Removing the blower from a DW735

[Chris Hedges]

For those of you who have removed the blower from your 735, is it as easy as removing the impeller housing and pulling the impelled of the shaft? Thanks guys.Chris

[James White]

There is one reason not to do it. You could cause the motor to over heat. There are fan blades on the back of the impeller to cool the motor. Just thought I might throw that out there.

James

[Jim Finn]

For those of you who have removed the blower from your 735, is it as easy as removing the impeller housing and pulling the impelled of the shaft? Thanks guys.Chris
Do you mean to remove it and leave it off?. I have had mine apart and replaced parts and reassembled it and it is not too hard to do.

[Chris Hedges]

Plan is to remove it and leave it off...Chris

[James White]

I think the idea is to make it quieter and gain a bit more power. It is also a pain in the rear if you turn it on when hooked up to you dc and other machines. If the DC is not on the blower will blow sawdust out of any machines that are not blocked off. Ask me how I know about this.

James

[Jim Finn]

That fan is the reason I selected this planer. I have it hooked up to the bag designed for this planer and it works well for me.

[Prashun Patel]

On occasion the chute on my 735 clogs. The chips then fly everywhere. Besides being a real mess, whn chips are thrown back onto the piece, it can cause chip out, gouging or uneven planing. Been there. If you are removing the blower, then I'd still keep the chute in tact and use a strong dc. Without it, the chute will clog quickly. Remember that chute is only 2". The blower is probably needed to properly evac the chips.

[Jeff Monson]

Chris, when I owned my DW735 I installed a byrd head, then removed the fan. I had no issues with the fan removed, yes I just pulled the nut and the cage. It was quite and cut very nicely. I would estimate 250 to 300 bf of maple and oak went through the planer without a hitch. I later purchased a combo J/P so the Dewalt had to be sold to fund it.

[Jeff Bartley]

When I bought mine (used) it turned out to be pretty damaged, looked like one of the screws holding the blower housing had backed out and spun around inside the housing which sheared off half the fins on the fan. It was really easy to fix ($50 in parts) and when reassembling I considered leaving everything off. After thinking about the cooling effect on the motor I reassembled everything then made an adapter for a big dust hose which fits against the outside of the planer and sucks air through the planer as well as collecting whatever goes through the blower.
The blower housing is incredibly fragile. I really can't believe more of these don't break considering they're designed to attach to a 4" flex hose. The ultimate fix as I see it would be to build an adapter that attaches to the screw points on the existing chute which would then feed a 6" hose. Then you could leave the blower housing on and it would continue to cool the motor and you'd have really good suction for chip collection.
To those that have removed the fan: did you also remove the chip chute??

[Steve Baumgartner]

I've taken the fan off and put it back several times. There are a couple of allen screws and a couple of clips that hold the shroud in place. The clips can be tricky to get back closed unless you have small fingers. Then the fan itself is held onto the motor shaft by a nut.

There is a noticeable increase in motor speed when the load from the fan is removed and, perhaps, some reduction in noise though I wouldn't say it goes from deafening to quiet. However, as others have noted, the fan also cools the motor so you must never run the machine without good DC connected. The passages inside the shroud are small and twisted, so they will drop a lot of vacuum - you need a DC that can pull against that tight a restriction to get effective chip removal. My 1 hp Reliant doesn't have enough oomph, and I get a lot of chips escaping around and onto the work, which is why I put the fan back on.