Steel vs Stainless Exhaust Blower

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snoman701

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 8, 2016
Messages
2,108
Location
SE MI
I have quite a few steel blowers from a variety of equipment. For my purposes, it's A LOT easier to use one of these for hood exhaust as opposed to an eductor (which I cannot easily size to ensure appropriate exhaust) or a stainless blower (which I simply haven't found yet).

I know that others have mentioned that they don't last.

Now, in my case, the motor will not be exposed to fumes, only shaft/seal/blower wheel/cage.

Also, in my case, I am not exhausting reaction fumes, simply chemical preparation fumes and escapee fumes. All reactions take place in closed containers and the fumes are scrubbed.

I'll find a stainless blower in time, it just hasn't happened yet.

I'm just curious if I'm looking at replacing once in a while, or if it's something that I'll be replacing constantly. I've got quite a few surplus blowers of various sizes, and have constant access to more.
 
There are lots of steel blowers in scrap metal yards. With HCl and aqua regia, I doubt if a stainless blower will last any longer than a steel blower. I once had a homemade 12' long hood and mounted a dual tandem steel squirrel-cage blower (from the scrap yard) in it. It was belt driven and the motor was located on top of the hood. Hot aqua regia was run in the hood every day. It took about 3-4 years before the blower finally crapped out.
 
I have used squirrel cage blowers and when they did crap out, it was always the squirrel cage because it has such thin metal. Then I found heat slinger impellers, they are made of aluminum and very heavy and very easy to epoxy coat evenly.

A combination of a spray epoxy on the inner blower housing and one of these blades sold by Grainger will have a long service life.


https://www.grainger.com/category/h...direct=heat+slinger&nls_boost_words=noContent
 
That's sort of what I figured, but always better to have the vote of experience before committing time and $$ to a project only to find that "figurin" failed ya.

Thanks!
 
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