I have seen many articles on making brakedrum forges. I decided it would make a nice portable reenacting forge.
it only cost 25$ to make so you won't have the excuse for not making one of these for yourself. they work well for small forgings and also firewelding small objects.
That is the way the hair dryer I took apart works, at least the best I can tell.
motor is DC powered. There is a set of diodes in wired in series somehow with the heating coils to rectify (convert) the AC to DC current.
Don't remove the heating coils from the motor and then plug it into a wall socket like I did or you will make the diodes explode
I see that my theory was true when i thought the fact the motor was wired in with the heating coils that they somehow creat enough resistance to keep the diodes from being over powered... :-)
Yes they do exploade
So anyway to find a powersupply
you can use a 35$ or so power supply from radioshack.
They are used for CB radios and mine also has a cigarette lighter socket in it.
or if you are like me with about 6 computer power supplies in your closet
and they are free!!!! they are more economical to use.
The wire harnesses comming from the powersupply carry several voltages.
I used my multimeter to find the one that is 12V. My powersupply was a little shy and read about 11.3 volts. I was a little dissapointed at the lack of output, Since the motor was actually a 12 volt motor but the little hairdryer fan still moves plenty of air for a charcoal forge. I have read that coal required a more powerful blast of air but I don't use coal so I wouldn't know much about it.
After locating the correct wires I then cut off the other wires as well as the other harnesses. unless you have another use for them they will only get in the way. I kept them long enough that I may splice more wires into them if I ever need them again.
As shown in the picture to the left, there is a set of wires comming from the powersupply that is used to turn the powersupply on and off. you have to find those in the mess of wires comming out of the power supply before you cut them off.
There are three wires. one wire resets the computer, the other turns it on and off and the third is a ground wire for both of the other wires.
Experiment with touching the three wires together in different sequences to find out which causes the cooling fan to turn on. then attach a switch of some sort to make those two wires connect. here I used the old nintendo power switch that I had laying around when my old nintendo finally died. after over 15 years of hardcore gaming..
Everything else is solved with electrical tape :- )
I wish i had pictures here, but i got my motor from an old hair dryer i had been saving for several years just for this purpose.
somthing when wrong with the wiring so i took it apart and removed it from the mess of other things in the hair dryer. Try to keep the electrical switches intact b/c they can be used for the power supply on/off switch and the blower motor on off switch.
The electric motor, fan and the stator assembley (which also support the motor) The stator assembley serves the same puropose as in a jet engine are little vanes used to take the swirl out of the air as it passes down from the fan.
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I cut slits in a soup can that had both ends removes to it was like a hollow tube. and removed around a 1/4" of metal((((( EDIT THIS PARAGRAPH )))))) from all around the can so it looks like this picture. I used my aircraft snips that cut out a center stripe so as to not distort the metal while cutting it
