Whole house fan motor

telengard · May 6, 2013

Just recently purchased a house and it has a whole house fan.
Unfortunately, the folks who installed the A/C disconnected the
motorized louvers to get into the crawl space a couple months ago and
I'm not sure exactly how it was wired. In the crawl space there is a
black (which had a wire nut on it) and bare wire and a white wire
which looks like it was curled up to not use it (it is not stripped).
The motor on the louvers has 2 black wires and a green wire.
Unfortunately, I could not find any documentation on the motor. We
have 2 separate switches so the louvers are independently controlled.

Just wondering what the wires on the motor are. The motor is a Dayton
Motor Shutter Model 2C904 115V 60Hz.

Any info greatly appreciated.

Jamie · May 6, 2013

telengard wrote:

Just recently purchased a house and it has a whole house fan.
Unfortunately, the folks who installed the A/C disconnected the
motorized louvers to get into the crawl space a couple months ago and
I'm not sure exactly how it was wired. In the crawl space there is a
black (which had a wire nut on it) and bare wire and a white wire
which looks like it was curled up to not use it (it is not stripped).
The motor on the louvers has 2 black wires and a green wire.
Unfortunately, I could not find any documentation on the motor. We
have 2 separate switches so the louvers are independently controlled.

Just wondering what the wires on the motor are. The motor is a Dayton
Motor Shutter Model 2C904 115V 60Hz.

Any info greatly appreciated.

the two wires are your 120 volt AC lines from the motor..

in your case, you can connect the black wires from the motor to
the white and black wire that is capped off..

the green wire from the motor is the ground which is connected to the
bare wire you see..

P.S.
since there is a wire nut on the black wire, this tells me it could
be alive or at some point may come alive...
I would first kill the circuit that supplies that before attaching the
last black lead from the motor to that one.

Also, this appears to be a single direction motor, this tells me that
the shutter drive must not have a stop on it or it just keeps going
around and around.. Most likely has an eccentric wheel or a wheel with
an offset swing arm on it.

Jamie

Tom Biasi · May 6, 2013

On 5/5/2013 8:12 PM, telengard wrote:

On May 5, 8:12 pm, Jamie
jamie_ka1lpa_not_valid_after_ka1l...@charter.net> wrote:
telengard wrote:
Just recently purchased a house and it has a whole house fan.
Unfortunately, the folks who installed the A/C disconnected the
motorized louvers to get into the crawl space a couple months ago and
I'm not sure exactly how it was wired. In the crawl space there is a
black (which had a wire nut on it) and bare wire and a white wire
which looks like it was curled up to not use it (it is not stripped).
The motor on the louvers has 2 black wires and a green wire.
Unfortunately, I could not find any documentation on the motor. We
have 2 separate switches so the louvers are independently controlled.

Just wondering what the wires on the motor are. The motor is a Dayton
Motor Shutter Model 2C904 115V 60Hz.

Any info greatly appreciated.

the two wires are your 120 volt AC lines from the motor..

in your case, you can connect the black wires from the motor to
the white and black wire that is capped off..

the green wire from the motor is the ground which is connected to the
bare wire you see..

P.S.
since there is a wire nut on the black wire, this tells me it could
be alive or at some point may come alive...
I would first kill the circuit that supplies that before attaching the
last black lead from the motor to that one.

Also, this appears to be a single direction motor, this tells me that
the shutter drive must not have a stop on it or it just keeps going
around and around.. Most likely has an eccentric wheel or a wheel with
an offset swing arm on it.

Jamie

Hi Jamie,

Thanks for the info, I have been shutting off the breaker when working
with this. I guess I'm surprised that the white wire would be used, I
guess the A/C guys may have just twisted it up for safety. That must
be the missing piece, I had tested both blacks to the one black
(assuming the white was was wrapped up as it was not used).

And yes, the motor has some kind of arm attached to it w/ a spring.

When you say the white wire was wrapped, is it wrapped with black tape?

If so it is probably a hot from the switch.

telengard · May 6, 2013

On May 5, 8:12 pm, Jamie
<jamie_ka1lpa_not_valid_after_ka1l...@charter.net> wrote:

telengard wrote:
Just recently purchased a house and it has a whole house fan.
Unfortunately, the folks who installed the A/C disconnected the
motorized louvers to get into the crawl space a couple months ago and
I'm not sure exactly how it was wired. In the crawl space there is a
black (which had a wire nut on it) and bare wire and a white wire
which looks like it was curled up to not use it (it is not stripped).
The motor on the louvers has 2 black wires and a green wire.
Unfortunately, I could not find any documentation on the motor. We
have 2 separate switches so the louvers are independently controlled.

