Large air blower (fwd)

To: "'Tesla List'" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Large air blower (fwd)
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 00:17:43 -0600
Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net

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From:  Jim Lux [SMTP:jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net]
Sent:  Wednesday, April 01, 1998 10:13 AM
To:  Tesla List
Subject:  Re: Large air blower (fwd)

> Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 16:29:50 EST
> From: ESchulz531 <ESchulz531-at-aol-dot-com>
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Large air blower
> 
> I found a 1800 cfm air blower for $100.  Its output tube is only 24 in^2.
> Does this sound good for an air blast spark gap?
> 
> Erik Schulz
> ESchulz531-at-aol-dot-com
> 

That's an output velocity of 180 ft/sec, which is pretty fast. How much
flow is there at any reasonable static pressure? 

A vacuum cleaner can develop this sort of speed, if needed.

Electric leaf blowers are cheaper and have this sort of flow and speed, if
that is what you want. However, be aware that the leaf blower has a pretty
short lifetime. Someone who blows leaves 2 hrs every week would only rack
up 100 hrs a year, so a mean time between failures of 200 hrs would seem
acceptable.  We ran into this problem looking at the gas powered blowers
for another application, 100 hr MTBF is great for a home blower or weed
whacker, terrible for a piece of industrial equipment for use hrs a day.