power is calculated and the set of components is determined. The best option The snail will be dismantled from old equipment - an extractor hood or a vacuum cleaner. The advantage of this manufacturing method is the exact match between the power of the power unit and the body parameters. A snail fan can be easily made with your own hands only for some applied purposes in a small home workshop. In other cases, it is recommended to purchase a ready-made industrial-type model or take an old one from a car.
Procedure to make a centrifugal fan with your own hands.
- Calculation overall dimensions. If the device will be mounted in limited space– provide special damper pads to compensate for vibration.
- Manufacturing of the body. If there is no ready-made structure, you can use plastic sheets, steel or plywood. In the latter case Special attention is given to sealing joints.
- Installation diagram of the power unit. It rotates the blades, so you need to choose the type of drive. For small designs, a shaft is used to connect the motor gearbox to the rotor. In powerful installations, a belt type drive is used.
- Fastening elements. If the fan is installed on the outer casing of, for example, a boiler, mounting U-shaped plates are made. With significant power, it will be necessary to make a reliable and massive base.
This general scheme, according to which you can make a functional exhaust centrifugal unit with your own hands. It may change depending on the availability of components. It is important to comply with the housing sealing requirements, as well as ensure reliable protection power unit from possible clogging with dust and debris.
The fan will make a lot of noise during operation. Reducing this will be problematic, since vibration of the housing during the movement of air flows is almost impossible to compensate with your own hands. This is especially true for models made of metal and plastic. Wood can partially reduce background noise, but at the same time it has a short service life.
In the video you can see the process of manufacturing a case from PVC sheets:
Review and comparison of production ready models
When considering a radial fan volute, you need to take into account the material of manufacture: cast aluminum housing, sheet or stainless steel. A model is selected based on specific needs; consider an example of serial models in a cast case.
If there is no air conditioning at home and even household fan, A summer heat doesn’t allow you to live normally, you can use your wits and use old computer parts. Any craftsman can assemble a fan from a cooler, fortunately, the materials for construction are always at hand, and in every home or office you can fish out something useful from computer trash.
Materials for useful crafts
To make this simple DIY device, you will need following materials and tools:
- soldering iron and related accessories (solder, rosin);
- a piece of USB cable of any length;
- knife, wire cutters, electrical tape;
- myself computer cooler(one or more).
The fan will be connected via a USB connector to the computer. This makes it possible to use the fan without third-party power sources.
There are coolers different sizes. Their design includes wires with which you can adjust the number of revolutions depending on the temperature of the central processor. In our case, these wires will not be needed - we will work only with the black (minus) and red (plus) wires, which receive voltage from the computer motherboard. The remaining wires can be cut off using wire cutters so that they do not interfere with assembly. We need to do this carefully so as not to damage the red and black cores we need.
Operating procedure:
- Take any unnecessary USB cable you need to connect the cooler to it. It may not be formally working, but here we need to find wires of the same colors as the cooler. For ease of work, the remaining wires are removed using wire cutters.
- Remove the outer insulation from the USB cable with a sharp utility knife: measure a distance of approximately 3-4 cm from the end of the wire and apply the knife to the wire.
- Then, in a circular motion, without pressing, draw the wire in a circle.
- Now pull the insulation - it should easily come away and expose the bundle of wires.
If you press too hard, cutting the insulation may damage the insulation of the wires underneath the outer layer of plastic you cut. Then you will have to bite off the entire braid and repeat the procedure due to the fact that a slight violation of the integrity of the insulation usually leads to a short circuit. Now that you have prepared the wires yourself, you can proceed to the next step.
Soldering and insulating wires
Take the wires of the cooler and the USB cable, remove about 10 mm of insulation and twist them so that the red wire is connected to the red, and the black to the black. Next, you will need a soldering iron to tin the twisted ends and thereby give strength to the connection. To do this you need to do this:
- heat the soldering iron and prepare a piece of rosin or flux;
- attach the twisted wires to rosin or soak them in flux;
- melt a piece of solder or tin on the soldering iron tip;
- run the tip along the twisted wires if they are treated with flux, or apply them to a piece of rosin and press a little with a hot tip.
This process is called tinning the wires or treating the contact points with hot tin with your own hands. Rosin is needed to help the tin bond better to the surface of the bare USB wire.
Now you need to insulate the conductors so that a short circuit does not occur when connecting to the computer’s USB connector. So, unwind a piece of electrical tape about 3-5 cm long and pass between soldered wires. Wrap one wire so that the tin-coated contact area is reliably insulated and no pieces of bare conductor are visible through the layers of insulating tape. Next, you need to cut off another piece of electrical tape and do the same with the second wire.
Stand
It's time to think about a stand for your DIY fan you just made. You will need a piece of copper or aluminum wire. Take a piece of wire and bend it into a “P” shape. Thread the ends into the bottom two bolt holes of the cooler. Bend the wire and thread the ends through the top holes. Now you can adjust the fan tilt level.