Just wondering what the wires on the motor are. The motor is a Dayton
Motor Shutter Model 2C904 115V 60Hz.

Any info greatly appreciated.

the two wires are your 120 volt AC lines from the motor..

in your case, you can connect the black wires from the motor to
the white and black wire that is capped off..

the green wire from the motor is the ground which is connected to the
bare wire you see..

P.S.
since there is a wire nut on the black wire, this tells me it could
be alive or at some point may come alive...
I would first kill the circuit that supplies that before attaching the
last black lead from the motor to that one.

Also, this appears to be a single direction motor, this tells me that
the shutter drive must not have a stop on it or it just keeps going
around and around.. Most likely has an eccentric wheel or a wheel with
an offset swing arm on it.

Jamie

Hi Jamie,

Thanks for the info, I have been shutting off the breaker when working
with this. I guess I'm surprised that the white wire would be used, I
guess the A/C guys may have just twisted it up for safety. That must
be the missing piece, I had tested both blacks to the one black
(assuming the white was was wrapped up as it was not used).

And yes, the motor has some kind of arm attached to it w/ a spring.

John Fields · May 6, 2013

On Sun, 5 May 2013 16:46:41 -0700 (PDT), telengard
<telengard@gmail.com> wrote:

Just recently purchased a house and it has a whole house fan.
Unfortunately, the folks who installed the A/C disconnected the
motorized louvers to get into the crawl space a couple months ago and
I'm not sure exactly how it was wired. In the crawl space there is a
black (which had a wire nut on it) and bare wire and a white wire
which looks like it was curled up to not use it (it is not stripped).
The motor on the louvers has 2 black wires and a green wire.
Unfortunately, I could not find any documentation on the motor. We
have 2 separate switches so the louvers are independently controlled.

Just wondering what the wires on the motor are. The motor is a Dayton
Motor Shutter Model 2C904 115V 60Hz.

Any info greatly appreciated.

---
Go to:
http://www.grainger.com

and type 2C904 into the search box.

--
JF

amdx · May 6, 2013

On 5/5/2013 6:46 PM, telengard wrote:

Just recently purchased a house and it has a whole house fan.
Unfortunately, the folks who installed the A/C disconnected the
motorized louvers to get into the crawl space a couple months ago and
I'm not sure exactly how it was wired. In the crawl space there is a
black (which had a wire nut on it) and bare wire and a white wire
which looks like it was curled up to not use it (it is not stripped).
The motor on the louvers has 2 black wires and a green wire.
Unfortunately, I could not find any documentation on the motor. We
have 2 separate switches so the louvers are independently controlled.

Just wondering what the wires on the motor are. The motor is a Dayton
Motor Shutter Model 2C904 115V 60Hz.

Any info greatly appreciated.
exti

First I'd like to say, I had a home with a whole house fan, and it was
great on those summer nights in Michigan. Just crack the windows in the
room about 4" and turn on the fan. Great breeze comes through.

There may be a reason it is disconnected ( doesn't work?). I would
first verify operation of the louver controller. I have enough extension
cords around that I would just wire a cord to it and plug it in. If it
opens, unplug it and see if it closes.
If it works, I would then follow the wiring from the motor and see if
there is a parallel wiring connection that could be connected to the
louver controller.
Here is a link that gave me the little I know about electric louvers.

Please get your own understanding, before attempting repair.

(istr, my louvers were opened by the draft that came through)
From what I read, the louver controller opens with power on and closes
when power is removed.
The second link refers to the replacement model that Grainger
recommends for your unit.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CGAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.captiveaire.com%2FMANUALS%2FMAKEUPAIR%2FSUPPLYFANTRAINING%2FAWV%2FDamper%2520Motor%2520Installation%2520Instructions.pdf&ei=6MaHUdSFE4f09gSi54HYDw&usg=AFQjCNGdNM-SJGseowbcLXueCYuzJlv05Q&sig2=dlsAN3pdeP1yRQ-Xip_Rzw&bvm=bv.45960087,d.eWU&cad=rja

