Posted by Sherman in Idaho [108.162.246.24] on Sunday, October 09, 2016 at 14:37:32 :
A guy gave me an old table-top fan to fix. Looked like it had sat in a barn with the chickens roosting on it for a few decades, but cool-looking so I agreed to see if I could make it blow. Washed the worst of the crud off it, took out the oil cups and put some penetrating oil down in the bearings, plugged it in, and she fired right up. Blew like a hurricane, stronger than any desk fan I ever saw. Would have blown right off the bench if it hadn't been made out of old-school Detroit iron. Then I looked at the name plate (I think Delco was originally Detroit Electric and they made stuff other than automotive) and it says "32 Volts DC". And yet it has what appears to be a factory 120VAC plug on it. Where on earth did anyone ever have 32V DC power? Did somebody back around 1935 "upgrade" it to a modern cord, notice that it spun too fast and got hot, and stuck it in the barn? It's definitely not military/28V. Being a brush-type motor it will run on AC or DC, although if it's designed for DC, the laminations are too thick and it will get too hot on AC, even if the right voltage. I'll have to see what the guy wants to do with it. It's an odd one, for sure. Maybe it was supposed to sit on the dash of an electric trolley car? I thought they usually ran on 110VDC, though.
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