Cruising with regular household fans?

[ThereAndBack]

Originally Posted by wingssail

You probably have them hooked up backwards, mine blow.

Seriously the other problem with household fans, besides power usage, (and you're kidding yourself if you think that household fans, even on low power don't use a lot) is that they clutter up the cabin and must be put away when you go sailing, then they must be stored.

I want our boat to be ready to go at a moment's notice, the absolute minimum to unplug and put away, so whenever we get the impulse to go sailing we can, right now, and house hold appliances don't fit that model. If it takes one half a day to get ready to go sailing, you won't be doing it very often.

I'm not kidding myself, I measure the amp draw.

I live on a catamaran, so basically, the "moments notice" problem is not a problem for me, but if I was on a monohull (as I have been previously), I'd just strap them down. My fans are not wired backwards btw.

[singlespeed]

After numerous failures on the speed controllers of "marine" fans, I turned to the cheap 12Volt accessory fans sold in auto parts stores. They may only have one speed, but they cost pennies on the dollar compared to the "marine" ones, they come with clamps and frequently also the hardware for a fixed amount, they use a standard cigarette lighter plug that is easy to cutoff and wire into an available twelve volt circuit if desired, my master cabin ones are over ten years old and run all night for eight months a year in the Caribbean. Using an AC house fan of any size means running an inverter (with all the power losses associated) and storage issues under way, without addressing corrosion issues. If one of my cockpit 12VDC accessory car fan burns or corrodes out, I can usually find a cheap replacement at an island's auto parts shop.




12VDC

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

I have tested more than 10 different household fans aboard. Almost every one is better than any 12V boat fan. But the clear winners were these:

“small” fan, 9” non oscillating: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

“big” fan, 12”, oscillating: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

These are very quiet and can go low speed.

Winners in which way? Efficiency?

The Hella Turbo I use is rated at 95lt/sec (or 200cuft/min) and uses 6.5 watts. It uses less in low speed due to the current chopping circuitry.

Do you have any specific numbers for the fans you mention?

I would be surprised if they can come close.

Our focus has been on:

• Low power usage
• Moves sufficient air and can move plenty on high
• Quiet
• Can run continuously for years. day in and day out
• Serviceable
• Clean in appearance and installable anywhere

[ohdrinkboy]

Wingsail, I appreciate your opinion, and it's valid. However, I don't mind the power consumption for short term, and I can deal with stowing it. A household fan is a lot cheaper to run than AC.

[thinwater]

I always liked to travel with one big box or equivalent tilt fan. Lay it in a forward hatch on exhaust and it vents the cabin of whatever you are doing. Blast it right on you for cockpit work on a windless 95F day. Or set on low and aim it a the cabin roof, and it acts as a ceiling fan for when it's hot but too rainy to open hatches. Very quiet on low. I found use for it on large and small boats.



The workhorses, of course, are the 12v mounted fans.

[thinwater]

Caframo Ultimate. 200 cfm at 5 watts and quieter that other fans. But there is no guard (soft edge) and the mount sucks (I made custom mounts).


Mostly I've used Hella Turbo and Caframo Borra. The Hella moves more air and the Caframo is quieter. I like the Caframo on low in heating season.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by ThereAndBack

I'm not kidding myself, I measure the amp draw...

What is it?

[ThereAndBack]

Originally Posted by wingssail

What is it?

It varies between very little (<5watts) up to about 44 watts on full power. This fan doesn't have your traditional "settings", it is a knob that adjusts the power provided to the fan. So if you want to run at a half amp, you can, or if you want to blast air at 3.5 amps, you can. My house bank is 12v so that is why I provide those amp measurements.

[CamWrenRoo]

I've got a vornado fan in my apartment (part time boat part time land right now...) and it works really well. I'm thinking it will move aboard when we're on the boat full time!

[ThereAndBack]

Originally Posted by wingssail

What is it?

I also looked up the CFM on it, the advertised rate is 415 CFM on its maximum setting. Seems the Caframos I have do about 200CFM on the high setting.

So power consumption between the two fans is probably similar, but the Vornado gives you a bigger range/option of use. Also, it has a 10 year warranty.

Finally... I like that I can move the Vornado around to where ever I want, even out in the cockpit if it is a still night.

[slug]

The little. Bulkhead mounted fans simply circulate hot air

To cool down living space you must get the hot air out of the boat

A hatch mounted wind scoop or a hatch fan

Your choice

[Davy J]

The 12 volt fans on the boat work. But we now use these:



Have three onboard. Will run about three days on a charge with a Ryobi 18v 9 amp hour battery.

[Group9]

Yeah, we always take the $20 box fans you see at War-Mart (about 2' x 2') for nights when it's hot, but not so hot we need AC or the genset running.
They don't seem to use much juice, even when going through the inverter.
And, they are cheap, so if they get corroded from the salt air and quit, so what?

[s/v Jedi]

I never bothered before but now that this came up I pulled out my energy meter and measured both fans.

The Black and Decker was disappointing at 28W low setting (which is all you need). The Honeywell much better, 20W at low setting, 23W at highest setting.

The boat fans, especially the Hella fans are a joke. In the early 2000’s they were okay’ish but it didn’t take long before they were reduced to cheap junk, sometimes so out of balance that they shook themselves apart, never moving any serious amount of air.

I can understand where some want the absolute minimum of airflow to get by without fainting but we are the decadent type that love to use 12” fans instead of masochistic 5” doll house fans

BTW, one Honeywell will easily replace a handful of Hella fans and even in our monohull stay put just like that

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by ThereAndBack

It varies between very little (<5watts) up to about 44 watts on full power. This fan doesn't have your traditional "settings", it is a knob that adjusts the power provided to the fan. So if you want to run at a half amp, you can, or if you want to blast air at 3.5 amps, you can. My house bank is 12v so that is why I provide those amp measurements.

The 44 watts is about standard from what I've seen, but the 5 watts on low speed is impressive. (on a 12v system that would be from a low of .4 amps to 3.5 amps)

Originally Posted by ThereAndBack

I also looked up the CFM on it, the advertised rate is 415 CFM on its maximum setting. Seems the Caframos I have do about 200CFM on the high setting.

So power consumption between the two fans is probably similar, but the Vornado gives you a bigger range/option of use. Also, it has a 10 year warranty.

Finally... I like that I can move the Vornado around to where ever I want, even out in the cockpit if it is a still night.

Look, I agree that there are benefits to these fans, and in fact I'll probably buy one if I have to do some work on a nearby boat which has no fans at this time. For me that is obviously the least expensive and most immediate way to get some air movement while at the dock and when power does not matter.

However you are wrong to say that the power consumption of the Vornado and a Caframo is probably similar. It's not. The Caframo is moving 200cfm for 5 watts (.364 of an amp). If you assume the power to air movement on the Vornado is linear then it's 415cfm @ 44 watts (3.66 amps) means it could move 200cfm @ 21 watts, which is 1.75 amps, or about 5 times as much power.

On our boat we don't use Caframos, we use Hella Turbos, which have similar specs, and we have seven installed fans. Typically we have four running at all times on hot days, usually low speed, meaning about .25 amps each or 1 amp total. To do the same with Vornado it would take about 6 amps to move that much air. On a 12 hour hot day in humid Mexico that is a difference of 60 amp hours, not counting the loss of efficiency of the inverter.

Of course if one has a huge solar array the power may be insignificant and at the dock it is also not an issue. However installing the Vornados or any other large household fan, would be a pain and I simply don't like them underfoot.

So, I'm not knocking your fans or your choice, it just isn't the answer for a full time cruiser like us.