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CGAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.captiveaire.com%2FMANUALS%2FMAKEUPAIR%2FSUPPLYFANTRAINING%2FAWV%2FDamper%2520Motor%2520Installation%2520Instructions.pdf&ei=6MaHUdSFE4f09gSi54HYDw&usg=AFQjCNGdNM-SJGseowbcLXueCYuzJlv05Q&sig2=dlsAN3pdeP1yRQ-Xip_Rzw&bvm=bv.45960087,d.eWU&cad=rja

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CGUQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.charleysgreenhouse.com%2Flearn_more%2Fpdf%2FC3259_Shutter_Motor_Manual.pdf&ei=6MaHUdSFE4f09gSi54HYDw&usg=AFQjCNGWafTifnKroTJdG9932mXFd_Hqxg&sig2=ntWF2coocobBbvKJXyNgSw&bvm=bv.45960087,d.eWU

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CGUQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.charleysgreenhouse.com%2Flearn_more%2Fpdf%2FC3259_Shutter_Motor_Manual.pdf&ei=6MaHUdSFE4f09gSi54HYDw&usg=AFQjCNGWafTifnKroTJdG9932mXFd_Hqxg&sig2=ntWF2coocobBbvKJXyNgSw&bvm=bv.45960087,d.eWU

Uncle Steve · May 6, 2013

Back again for some more abuse.

I'm building a 12V battery charger that will be controlled by a small
low-power microcontroller. I've not yet hooked up the
microcontroller, but most of the code is written and I'm trying to
finalize the charger electronics before I hook it up.

The circuit is very simple. An 18V 2A transformer, a bridge
rectifier, and filter capacitor feeds a main power rail. A 5V
regulator produces a few mA for the microcontroller, which I won't show
here. The charger is more or less as follows, though I will leave out
the resistor/divider taps which hook up to the ADC channels on the
micro.

+18VDC ---------------------------+
Q1 c e | D1 R1
-----\_/--------->|----\/\/\--------+12(batt)
b| |
+------+ |
| | +--+----------+
/ Q2 e\_/c |
R1 \ |b |
/ | e |c Q3
\ +--\/\/\------\_/
| R2 |b
| | R3 SW1
LED1 \_/ +--\/\/\-- \-- +5V
---
|
|
GND --------------+------------------------------------ GND(batt)

Q1 - MJE3055
D1 - 1N4004
R1 - .5 5W

Q2 - BC557
R2 - 200K

Q3 - 2N2222
R3 - 1K

The microcontroller will strobe R3 with PCM at about 488HZ with a duty
cycle dependant on the charge profile. R1 is the sense resistor and
permits measuring instantaneous charge current. I've got the battery
attached and can watch the voltage rise (and settle) as I manually
engage a switch attached as shown. The battery voltage as it came
from Wallmart was about 12.7V. Charge current with this circuit
is 1.4A at this point in its charge cycle. The heat-sink gets rather
warm, but it isn't all that big and I'm going to target 3 or 4A as the
peak charge current so I'll probably substitute a TO-3 package with a
much beefier heat-sink when I put the project in an enclosure.

So far, so good. The output of Q1 shows .6V ripple. Attaching my
scope to the base of Q1 shows an idle (SW off) voltage of 16mV and a
120Hz signal with a 70mVpp with a duty cycle of 17%. I'm not exactly
sure where this signal is coming from, although its frequency suggests
a causal relationship with the AC mains. There does not appear to be
any ripple on the 5V rail, but my scope isn't good enough to really
zoom in on it.

The other side of the coin is that the Q2/Q3 network seems to be
rather sensitive. When I pass my hand over the breadboard the
distortion described above doubles and I can get an amplitude of 1V on
that distortion by standing up suddenly while sitting in front of the
idle circuit. It is difficult to say what is happening because I can
double the distortion by attaching the scope to a wall-wart USB
charger, and I know I haven't yet calibrated the scope all that well
either. (Scope shows 4.5V from the 5V regulator.) But the fact
that I can affect the circuit just by moving things in the general
vicinity is, um, rather shocking.

Besides installing the circuit in a metal case, are there any easy
solutions to fix that 16mV idle voltage? Should I just change the
BC557 to a 2n2222 and work out how many of what kind of resistors I
need to supply the 3055 with the mA it needs to dump several amps into
the battery? I like this version because it is easy to set up and has
a low part count, but I'd really like to get rid of the noise and the
sensitivity to movement.

