Shop Air cleaner possibility .

[Jesse Hoover]

I have recently come into possession of two squirrel cage blowers .Both are pretty old.There are no markings on them indicating voltage cfm amps .They both have capacitors .The capacitors have 307 VAC listed on them one is 8 Microfarad the other is obscured.Both motors also have 6 wires .Is there a way to figure out what the voltage requirements are for these to motors ?

[Josh Bowman]

I have recently come into possession of two squirrel cage blowers .Both are pretty old.There are no markings on them indicating voltage cfm amps .They both have capacitors .The capacitors have 307 VAC listed on them one is 8 Microfarad the other is obscured.Both motors also have 6 wires .Is there a way to figure out what the voltage requirements are for these to motors ?
Sounds like you may have fans from a furnace. They work great, of course if the reason you got them is because they were replaced....than maybe not. Anyway I googled furnace fan wire colors and this is what I got:
"Answer
That is a 220 volt fan. A 110 volt fan would have , 1 white, 1 green, 1 black, 1 red, 1 blue, etc. Combine white & black for high speed, white & red for med. speed and white & blue for slow. On this motor the 2 black, connected on 220 is fast speed. Go look for an other motor. Stop by most any furnace shop, fri. evening. In the trash will be old furnaces. Extract a blower w/motor. Later. "

I got a couple a few years ago and through trial and error, got them up and going. I built a box in my attic and they serve as air cleaners to the shop through ducts and filters. I could only find a 2 speed switch with the correct ampage, but they can move the air! BTW they should be 110 volts. The motors should have name plates on them somewhere with all this data.

[Jesse Hoover]

Sounds like you may have fans from a furnace. They work great, of course if the reason you got them is because they were replaced....than maybe not. Anyway I googled furnace fan wire colors and this is what I got:
"Answer
That is a 220 volt fan. A 110 volt fan would have , 1 white, 1 green, 1 black, 1 red, 1 blue, etc. Combine white & black for high speed, white & red for med. speed and white & blue for slow. On this motor the 2 black, connected on 220 is fast speed. Go look for an other motor. Stop by most any furnace shop, fri. evening. In the trash will be old furnaces. Extract a blower w/motor. Later. "

I got a couple a few years ago and through trial and error, got them up and going. I built a box in my attic and they serve as air cleaners to the shop through ducts and filters. I could only find a 2 speed switch with the correct ampage, but they can move the air! BTW they should be 110 volts. The motors should have name plates on them somewhere with all this data.

There were no nameplates that i could find anywhere on the motors .Both have 6 Wires 1Black 1 White 1 1 Blue 1 Red 1 Orange 1 Brown .
Fan 2 has 1 Black 1 White 1 Blue 1 Red 2 Browns .

Fan 2 the Brown leads were both hooked to the capacitor .
Fan 1 1 Brown was attached but there was no other lead hooked to the capacitor .

Anyone have ideas on how to hook this up to a simple plug to see if these things run ?

[Dave Beauchesne]

Jesse:

I am an HVAC guy.

Fan # 2 is easy - Leave the two brown wires on the capacitor ( it is a run capacitor ) and the 115v to white ( neutral ) and black ( hot ) - isolate and tape off the red and blue - DO NOT CONNECT TOGETHER!.

It should run; in free air, you may overload it though. They are meant to have some static pressure - the way to alleviate this is to block off the inlet to the fan to some degree. Since there are no nameplate clues, it will be a bit of a crap shoot as to what the voltage is - should be 115v, but ???

The motors should be 1050 rpm - if hooked up on high speed ( black and white ) - if you have some way to test that, it would be a hint as to the voltage - i.e.: if it is hooked up to 115 v and it is a 115v motor, it should turn at 1050 rpm; if it turns faster, you might let the smoke out :eek:

As for motor # 1, there is more research involved - I will look to see if I have any info, but not real easily accessible.

Good luck;

Dave Beauchesne

[Jesse Hoover]

Thank you for the input any help would be greatly appreciated.Fan 2 does appear to be 120 volts .Spun up quickly and quietly so it appears to that I will be working on at least one of the the shop air cleaners soon.