Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff

Slowing down a pedestal fan

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TomS_:
Mains voltage is not my forte, and I'd rather not mess with it before asking people who know better...

My parents have a fan which they use in their living room. The lowest speed setting produces quite a reasonable breeze. A bit too reasonable really.

We'd like to try and slow it down a bit, and the best idea I've come up with so far is to take one of the speed controllers you would typically use for a ceiling fan, put it in a box of some sort, and wire the lead for the pedestal fan through that.

The theory being that we can set that controller to one of the lower settings and hopefully then when we switch the fan on using it's own control it will be at a much lower speed.

Does this sound like a reasonable thing to attempt? Or is there a better way to achieve this?

Thanks!

tszaboo:

taydin:
Speed settings for such fans are done by putting extra inductance in series with the motor. For example, you can start with the secondary winding of a transformer (make sure to isolate the primary winding well so that it won't zap you. Or you can remove all windings and just wind a secondary).

NiHaoMike:
Put a reusable air filter on it. Slows down the flow and cleans the air as a bonus.

David Hess:
A common phase control light dimmer will probably work but is not ideal.  Some of them are specified for motor loads.

A better way is to use a variac and last year I mounted a small variac in an extended outlet box to do exactly what you described.

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