Regards,

Uncle Steve

--
There should be a special word in the English language to identify
people who create problems and then turn around and offer up their own
tailor-made bogus non-solutions designed to completely avoid the root
causes of the situation under consideration. 'Traitor' might be a
good choice, but lacks the requisite specificity. One of the problems
with contemporary English is it lacks many such words that would
otherwise categorically identify certain kinds of person, place, or
thing -- making it difficult or impossible to think analytically about
such objects. These shortcomings of the English lexicon are
representative of Orwellian linguistics at work in the real world.

Jim Thompson · May 6, 2013

On Mon, 06 May 2013 10:44:11 -0500, amdx <amdx@knology.net> wrote:

On 5/5/2013 6:46 PM, telengard wrote:
Just recently purchased a house and it has a whole house fan.
Unfortunately, the folks who installed the A/C disconnected the
motorized louvers to get into the crawl space a couple months ago and
I'm not sure exactly how it was wired. In the crawl space there is a
black (which had a wire nut on it) and bare wire and a white wire
which looks like it was curled up to not use it (it is not stripped).
The motor on the louvers has 2 black wires and a green wire.
Unfortunately, I could not find any documentation on the motor. We
have 2 separate switches so the louvers are independently controlled.

Just wondering what the wires on the motor are. The motor is a Dayton
Motor Shutter Model 2C904 115V 60Hz.

Any info greatly appreciated.
exti

First I'd like to say, I had a home with a whole house fan, and it was
great on those summer nights in Michigan. Just crack the windows in the
room about 4" and turn on the fan. Great breeze comes through.

There may be a reason it is disconnected ( doesn't work?). I would
first verify operation of the louver controller. I have enough extension
cords around that I would just wire a cord to it and plug it in. If it
opens, unplug it and see if it closes.
If it works, I would then follow the wiring from the motor and see if
there is a parallel wiring connection that could be connected to the
louver controller.
Here is a link that gave me the little I know about electric louvers.

Please get your own understanding, before attempting repair.

(istr, my louvers were opened by the draft that came through)

Yep, Some powered louvers I've seen sense air pressure and open.

From what I read, the louver controller opens with power on and closes
when power is removed.
The second link refers to the replacement model that Grainger
recommends for your unit.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CGAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.captiveaire.com%2FMANUALS%2FMAKEUPAIR%2FSUPPLYFANTRAINING%2FAWV%2FDamper%2520Motor%2520Installation%2520Instructions.pdf&ei=6MaHUdSFE4f09gSi54HYDw&usg=AFQjCNGdNM-SJGseowbcLXueCYuzJlv05Q&sig2=dlsAN3pdeP1yRQ-Xip_Rzw&bvm=bv.45960087,d.eWU&cad=rja

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CGAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.captiveaire.com%2FMANUALS%2FMAKEUPAIR%2FSUPPLYFANTRAINING%2FAWV%2FDamper%2520Motor%2520Installation%2520Instructions.pdf&ei=6MaHUdSFE4f09gSi54HYDw&usg=AFQjCNGdNM-SJGseowbcLXueCYuzJlv05Q&sig2=dlsAN3pdeP1yRQ-Xip_Rzw&bvm=bv.45960087,d.eWU&cad=rja

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CGUQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.charleysgreenhouse.com%2Flearn_more%2Fpdf%2FC3259_Shutter_Motor_Manual.pdf&ei=6MaHUdSFE4f09gSi54HYDw&usg=AFQjCNGWafTifnKroTJdG9932mXFd_Hqxg&sig2=ntWF2coocobBbvKJXyNgSw&bvm=bv.45960087,d.eWU

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CGUQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.charleysgreenhouse.com%2Flearn_more%2Fpdf%2FC3259_Shutter_Motor_Manual.pdf&ei=6MaHUdSFE4f09gSi54HYDw&usg=AFQjCNGWafTifnKroTJdG9932mXFd_Hqxg&sig2=ntWF2coocobBbvKJXyNgSw&bvm=bv.45960087,d.eWU

Uncle Steve · May 6, 2013

On Mon, May 06, 2013 at 12:01:44PM -0400, Uncle Steve wrote:

+18VDC ---------------------------+
Q1 c e | D1 R1
-----\_/--------->|----\/\/\--------+12(batt)
b| |
+------+ |
| | +--+----------+
/ Q2 e\_/c |
R1 \ |b |
/ | e |c Q3

Ah, sorry. R1 immediately above is 2.2K and it's the other R1 that is
..5 ohms.

