A while back we brought home a large fan from a friend of ours that appeared like it was used in a warehouse or similar building for ventilation. It appeared to be old and used a belt driven fan blade versus a direct drive blade on the motor. This fan body was wide open and just sits on the ground and had a sketchy wiring setup on the motor. It needed work to make it a viable and more or less safe piece of equipment for use in the garage. I planned on installing wheels to be able to easily move the thing around and cover it up with an extra frame to hold chicken wire that would cover the internals of the fan so no idiots feel compelled to stick their hands or other foreign objects within. Or more realistically, a dog stick its dumb nose in the blade.
The first thing I wanted to do was add the wheels. I started off by putting the fan body on a couple bricks to raise it off the ground so when I attach the wheels and remove the bricks, the body will rest on the wheels. I used a couple of the lawn mower wheels I salvaged from that old electric mower I stripped a little while back along with a couple 1/2" bolts. I had to install the bolts on the wheels then install a nut on the bolt to help hold the wheel in place but not tighten the nut against the wheel. After drilling holes on either side of the fan body I inserted the bolt ends through said holes and capped them off with another nut, tightening both nuts against one another. Washers were of course used to help keep things sturdier in the sheet metal body of the fan. With the wheels in place I was able to move on to the next course of action, which is starting on the frame to cover the motor and belt drive system of the blade. Using several pieces of salvaged tubing, some of which came from that same battery mower the wheels came from, I measured out the lengths of tubing I would need to fabricate the frame. After grinding things down on the ends I started welding, getting what would be the base of the frame assembled. While I was at it I took the mower handle and cut off the very end of the handle where one would actually grip the handle, taking care to cut it in a way where it would sit like a leg when I welded it in place on the base frame section. This bent metal tubing piece will serve as a leg to hold the fan upright while resting on its wheels. The rubber hand grip around the handle will further serve as a "shoe" to keep the fan from just vibrating across the floor while running. It actually turned out pretty good. With the base and the leg taken care of, I continued to weld up the frame using the remaining pieces of tubing. I couldn't make the frame to span the whole height of the fan body as the longest pieces of sheet metal I had came up a few inches short. This is fine since I was going to use chicken wire in a special way to cover the top area. I had all this mapped out in my head. But with the frame sections done, I was able to move on to the sheet metal sides, which are salvaged metal from some stripped appliances I processed a while back. The sheet metal panels were trimmed down to fit over the sides as they were made, taking some care to make sure there were no overhanging edges from the tubes that we could brush up against and cut ourselves. Afterward I started securing the sheet metal in place with self tapping screws into the tubes to hold the panels in place. These two pieces of sheet metal would be the only sheet metal used on the whole build. From this point on the rest of the coverings will be chicken wire pieces attached over the front and back of the fan body. The bottom will be left alone. I started off with cutting two pieces of chicken wire to cover the front. I attached one section then overlapped the other piece in order to cover the other section. I used more self tapping screws along with washers to hold the chicken wire in place. The front of the fan body had a lip that allowed for the securing of the screws around the front. I would later trim the overhanging piece back enough so the middle didn't have a wide section of doubled up chicken wire. I cut the wire back to leave wire edges that I was able to bend those wires back around the other wire panel to link the two panels together in the middle. With the front taken care of I took care of the top section of the back of the fan body. Since the sides were not built to go up to the top of the fan body, I took chicken wire panels and attached them along the top of the fan body then bent them at a slight angle to attach to the back of the frame. I took some of the excess wire I trimmed from these two pieces and made two smaller pieces to cover the small open sides just above the sheet metal panels, leaving wires on the edges to bend over to link everything together. With the top and the top sides taken care of, this just left the back side. As with the front of the fan, I cut two panels to cover the rear of the fan, again using self tapping screws with washers to help cover as much area to hold the wire panels to the tubing. I used the same technique of bending the exposed wires from the trimming to link the two panels together at the middle. With the rear panels on, all that was left was to get the wires straight on the motor. Since the whole fan was covered with chicken wire and sheet metal, I had to tip the fan on the front end to expose the bottom. Four bolts holding the motor in place had to come off to remove the motor from its base. Afterward I opened the panel on the back of the motor to remove the wires that were attached. The motor has a round fitting to accommodate a junction box cable clamp fitting so the wires won't be scraping against the edges of the hole on the motor body. After removing the wires I added this fitting then strung the wires back through the fitting and wired everything back in place. After remounting the motor and securing the belt, I was ready to test. When I plugged up the fan, the unit came on with no problem, except for one. That problem was that the fan was running in reverse relative to the body of the fan. What most would consider the front of the fan is really the back as it's drawing air through this point and pushing it through the back area where the motor and belt drive are at. While this doesn't stop the fan from being used since the back of the fan is covered in chicken wire, allowing for air to freely move, its something that I may address later. It will involve going back into the motor and swapping a couple of the leads on the motor panel to change the rotation. But until then, I can still use the fan as it is to move air. The fan ran smoothly and quietly, moving a decent amount of air that should allow the climate inside the garage to be a little more bearable in the heat of summer. With the wheels the fan is able to be easily moved around the garage as well. We now have a vital piece of equipment for use in the garage to make work more comfortable, even if by just a little.
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