If there are many fans
You can make a whole battery of fans with your own hands. To assemble a fan from four or more coolers, you need to know how to properly connect them to the power source (USB connector of the computer), as well as how to connect these fans to each other.
Connecting cables
From school course physicists we know that there are two types of connections - serial and parallel. With the first type of connection, you need to take the red (positive) wire from the USB cable and connect it to the red wire of the first cooler, and connect the black wire of the first cooler to the red wire of the second cooler, and so on. The last one, black, connects to the core of the USB cable of the same color.
Parallel connection is much simpler: all the red wires are assembled into one twist, just like the black ones. The red wires are connected to the red wire of the USB cable, and the black wires, respectively, to the black wire. To make the contact more reliable, you need to make tinning and wrap the contact points with electrical tape, as described above.
Decor
Now you need to think about the design of the fan unit that you made yourself. In order to assemble all the coolers together, you need to decide what shape the structure will be in. You might find it easier to fold them into a square or just line them up.
In any case, for these purposes you will need glue gun, which is usually used to make DIY products in technical creativity or floristry circles. You can use it to glue the ribs of coolers in in the right places and let cool. But if you don't have a gun and just have wire and tape, you can fasten the coolers through the bolt holes with wire and wrap the edges with black tape.
So, you have managed to make sure that making a simple room air blower with your own hands is simple and accessible even to a person far from technical creativity. Such simple solutions can help out in a situation where you need to keep the room cool in windless weather, but a regular fan is either broken or simply not in the house. In these cases, simple ingenuity comes to the rescue.
From time to time the need for a kind of fan arises, but small models are relatively expensive. There is no need to rush to shell out money, because a small fan can be easily made with my own hands. In terms of efficiency, it is not inferior to purchased analogues, and its creation will require a minimum amount of materials.
Making a fan from a cooler
The simplest way to make a fan yourself is to use an unnecessary cooler (these are used in computers as a cooling system for components).
It is not surprising that this method is the simplest, because a cooler is a small fan. There are only a few things left to do simple steps to give it its final shape and performance.
The cooler itself is quite functional, but you need to prepare it for non-standard way uses:
- Wires.
If the fan is located next to the computer, a regular unnecessary USB cable will do. It needs to be cut and the insulation removed (the same with the cooler wires):
We are only interested in two wires: red (plus) and black (minus). If there are other colors in the cooler or USB cable, feel free to cut them off and isolate them, since they are absolutely unnecessary and will only get in the way.
- Compound.
After cleaning, the wires need to be connected to each other (it is enough to twist them tightly together). Don't mix up the colors. This threatens serious complications in the process of creating a ventilator.
A length of 10 mm is sufficient for twisting. If necessary, you can clean most of the wire, this is not scary, but you will have to insulate much more.
- Safety.
Remember that proper insulation is the key to success and a guarantee that the computer or outlet will not short out. Bare wires should be covered with electrical tape (exclusively in the absence of power), and the thicker it is, the better.
There is no particular point in explaining what threatens the fall of “minus” to “plus”. If the red and black wires come into contact while transmitting electricity, not only the USB cable/port, but also the computer components may burn out.
In principle, computers are not afraid of such moments if they are equipped with protection against voltage surges. But when a wall outlet is used, repairing the wiring in the apartment will be much more difficult than creating a small fan.
Therefore, take serious care to insulate the exposed parts of the wires. Rarely does anyone need unnecessary complications.
- The finishing touches.
Don't forget that a computer cooler is very light, but at the same time very fast. Even with a voltage of 5 volts, its speed will be quite high. We consider this voltage for a reason: the cooler will do its job perfectly, and the operation will be as silent as possible.
Due to the small size of the device, it may fall due to vibrations. This should not be allowed for the following reasons:
- Such a cooler cannot cause lethal cuts even during operation, but there is no guarantee that the device will not jump up and fly off, for example, into the face;
- if it falls on a non-flat surface (on a pencil, pen, lighter), its blades can be damaged: fragments breaking off at such a rotation speed can cause irreparable damage;
- other unforeseen circumstances.
Therefore, it is important to secure the cooler (with tape, glue) to some more stable surface: a box, a wooden block, a table.
- Additional functions.
If desired, the finished fan can be updated externally, a switch can be added (so as not to pull out the cord every time), etc. But attention is also paid to a method that increases the efficiency of the device relatively well.
Simply cut off the top plastic bottle and glue it (with a wide hole) to the cooler frame. Thus, the air flow will be more accurate and directed: the force of air movement will become approximately 20% stronger, which is a pretty good indicator.
This completes the creation of the fan, and it is ready for full-time work.
Disc fan
If the previous option does not suit you, and you want something more complex, then consider self-creation fan from computer disks:
- Engine.
Since we don’t use a cooler, we need to get some kind of motor that drives the blades of our future device. In fact, you can also use the motor of the already mentioned cooler of the cooling system, but this is too simple.
