Electric fan conversion - give me your thoughts

[Gary Allan]

 Originally Posted By: brianl703

 Originally Posted By: Gary Allan

Yes, it does. Now to buy just one and package it for plug and play ease of installation (add one year )

Digi-Key stocks them and will be happy to sell you just one, plus $2.50 shipping.

Yes. I appears so. Now I'm figuring how "rigged" I can make this. I haven't etched in some time ..

 

[meep]

nice. you could prolly use ringed-terminal breadboard 2"x3" and 24ga solid wire instead of etching. It's an 8-pin... That's a neat idea... but I'd ask if the $30 to build the cutout would svae $30 in fuel/fan wear over the lifetime. Focusing on the manufacturer-produced hard parts above and minimizing excessive complexity definently helps reliability. I do like the solid state / pwm controller. Bad memories of recurring failed ford fan relays. m

 

[Gary Allan]

 Quote:

That's a neat idea... but I'd ask if the $30 to build the cutout would svae $30 in fuel/fan wear over the lifetime.

I don't know if it would pay. I only thought about it since it nagged me that it was the only wasteful aspect of the electric fan kicking on every time the AC cycled if you were moving above a certain speed. It was a "hey, if you're going this far ...how about a "while you're there" " type thing

 Quote:

nice. you could prolly use ringed-terminal breadboard 2"x3" and 24ga solid wire instead of etching. It's an 8-pin...

Yes. There's enough stuff available to put it together without too much effort. Making it look like it belongs there is something else. I talked in person to the owner at Centech about this. He thought it was a great idea ..but said that I'd be one of 3 people on the planet to figure it was worth it. Most people who do this stuff are looking for either room or managing cooling since they can't use a mechanical. He figured to commercially produce the thing, it would be around (just pulling a rhetorical figure out of his behind) $200 to bring it to market (by the time you researched where everyone needed to tap in ..etc..etc..etc). I think he had too many $30 projects that got in the way of making money.

 

[Gary Allan]

 Originally Posted By: mechtech2

Right. At highway speeds, the fan is not needed like at slow speeds. But at slow speeds or stopped, you need all the fans/cooling you can get for your AC condenser!

Maybe so. We'll see. I imagine I can play relay roulette and get any and all to run at some special combo of times. Right now my goal will be to have the pusher take care of blowing air across the condenser ..and let the main handle the engine cooling. At some point they'll be working together if it's hot enough. Right now the mechanical doesn't do enough at idle for the AC. It's okay a couple of hundred rpm faster. For all I know ..the clutch has been shot from new. My wife's (140k) can be heard cycling during warm up, just with internal warming and subsequent cooling. Never occurs with mine (75k)

 Originally Posted By: JHZR2

You could readily pull the aux fan setup froma w123 MB diesel. it is set up to turn on the aux fan at a certain water setpoint and AC refrigerant pressure... Two taps to turn on, all mechanical, and an existing system - you would, of course have to play the NPT game to tap into the right systems... but the system is tried and true for an aux fan.

The Spal controller has wiring instructions to include a trinary switch into the mix. It appears that my system has this low:high ac pressure indicator that tells the PCM whether it should either enable or cut the ground to the compressor clutch relay. This may be a wiser way of dealing with this. If the condenser needs no cooling to shrink the pressure, no fan operation will occur regardless of compressor operation. It will only react to condenser condition.

 

[Gary Allan]

The custom Flex-a-Lite fan/shroud combo showed up today. It appears to be a brand new unit. The address is identical to Flex-a-Lite ..so I sorta figure that this is a new unit sold as a refurbished warranty unit ..but sold without a warranty. I have had a few exchanges with Todd from Spal. Really nice guy. He gave me the old tech sheets on last year's model. He was more than willing to entertain discussion of my plans and offered the simple solution to everything. The newer V3 unit has built in software to handle the ac compressor problem. It merely delays the fan 15 sec when the compressor clutch is engaged. If the compressor cycling is less than 15sec, the fan will never come on. If the 15 sec. expires, the fan comes on and stays on 30 sec. after the compressor cuts out. This reduces this to a one fan installation and saves me a few hours and much hassle with putting a smaller fan in front of the condenser. To do it right, I would have to discharge the AC ..or risk stressing the connections (looks doable, but ). So, I went and purchased the V3 controller. I had additional exchanges with Todd at Spal. He offered me a free software upgrade if the unit I got wasn't the latest. He also verified that the amp draw with the Flex-a-Lite unit (10.6amps) was enough to be "seen" by the V3 controller. Apparently lower amp fans can trigger some diagnostic codes. He also, in a "read between the lines" chuckle, complimented my putting "allegedly" in front of the 2050 CFM that FAL spec's for the fan. He also said that it would probably be more than adequate for my needs. I should have it on this weekend.

