Talk:Fan (machine)

Questions on ventilation

This will be post #1. I'm not sure if this is a forum where I can ask questions, but I hope so. So here goes:

I'm a product designer currently working on a project that will blow bubbles through fluid. One possible air propulsion method would be to use a centrifugal fan. The dimensions and characteristics work nicely with the product. However, the air flow/motor direction would work best reversed. I wonder what effect on the efficiency/effectiveness of a centifugal fan would be. It would be drawing air in and pushing it out the center port. Also, if it matters, we could probably lose most of the outer housing as the input can be all the way around the circumference. Thanks for any help! -kevin Salukikev 00:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not a forum where you can ask questions, unless they're directly related to the article. I'm sure you could find that kind of technical information elsewhere. Try Googling it. SteveRamone 00:39, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

There should be a lot more here

I'm surprised there is not much about the mechanical fan on Wikipedia.. My fatehr said that during WWII there was no commercially available fans, and that some men in the navy were selling fans to consumers as a side project. He says he believes that the Vornado fan might have come out of that project. But I was hoping to find information about that here. And it seems that this is one area where Wikipedia is failing miserably at covering.

97.123.57.65 (talk) 16:29, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Cross flow fan

I've tried googling "cross flow fan", to learn more about its principle of operation. It seems it's not entirely similar to the cetrfugal fan, but Google did not really turn up anything useful. Maybe someone knowledgeable could expand the section in this article? An illustration similar to the centrifugal fan would be great! Thanks! europrobe (talk) 08:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

There is an Unmanned Aerial Vehice called FanWing that uses a cross flow fan. There are videos of this aircraft on YouTube and the companies website which are helful in getting to grips with what a cross flow fan is. Also there is a journal/paper called 'An Experimental Study of Cross Flow Fan' by S Murata. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.191.0 (talk) 13:23, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

The Cross Flow fan (blower) is pretty rare. The most common applications for these fans in consumer products was a popular style of hair dryer that I haven't seen in years, and sometimes in air cleaners and over the range microwave vent fans. In my experience, a centrifugal blower (with backward inclined blading) is called a centrifugal blower. A squirrel cage blower (forward inclined blading) is what is used in almost every HVAC unit. These two subsections of this article are inaccurate. MicahWes (talk) 03:30, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Cross flow is mainly used where the airflow needs to span across a wide, flat area, such as a circuit board inside a printer or copier, or for cooling the wide hot fuser rollers in a printer. The squirrel cage speed spanning the width can be relatively slow and only has two bearing points and one motor, as opposed to an array of many small fans that each have their own bearings, motors, and wires. -- DMahalko (talk) 21:18, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Solar powered fan section: delete?

Is the section on solar powered fans needed? It seems like a special use case that doesn't require a different type of fan (except for low-power DC, which is mentioned elsewhere). Dan Griscom (talk) 04:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Turbine fan for organ

A type of fan that is related to the cross flow principle that I have not seen here is the turbine type fan utilized in blowing wind into the air supply of pipe organs. The most common of these is the Spencer "Orgablow"T.M. kinectic blower. It utilizes jet turbines powered by a centrifigal/direct-drive split phaze motor having from five to fifty horsepower (or more) depending on the size of the pipe organ and number of pmeumatic components it contains as well as providing wind to blow through the pipes and rezonators. Ancient instruments were hand or foot 'Pumped' by paid 'bellows blowers' who had to manually supply the pipe organs wind. After the invention of electricity, the blower, both squirel cage type, and kinectic were used as the wind supply and are to this day. The kinectic blower can also have another identical blower attached directly to its feed out to increase the maximum available wind pressure for the organ. A large reservoire bellows, weighted with lead or brick weights regulates the wind pressure in the organ. If the organist suddenly brings on the full organ in a loud passage, the drop in wind pressure causes the reservoire bellows to expand instantly allowing the full kinectic and instantanious wind pressure to the pipes, causing them all to speak accordingly, and when the note is released, the bellows falls under the weight of the counter weights. The kinectic blower's invention has made possible the huge organs notably in the United States from the twentieth century to the present. The largest organ in the world is said to be the Midmer-Losh pipe organ in the Atlantic City Auditorium in New Jersey. This organ has over forty-thousand speaking pipes, the larges being sixty-four feet, and the smallest, smaller than a long cigarette. The keyboard console has seven manuals (keyboards) that control the instrument. Several kinectic blowers are necessary to blow this organ! Thus, the cross blown principle is made use here in the kinectic blower, causing, as has been illustrated above, a displacement of the actual size of the impeller or turbine, and that of the occupied space of a utilized burst of wind, whether steady or transient, displacing the entire space of the pipes, the air ducts, and the pmneumatic motors.68.12.158.52 (talk) 22:36, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Bladeless fan?

