Genny Room Blower

[MikeP]

Turned on my genny room blower, didn't really hear any "blowing," just the sound of an electric motor spinning. Checked the blower vent, no air moving.

Pulled the blower and I think I found the problem:

So where do I get just the impeller?

 

[GJH]

Depco sells the blowers, maybe they could get one. The PO of my boat left me a spare squirrel cage, bless him, I had a similar issue on one of my ER blowers.

 

[TROUBLE]

Just a question,
Do you guys use the blowers just to remove heat?
Art

 

[MikeP]

The ventilation blowers usually have a hose or conduit that goes to the bottom of the particular space to evacuate heavier-than-air fumes (gasoline, for example).

To remove heat you want a blower that is pulling air from the top of the compartment rather than the bottom. the PO of our boat installed separate heat-removing blowers in each ER that are mounted on the ceiling of the ERs and exhaust directly outside. HOWEVER, you could take the standard ER vent blowers on our 53 which are mounted near the ceiling and, if you remove the dryer hose that extends to the floor of the compartments (ERs and genny room), they would work just fine as heat removers though not as fume removers.

Now...a question for you blower design experts - The plastic impeller on the oem blower is 4.5" in diameter, 2.5" wide, and has a 3/8" bore. Grainger has impellers that are 4.25" in diameter. I cannot find any listing at all for a 4.5" diameter impeller. Any thoughts re whether a 4.25" impeller would do the job or would there be too much reduction in flow due to that 1/4 inch diameter reduction?

 

[saltshaker]

Did something get stuck in the blower? Looks more like it was working as a macerator than a blower. My pump room has blowers in the overhead for heat removal. Even with the AC in there it can get hot with all the AC compressors, freezer and dryer running. Mine stopped working over the winter so that's on my growing list of work to do. Last weekend I discovered I had a leak in one of the FW fittings on the ice chipper. As luck would have it, the bilge pump in that compartment also decided to stop working. I check all pumps and float switches regularly and all were working a couple of weeks ago. The fitting for the ice chipper is a little plastic Y type strainer. Can't find it locally and the closest dealers need to order it. Tried to do a quick repair until I get the new one but no luck. Not much of a leak but it drives me nuts to have the pump keep cycling. Typical boat BS.

 

[bobk]

Mike, are the vanes chaulky? Mine were when they failed. Check the other blowers while you are at it. My guess is they are made of acetal which doesn't like hot flowing air. I replaced the entire assembly.

Bobk

 

[MikeP]

Bob, yes, they are all the same plastic impellers - a total of 5 blowers - 2 eng room, one genny room, and one each in the forward and guest head. The master head uses a different type blower. I had all the blowers out a couple of years ago to replace the bushings/install new brushes. At that time the impellers were OK. As noted, it appears something got stuck in there but I don't know what. There were no foreign objects in the housing and there is a screen on the output side of the blower to prevent creatures from getting in from the outside. Maybe it just disintegrated due to age...I don't know.

They are 32V blowers and so are probably hard to source. Since the motors are fine, I'd like to just replace all the impellers. I guess the grainger impellers, even if 1/4" smaller diameter, would work a lot better than nothing!

 

[GJH]

Mike, like I said, Depco carries these blowers, including in 32 volt. As you probably know, they are very helpful so why not contact them and see what they can do for you? Somewhere along the line, my PO got a spare or two (they were in sealed bags). Another source, if you either don't trust or can't get an answer from Depco, is to call Jabsco themselves. Note a quick web search shows that "pump vendors" carries Jabsco blower wheels.

 

[MikeP]

Thanks George...

 

[dottieshusband]

Depco also has just the squirrel cages as well. I replaced my generator room fan as well. Depco supplied the fan, and an entry blower wheel as well.

 

[doc g]

just rebuilt two of mine and got the parts from Sam's the impeller is available by itself too.........Pat

 

[GJH]

Sam's!! Doh! Of course!!

 

[MikeP]

Yep...i came to the same "DOH!" late yesterday eve and called Sams/left a message. Steve called me back when they opened this morning and he's shipping me two impellers. Sometimes the answer is just too obvious to see.

 

[rsmith]

But why did your Admiral put egg noodles in there?

 

[MikeP]

She's Italian - she can't throw food away!

 

[MikeP]

Update - new impeller, blower motor cleaned lubed and reinstalled. Blew probably 30 percent harder than the other motors...and got so hot I couldn't touch it after running for maybe 5 minutes.

Surprise, surprise, it appears to be a lower voltage DC motor on the 32VDC system! How it got that way, I have no idea. It looked original from an appearance point of view with the old white impeller but I don't want to believe Hatt ran out of 32s that day and just stuck a 24 or whatever in there...

The other two dc blowers have 32V stamped on them as well as a part number. This motor looks identical from appearance but has no numbers of any kind stamped on it.

I don't really want to buy a new 32V motor for $209. OTOH, I don't like things that don't work properly. Anybody have one of the 32v blower motors they would sell?

 

[SeaEric]

Why not just rewire it to a 12v source?

 

[MikeP]

Well -rewire to 32V is what I would do as opposed to 12 - I know a shop in Annapolis that can rewire motors. I might check with them to see what they would charge. Either that or only run the blower for 5 minutes!

 

[bobk]

Either that or only run the blower for 5 minutes!

I hope your memory is better than mine, or you might not be happy at 10 minutes.

Bobk

 

[jim rosenthal]

Any way to put a resistor in line with the DC supply? Or maybe as you said have it rewound.... or maybe a timer on it for five minutes?

I think you have 12vdc on the 53 MY- could you run a cable over to it from the genset starting system? doesn't that use 12vdc?

I know!- get the blower its own 12v battery AND a charger to maintain it!