 

[PandaBear]

Nice. Let us know how's the mpg and power improvement. What about a future electric assist power steering? You know, the ones that you can adjust fluid flow/pressure based on your speed, rather than the electro-mechanical unit that makes your truck feels like a boat?

 

[440Magnum]

I'm going through this thought process with my '66 Polara (440 Magnum, AC, 727 automatic) this summer. I've already decided on and bought the fan (a Lincoln MkVII fan from ebay- what a monster). Its going to replace both the engine-driven fan and the two 10" pushers I added when I converted the car over to R-134a years ago, so its got to be beefy. What remains to be decided is whether I go with a simple relay-based 2-stage 2-speed controller and just use the Mk VII fan's two speed input wires, or whether I go with the DCC variable speed controller. I'm leaning to the DCC controller since it also has the nice feature of limiting start-up current until the fan comes up to speed, and has a control input from the AC clutch already built in. The car has never EVER run hot, even with the old original 22" radiator with several tubes soldered shut and a perpetually leaky top tank seam from 43 years of pressure cycling. Its currently got a Radman 1853 aluminum radiator, but no shroud on the engine-driven fan and it still hasn't threatened to overheat even in traffic with the AC blasting. The electric fan is really just to simplfy and clean up the cooling setup. 2 electric pusher fans and an unshrouded engine-driven fan just screams "hack job" right now, and I don't like that.

 

[Gary Allan]

 Quote:

2 electric pusher fans and an unshrouded engine-driven fan just screams "hack job" right now, and I don't like that.

That was one of my concerns. I want this to look "packaged" like it was meant to be there. That was the reason for the Flex-a-lite deal. I would have loved to do the MEGA Ford fan for a whole lot less ..but FIL had the brackets for my PS reservoir and fits perfectly on the OEM shroud fastening points. The Spal and DCC have that soft start feature. That's real important with that Ford fan. That thing draws (reported by those who have used it) incredible current during the surge at startup. Most just use the lower speed feature due to this characteristic. Flex-a-lite needs to hook up with DCC for a controller. I'd say Spal, but they're in competition with each other. FIL's controller is the same thing that was used back in the 70's. It works ..but is pretty darn numb.

 

[kaboom10]

If you're worried about a surge at start up take the power wire from the controller to energize a 40 amp relay wired directly to the battery. All my external lighting is done this way to give max voltage to them. I split my fans to have a controller for each and adjsted them to come on as a primary and if need be a secondary.

 

[Gary Allan]

 Quote:

If you're worried about a surge at start up take the power wire from the controller to energize a 40 amp relay wired directly to the battery.

Well, I'm not, but that Ford fan allegedly can draw much more than 40 amps. In an OEM setup, it's already turning from low speed engagement. In a homegrown setup, the user typically ends up choosing one or the other mode. A few of my jeeping friends have used this fan and ended up using the lower speed on this unit, which is more than enough for most purposes in 4 banger jeep land. Most that go this route aren't going to buy higher featured controllers. They may not use one at all and go for the economy of an ON:OFF switch. While you can surely wire switches and relays to switch from one mode to the other, there's little need for the high speed on this fan for more than a few seconds in most cases. It would make it quite cumbersome to manage. I mean, I used to be a mega control freak. The more interactive inputs for the operator, the better, but I've grown to admire self governing systems ..to the point where complexity doesn't compromise reliability anyway. That fan is so powerful, one guy had a 30F drop in engine temp by the time the thermostat closed due to the ^T across the rad that it produced.

 

[kaboom10]

Now u got me wanting to replace my 2 fans off another Ford. Where did u say it came from? I'm one that like to see ice cubes instead of steam when the A/C is on.