Regards,

Uncle Steve

--
There should be a special word in the English language to identify
people who create problems and then turn around and offer up their own
tailor-made bogus non-solutions designed to completely avoid the root
causes of the situation under consideration. 'Traitor' might be a
good choice, but lacks the requisite specificity. One of the problems
with contemporary English is it lacks many such words that would
otherwise categorically identify certain kinds of person, place, or
thing -- making it difficult or impossible to think analytically about
such objects. These shortcomings of the English lexicon are
representative of Orwellian linguistics at work in the real world.

May 6, 2013

When you say the white wire was wrapped, is it wrapped with black tape?

If so it is probably a hot from the switch.

Sorry, I should have been more precise. The white wire was not stripped, was not in a wire nut, and was coiled up whereas the other 2 wires were straight (for lack of a better term). In other words, it looked like it wasn't being used, or this was done to prevent a short or something, although I would have thought having the dangling black and bare would be just as bad.

Tim Wescott · May 6, 2013

On Mon, 06 May 2013 12:01:44 -0400, Uncle Steve wrote:

Back again for some more abuse.

I'm building a 12V battery charger that will be controlled by a small
low-power microcontroller. I've not yet hooked up the microcontroller,
but most of the code is written and I'm trying to finalize the charger
electronics before I hook it up.

The circuit is very simple. An 18V 2A transformer, a bridge rectifier,
and filter capacitor feeds a main power rail. A 5V regulator produces a
few mA for the microcontroller, which I won't show here. The charger is
more or less as follows, though I will leave out the resistor/divider
taps which hook up to the ADC channels on the micro.

+18VDC ---------------------------+
Q1 c e | D1 R1
-----\_/--------->|----\/\/\--------+12(batt)
b| |
+------+ |
| | +--+----------+
/ Q2 e\_/c |
R1 \ |b |
/ | e |c Q3
\ +--\/\/\------\_/
| R2 |b
| | R3 SW1
LED1 \_/ +--\/\/\-- \-- +5V
---
|
|
GND --------------+------------------------------------ GND(batt)

Q1 - MJE3055
D1 - 1N4004
R1 - .5 5W

Q2 - BC557
R2 - 200K

Q3 - 2N2222
R3 - 1K

The microcontroller will strobe R3 with PCM at about 488HZ with a duty
cycle dependant on the charge profile. R1 is the sense resistor and
permits measuring instantaneous charge current. I've got the battery
attached and can watch the voltage rise (and settle) as I manually
engage a switch attached as shown. The battery voltage as it came from
Wallmart was about 12.7V. Charge current with this circuit is 1.4A at
this point in its charge cycle. The heat-sink gets rather warm, but it
isn't all that big and I'm going to target 3 or 4A as the peak charge
current so I'll probably substitute a TO-3 package with a much beefier
heat-sink when I put the project in an enclosure.

So far, so good. The output of Q1 shows .6V ripple. Attaching my scope
to the base of Q1 shows an idle (SW off) voltage of 16mV and a 120Hz
signal with a 70mVpp with a duty cycle of 17%. I'm not exactly sure
where this signal is coming from, although its frequency suggests a
causal relationship with the AC mains. There does not appear to be any
ripple on the 5V rail, but my scope isn't good enough to really zoom in
on it.

The other side of the coin is that the Q2/Q3 network seems to be rather
sensitive. When I pass my hand over the breadboard the distortion
described above doubles and I can get an amplitude of 1V on that
distortion by standing up suddenly while sitting in front of the idle
circuit. It is difficult to say what is happening because I can double
the distortion by attaching the scope to a wall-wart USB charger, and I
know I haven't yet calibrated the scope all that well either. (Scope
shows 4.5V from the 5V regulator.) But the fact that I can affect the
circuit just by moving things in the general vicinity is, um, rather
shocking.

Besides installing the circuit in a metal case, are there any easy
solutions to fix that 16mV idle voltage? Should I just change the BC557
to a 2n2222 and work out how many of what kind of resistors I need to
supply the 3055 with the mA it needs to dump several amps into the
battery? I like this version because it is easy to set up and has a low
part count, but I'd really like to get rid of the noise and the
sensitivity to movement.

Start a new thread! This isn't even remotely related to fan motors!

--
My liberal friends think I'm a conservative kook.
My conservative friends think I'm a liberal kook.
Why am I not happy that they have found common ground?