The bladeless fan section should be removed, or edited to reflect that the so-called bladeless fan isn't really a different type of fan, but an application of a fan in which air from the fan in the unit's base is blown over the airfoil in the top of the unit to induce airflow through the duct. The arrangement is similar to a blown flap on an aircraft. Tesla4D (talk) 23:22, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

To add to this; a bladeless fan is still a fan, but the outdated definition in the article would suggest that a bladeless fan is not a fan. I think we should just define a fan as "a machine which blows gas" or something along those lines. Owen214 (talk) 13:35, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Bladeless Fan 2

I agree that the blade-less fan section should be removed, as the manner in which air flow/pressure is produced appears to be conventional and fall under an existing category. The use to which that airflow is put would seem to be out of scope, except perhaps within a 'Fan-Applications' section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bathat (talk • contribs) 01:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Bladeless Fan 3

Agreed. Indeed the new Dyson's desk fan is an ordinary radial-type fan (as seen on professional hair dryer) with a new kind of dissipator / difuser. Maybe really would be good a seccion about air blow applications. Lgugue (talk) 16:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I have tried to edit the section to be more general and less like an infomercial. The term "bladeless" is marketroid language because what is an impeller? Oh, it's a type of bladed fan, but hidden inside the base. DMahalko (talk) 00:31, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for clearing this up. I was under the impression, Dyson's bladeless fan was some kind of modified ion thruster. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.167.231.0 (talk) 02:42, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Another fan design ?

I made an image of another fan, but I'm not sure whether it allready exist allready. Image is

File:Ventilator with vertical axis motor.png

here

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.255.202 (talk) 09:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

It's a creation of KVDP (talk · contribs) and (of course) it won't work. It's a redrawn derivative of two other images: one is itself incorrect. The other is of a water pump and won't work for Reynolds number of air at atmospheric pressure. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:01, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

in need of advice and help!

Under what conditions and the following statement be removed from centrifugal compressor? "Cleanup|date=June 2008" centrifugal compressor is currently in a semi-complete state. It has not been proofread and has not been verified to standard that I would like to apply. I would like to ask for everyone's help to please review the article and make comments on the discussion page. I really will attempt to incorporate all of your improvements in a rigorous and consistent fashion. it is important that you are happy the way your issues are addressed. It is currently missing a section on "design methodology" that I would like to research and discuss before I complete. There are significantly different points of view that I would like to try to unify. the section on design methodology is not original work and will be properly referenced. All turbomachinery is unified by fundamental physics in the applied mathematics use in their design and analysis. That is why the term turbomachinery can be used as an umbrella topic. Dozens of academic textbooks attest to the above statement. Other than one other turbomachinery entry I have not been happy with the technical and scientific accuracy of any other encyclopedic entries. Most of these entries have been negatively impact by end-user and application colloquialisms. I will slowly, starting with centrifugal pumps and centrifugal fans try to correct various errors in statements. Unless I am asked I will not make any significant changes to the outlines of these encyclopedic articles. thank you for everyone's help martin koronowski, Mkoronowski (talk) 22:24, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Unusual fan in article, can you identify it?

This is an unusual fan type I have heard about, but I do not recall the brand name of it.

Basically there is no drive motor in the center, and it is instead driven by a cylinder of magnets around the outside edge of the blades. Fixed electromagnets in the corners of the housing drive the hub to spin.

It is sufficiently odd as to be classified by itself but I just don't remember what this type of fan is called. I believe the goal is to be more efficient by moving the fan motor out of the center hub and providing more blade surface for air to flow.

The provided Commons image does not identify the fan model, and the side label is unreadable even at high magnification.

DMahalko (talk) 03:03, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for late response, just seen this today. Manufacturer was Yen Sun Technology Corporation, Model number (pd1270153b-2f) is provided in the file name :-). This fan construction was intended to deliver better air flow in the center, where conventional fans have low flow (dead spot), especially for use on heat sinks. I found a photo of the inner construction here. -- Smial (talk) 14:15, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

axial fan... how it works?

In theory.

Axial flow fans work by "cutting" into the stationary air mass in front of the blade tips. Once air enters the blades, it begins to rotate with the blades, and continues to rotate even after it has been expelled. There is a point where very deep blades don't pump any more air because once the air enters and reaches the same rotational speed as the blades, the blades have no additional flow-enhancing effect. Also, the air on the intake side begins to spin due to air drag from the rotating intake blades, further reducing the fan efficiency.

Turbines, a more complex type of axial fan, counteract this rotational stalling effect by having alternate layers of stationary and rotating blades. The rotating blades cut into the stationary air mass held between the stationary blades, and the stationary blades cut into the rotating air mass held between rotating blades. In this manner the stationary blade stack enhances and multiplies the velocity of air passing through the rotating blade stack.