 

[Gary Allan]

Ebay is loaded with them ...as I'm sure the junkyards are. I believe that it was used on various models from Taurus to Lincoln MK VIII to Mustang. It's supposed to be good for 4500 CFM Just put 2 speed Ford electric in ebay motors search engine.

 

[kaboom10]

THANX

 

[OVERKILL]

Yes, the Mark VIII fan is ridiculous. I have one on my Town Car. Only runs for like 20 seconds to bring the temp down. And that is on LOW.

 

[Gary Allan]

Well, all went pretty well here. I'll grab some images tomorrow. The (alleged) Black Beauty ..isn't black, under interior lighting, the shroud appeared beige ..under natural lighting, it's somewhere between lime green with some florescent tint to it ..and puke yellow. This supports my theory that this is a new unit without being painted and without a warranty. Oddities I ran into. Before installing the fan/shroud, I removed the FIT rheostat controller and extended the fan leads. I had debated on just hooking into the terminals that were for ground and MANUAL on their controller, but didn't know what effect this may have on the SPAL controller. It's intelligent and doesn't like things that are "unright". No problem. So I decide to test the fan before bolting it in. Red to + and black to - straight to the battery. The fan spins backwards ..or rather, is sending air in the wrong direction. No problem ...(although it was "odd") we'll (my neighbor wanted in on the fun - he has a jeep too) just reverse the leads when we connected to the controller. Well, red went to red and .. Now normally this wouldn't be a problem ..but it was darn annoying. The wiring directions (illustrations) were simple and straight forward. The programming is a piece of cake. The only thing complicated is routing the wires and putting them in their own wire looms. The thing performs exactly as they describe it. When you hit the low set point the fan soft starts (every time it starts, btw, it's a soft start - no slamming of some relay and full speed) and will increase in speed as the temp increases. I haven't figure out if it has a PID loop in it. I think I'll ask. It didn't appear to care how long it stayed at one speed while keeping one temp. At this point I assume that it's a direct acting proportional band (or GAIN, as it may be) without any interval (rate of deviation from setpoint) or duration (time out of setpoint)components to it. Lots of extra features too. There are leads for a secondary fan if you use a relay. It just provides a signal when the temp reaches the HIGH setpoint. I think that they also offer a full harness that will do the same thing. There's a lead for a indicator light inside the passenger compartment. Here's something I never saw before ..well maybe I have ..but I probably thought it was an odd photo on ebay or whatever... What's up with my asymmetrical mechanical cooling fan? I'll try and remember to get a shot of that too. I know someone here will know all about it, but it's 5 blades ..and two are grouped together fairly close. It's not radially symmetrical. The clutch appears to be ..but that fan. The only thing I have left to do is pull the PDC cover and tie into an ignition switched relay or vacant fuse socket. So far the only liability is that I can hear the belt squeak ...and it's annoying. The front of the engine sorta looks naked. Edit: Here's the StayPuffed Marshmallow Man - bilateral symmetry

 

[eljefino]

Those offset fan blades are for noise control... emits several different sound frequencies instead of one whine. Go look at the tread on a normal passenger tire, the blocks alternate between closer together and further apart for the same reason.

 

[Gary Allan]

Ah ..some harmonic aspect. Thanks. Some images That yellow played havoc with the images. I should have made sure I turned off the flash I've got to "carefully rotate" the reservoir according to FAL - what it means is that I'll be cutting the big clamp off (LP supply to the pump) and removing the small clamp (return). Ran out of time today. I've still got some minor tidying up to do. I'm not sure what I want to do with the extra feature wires ..at least yet. I'm not too anxious to just chop them off and then get a flicker from one of the light bulbs that are on hiatus and curse myself for not waiting out what is usually a longer process in realizing "unintended consequences". That's the coil of wires you see zipped to the ac line in the upper image.

 

[mechtech2]

The offset fan blades are not for noise control, but for cavitation control. I am sure of it. Those fans are loud.

 

[eljefino]

That gap in there reminds me of my electric fan'd dodge dakota 2.5. I have an electric fan off another car with offset blades, I'll post a pic.

 

[eljefino]

This electric fan has offset blades...