You should find or buy a motor with a specific part that moves (for example, a protruding iron rod). Since we are making a fan from disks, then the presence of such a rod will the best option. Motors from an old VCR or player are also perfect, because they spin discs and cassettes - just what we need for the spinning propeller in our fan.
You should not use an engine made from washing machine or even a past fan - they are extremely powerful. Due to the self-assembly of the structure, it will be very flimsy. In the very first seconds, a strong motor will scatter fragments of blades throughout the room and fly off the base.
If there is a running motor, it must be secured with wires in the previously mentioned form.
Having a running engine in hand, you need to concentrate on the disks, which are the main components of our fan. First of all, cut one into 8 equal parts:
To avoid mistakes during the procedure, you can first mark the disc with a pencil. It is best to use a soldering iron (there will be no sharp edges, it is safer), but ordinary scissors will also work.
Afterwards, the disk should be slightly heated with a lighter so that the material becomes more pliable, and the wings should be bent in the manner of blades, like conventional fans:
You can do the same with regular plastic bottle:
You need to insert a wooden bottle cap into the center of our propeller. If the size is too big, it can be planed.
- The remaining parts.
As a center holding the entire structure, you can use a regular roll sleeve toilet paper:
It should be secured in the center of the second disk, which will act as a foundation for the fan. You can place half of the second bushing on top, as seen in the photo, so that the motor is inside it. You need to hang the blades from the disk/bottle on it.
The fan is ready for operation. If desired, you can add decorative elements to make the device look more presentable.
You can see clearly how such a fan is made from a bottle in this video.
Additionally, it should be recalled that important points when creating a homemade fan:
- To fasten the parts together, you need to use high-quality “superglue”.
Exactly the one that you can’t peel off even if you want to. The entire structure must be as stable as possible and not succumb to vibrations and fluctuations. Be responsible and fill everything you see with glue except the blades and internal parts engine.
- Take your time.
You risk missing out important detail, and this significantly increases the chances that something will go wrong during the operation of the finished fan. The consequences can be quite serious.
- Do not use inferior components.
If you don’t need the motor that is used to create the engine, its performance may be in doubt. Make sure it will last for some time and be effective.
Building an engine from scratch is a highly specialized process and requires a lot of knowledge. Make sure that the motherboards are in order, that all necessary connections are sealed well, etc. It is better to check again than to make another fan later.
- Insulation.
We remind you once again: do not forget about high-quality winding of wires with electrical tape. You shouldn't save it, because short circuits and repairing them will force you to sacrifice a lot of expenses. Perhaps even in a monetary sense.
The hand-held fan is quite compact, efficient and does its job well. It is not difficult to do if you take the procedure responsibly and follow the instructions. There are no restrictions on dimensions: if you feel strong, feel free to start assembling the fan bigger size.
In contact with
Summer has arrived, which means heat, heat and an eternal lack of coolness. But this problem can be fixed, and quite easily. You only need a few details and a little free time to make your life easier with your own hands, to fill it with the light coolness that you will certainly get by making USB fan Houses. Of course, you can go and buy a fan in a store, but how nice it will be to sit next to the same computer, and a light breeze from the USB fan you created will blow on you. And a thing created with your own hands always pleases not only the eye, but also develops self-love.
We invite you to watch a video of a homemade USB fan:
Tools for usb fan:
- A regular CD (not necessarily new);
- The tube of silicone glue is empty;
- Wooden block;
- Mini disk;
- USB cord;
- Motor;
- Holder;
- Adapter;
- Silicone glue gun.
You need to make three holes in the tube, one in the lid and two on the sides. Holes can be easily made using a regular nail, which must first be heated.
IN wooden block it is also necessary to make a slot or recess. This can be easily done using sandpaper.
The mini disk easily turns into a propeller. To do this, it must be drawn into uniform blades, then heated stationery knife and cut along the pre-drawn lines. And after that, we heat the base of each blade with a lighter and, using our hands, bend each blade a little to make a propeller.
We take the motor, holder and adapter from a non-working CD drive.
Now let's start assembling the USB fan.
Heat up the glue gun. Lubricate the holder along the axis with silicone glue from a glue gun. The propeller must be firmly seated on this glue. Press on all sides. Then, on the other side of the holder, add a drop of glue and glue the adapter. We wait until the glue dries well. This usually only takes a couple of minutes.
Now take a tube of silicone glue, remove the lid and coat the inside with silicone glue. And we insert the motor inside so that the part that we will connect sticks out of the hole that we originally made.
Then we insert the USB cord into the side hole of the glue tube and connect the ends of the wires to the motor.
You need to pour silicone glue into the recess in the wooden block, and place the wire from the USB cord tightly there, and glue the tube itself with the motor inside to the base of the block. And on the other side of the block we glue the CD with silicone glue.
Now the propeller needs to be placed on the side of the adapter glued to it onto the sharp edge of the motor, which sticks out of the hole in the tube from under the glue.
And finally, our USB fan can be plugged into the network and get that long-awaited coolness.