Though, need to find references to verify this. DMahalko (talk) 00:08, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Reverse effect

Where can I find an explanation about why when you start a fan it seems to momentarily switch or reverse its spinning direction? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.132.73.173 (talk) 10:01, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Possibly a stroboscopic effect from artificial lighting. Reify-tech (talk) 19:44, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes. I've often observed this. Andrewa (talk) 23:21, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Pankha, not pankah

Pankha is an Indian word, originating from the wings of a Bird (Pankh) which generates a draft when flapped, and not derived from the Mesopotamean civilisation, which uses words with 'Kah'. Hence, the word has been replaced by 'Pankha'. Bkpsusmitaa (talk) 12:34, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

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Requested move 31 January 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved (non-admin closure). sst✈^(conjugate) 06:56, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

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Mechanical fan → Fan – The term "mechanical fan" is never used, and the dictionary source just lists "fan." This may be the most common use of fan. A quick Google Image search for "fan" proves it. Ticklewickleukulele (talk) 07:45, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose Fan is a dab page, if anything the move would have to be to Fan (electric). (Fan (wooden) should be a redirect to Hand fan). The fact that vanilla Google image search throws up lots of shopping websites is neither here nor there is it? In ictu oculi (talk) 09:46, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
• Opoose. When I do a Google search of "fan", the Wikipedia article Fan (person) is listed first, and then a mixture of sites pertaining to both subjects, not overwhelming results towards the mechanical fan -- thus not enough evidence IMO to have a primary topic. And as In ictu oculi alluded to, results are inflated/spammed by lots of commercial shopping sites, most likely as a result of search engine marketing and search engine optimization. Zzyzx11 (talk) 22:14, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
• Comment Ticklewickleukulele moved the page to Fan (machine) in the midst of this discussion, which isn't cool. While I appreciate being WP:BOLD, there is no need to stray the discussion, so I reverted it back without prejudice. It might well be the optimal title.
  That being said, I offer cautious support for the original proposal (that Fan is the primary topic), and I also prefer Fan (machine) to the current title. Pinging User:In ictu oculi and User:Zzyzx11, if they wish to reconsider. No such user (talk) 15:47, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose.

  

  Less important?

  I don't agree that a Google Image search is a good way to demonstrate what is and is not a primary topic. Even setting aside the definition of "fan" meaning a person, I wouldn't say that this type of fan is necessarily primary for "fan as cooling device". Egsan Bacon (talk) 21:31, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose clearly not, since fans are people who like things, like soccer fans, Miley Cyrus fans, etc -- 70.51.200.135 (talk) 06:13, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment I also oppose the implicit proposal of the nominator to make a giant hatnote out of the dab page at fan onto this article. (implicit proposal sinec the dab page at the destination is not mentioned, therefore is an implicit deletion, thus making a giant hatnote necessary) -- 70.51.200.135 (talk) 06:15, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment this article only covers rotating mechanical fans, not fans that are fanned such as fan-folding handheld ones ; or giant feather palm frond things you see in movies about Cleopatra -- 70.51.200.135 (talk) 06:21, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Fan should remain a dab page, since there are too many alternative uses of the word. However, as suggested here, I would support something like Fan (machine). Reify-tech (talk) 19:41, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Is a "Fan" really ever used to move anything other than air?

The article begins by stating that a Fan is "typically" used to create a flow within a gas, such as air, implying that fans can be employed to create a flow within a liquid, and gases other than air.

I cannot think of any examples of a "Fan" that move anything other than air. Are there any? In particular, nobody would ever refer to a device for creating a flow in a liquid as a "Fan" - that device would be a "Pump".

86.145.35.224 (talk) 23:14, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

They move solids, as dusts and powders, quite a bit too. I have several in my workshop, for the lasers and the woodworking machines moving stuff from laser cutting smoke (glue and dust in a mist) to large chips from the thicknesser. I'd agree about liquids though. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:28, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Dead link to telegraph.co.uk

There is a dead link at the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_(machine)#cite_note-telegraph.co.uk-16

NotYourFathersOldsmobile (talk) 02:21, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 3 August 2018

Fan (machine) → Mechanical fan – On the page Wikipedia:Disambiguation, in the section Naming the specific topic articles, in this sentence Natural disambiguation that is unambiguous, commonly used, and clear is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation; for instance mechanical fan and hand fan are used instead of fan (mechanical) and fan (implement)., Mechanical fan is called Fan (machine). Can you please move Fan (machine) to Mechanical fan so that it maintains its accuracy? Thank you. 2601:196:8400:C90:A47C:38B4:C9D2:F297 (talk) 14:56, 3 August 2018 (UTC)--Relisting. —usernamekiran(talk) 18:32, 11 August 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 16:16, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• There was a move in May 2017 away from Mechanical fan that shouldn't have taken place without discussion, given the previous discussion above. It also moved the title away from natural disambiguation. I think it might be best to return to Mechanical fan. Dekimasuよ! 17:38, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support per above and below. Dekimasuよ! 18:57, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support as a WP:NaturalDisambiguation. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:24, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
• A mechanical fan and a hand fan are types of fan (implement), but this article mentions both - should this be the main article for fan (implement) with hand fan as a subtopic or should this be limited to mechanical meaning a separate article is needed for the concept? Peter James (talk) 21:33, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - the current name shows up in the Wikipedia search box when someone types in "Fan", and makes clear that this isn't a person who likes something. Also, Wikipedia:Disambiguation states "commonly used", and I see no citation for the claim that "mechanical fan" is commonly used. --Rob Kelk 17:16, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per COMMONNAME. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:27, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support as the canonical example of WP:NATURAL Red Slash 13:32, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. I have never heard of the term mechanical fan myself, and I don't think it would help readers to move the article there. There is nothing wrong with parenthetical disambiguation, and as Rob says, it helps in the search box too.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:09, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

Amakuru and Robkelk, I'm very interested in exactly how the current situation helps searchers. If the move goes ahead, there will be a redirect. Under what circumstances will this disadvantage a reader? Andrewa (talk) 23:29, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't help readers because "mechanical fan" is not the name of this object, and they are less likely to pick it out of a list of pages, on Google or elsewhere, as a result of that. In short, the WP:RECOGNIZE criterion for choosing article titles.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:35, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

OK, understood. But what I'm looking at is the actual effect on a reader. Your comment and Rob's before seem to imply that there is one. But the redirect will still show in the search results (I think... but I'm very interested in any circumstances in which it may not), and will be just as recognisable there, and will take the reader to the article without any further action on their part. So my initial analysis is, there's no disadvantage at all.

I'm not sure that it's actually relevant to this RM, but you raised it here. It's extremely relevant to the wider question of Primary Topic. Andrewa (talk) 23:47, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Casual readers are going to search for "Fan", so this page won't appear in the drop-down list if that isn't the first word of the page name. As for redirects, I've seen them disappear when unused (despite Wikipedia policy). --Rob Kelk 17:21, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Good points, thank you! Dunno what we can do about redirects disappearing if nobody wikilinks them so they look "unused"... as you say, the policy is quite explicit. And the policy is well founded and well explained. What more can we do? Andrewa (talk) 09:37, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Natural disambiguation

I'm very interested in the point made by Amakuru and Robkelk above, that the proposed natural disambiguation in practice disadvantages readers. As I say at User talk:Andrewa/P T examples and scenarios#Natural disambiguation, IMO this is dynamite. I note nom and all support !votes so far rely on the long-standing policy of preferring natural disambiguation.

Discuss either here or on my user talk subpage linked above. Andrewa (talk) 19:15, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Re "@Long-standing policy of preferring natural disambiguation:" - although this applies readily in cases where there are two or more titles of relatively similar prominence competing, consensus in discussions rarely in my experience takes WP:NATURAL at its face value of allowing natural titles with significantly less usage than the WP:COMMONNAME. Take New York (state) for example. That could easily be New York State, but it isn't. For personal names we almost never use middle names as disambiguators, even though NATURALDIS would suggest we should. It's probably time NATURALDIS was rewritten to reflect the reality that it's only for settling ties, not for allowing considerably less used titles to trump the most common titles.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:21, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

The process of deciding the title of New York (anything) is not I hope typical, but it's an interesting point. WP:NATURALDIS does need some clarification, at the very least. Andrewa (talk) 02:54, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

The advantage of using brackets (or commas) as opposed to natural disambiguation is to show the reader what the subject is actually called, I'd say natural disambiguation should only be used when its a nearly as good title. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:33, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

The advantage... what the subject is actually called... Exactly... assuming that the reader understands our convention, and remembering that not all English speakers are native speakers, and we're here for all of them. But using brackets or commas reduces the risk that the article name won't even be found, such as if the search is for Fan... and the title starts Mechanical.... We seem to be building quite a good case against natural disambiguation. It may be another thing that seems a good idea, but doesn't stack up under more careful analysis (and I guess I'm about to be accused of "overthinking" again). Andrewa (talk) 22:48, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Something to consider: Does Wikipedia exist for the benefit of its readers or for the benefit of its editors? (I know that question can also kick off a controversy.) If the wiki is here for the readers, then IMHO WP:COMMONNAME should take precedence, in that it benefits the readers. If the wiki is here for the editors, then IMHO WP:NATURAL becomes more important. --Rob Kelk 01:16, 25 August 2018 (UTC)