Tim Wescott, Communications, Control, Circuits & Software
http://www.wescottdesign.com

amdx · May 6, 2013

On 5/6/2013 11:01 AM, Uncle Steve wrote:

Back again for some more abuse.

Where's Phil when somebody really deserves abuse?
Mikek

+18VDC ---------------------------+
Q1 c e | D1 R1
-----\_/--------->|----\/\/\--------+12(batt)
b| |
+------+ |
| | +--+----------+
/ Q2 e\_/c |
R1 \ |b |
/ | e |c Q3
\ +--\/\/\------\_/
| R2 |b
| | R3 SW1
LED1 \_/ +--\/\/\-- \-- +5V
---
|
|
GND --------------+------------------------------------ GND(batt)

George Herold · May 6, 2013

On May 6, 3:35 pm, Tim Wescott <t...@seemywebsite.com> wrote:

On Mon, 06 May 2013 12:01:44 -0400, Uncle Steve wrote:
Back again for some more abuse.

I'm building a 12V battery charger that will be controlled by a small
low-power microcontroller. I've not yet hooked up the microcontroller,
but most of the code is written and I'm trying to finalize the charger
electronics before I hook it up.

The circuit is very simple. An 18V 2A transformer, a bridge rectifier,
and filter capacitor feeds a main power rail. A 5V regulator produces a
few mA for the microcontroller, which I won't show here. The charger is
more or less as follows, though I will leave out the resistor/divider
taps which hook up to the ADC channels on the micro.

+18VDC ---------------------------+
Q1 c e | D1 R1
-----\_/--------->|----\/\/\--------+12(batt)
b| |
+------+ |
| | +--+----------+
/ Q2 e\_/c |
R1 \ |b |
/ | e |c Q3
\ +--\/\/\------\_/
| R2 |b
| | R3 SW1
LED1 \_/ +--\/\/\-- \-- +5V
---
|
|
GND --------------+------------------------------------ GND(batt)

Q1 - MJE3055
D1 - 1N4004
R1 - .5 5W

Q2 - BC557
R2 - 200K

Q3 - 2N2222
R3 - 1K

The microcontroller will strobe R3 with PCM at about 488HZ with a duty
cycle dependant on the charge profile. R1 is the sense resistor and
permits measuring instantaneous charge current. I've got the battery
attached and can watch the voltage rise (and settle) as I manually
engage a switch attached as shown. The battery voltage as it came from
Wallmart was about 12.7V. Charge current with this circuit is 1.4A at
this point in its charge cycle. The heat-sink gets rather warm, but it
isn't all that big and I'm going to target 3 or 4A as the peak charge
current so I'll probably substitute a TO-3 package with a much beefier
heat-sink when I put the project in an enclosure.

So far, so good. The output of Q1 shows .6V ripple. Attaching my scope
to the base of Q1 shows an idle (SW off) voltage of 16mV and a 120Hz
signal with a 70mVpp with a duty cycle of 17%. I'm not exactly sure
where this signal is coming from, although its frequency suggests a
causal relationship with the AC mains. There does not appear to be any
ripple on the 5V rail, but my scope isn't good enough to really zoom in
on it.

The other side of the coin is that the Q2/Q3 network seems to be rather
sensitive. When I pass my hand over the breadboard the distortion
described above doubles and I can get an amplitude of 1V on that
distortion by standing up suddenly while sitting in front of the idle
circuit. It is difficult to say what is happening because I can double
the distortion by attaching the scope to a wall-wart USB charger, and I
know I haven't yet calibrated the scope all that well either. (Scope
shows 4.5V from the 5V regulator.) But the fact that I can affect the
circuit just by moving things in the general vicinity is, um, rather
shocking.

Besides installing the circuit in a metal case, are there any easy
solutions to fix that 16mV idle voltage? Should I just change the BC557
to a 2n2222 and work out how many of what kind of resistors I need to
supply the 3055 with the mA it needs to dump several amps into the
battery? I like this version because it is easy to set up and has a low
part count, but I'd really like to get rid of the noise and the
sensitivity to movement.

Start a new thread! This isn't even remotely related to fan motors!

--
My liberal friends think I'm a conservative kook.
My conservative friends think I'm a liberal kook.
Why am I not happy that they have found common ground?

Tim Wescott, Communications, Control, Circuits & Softwarehttp://www.wescottdesign.com- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes a new thread is in order. The middle of the circuit is weird. (at
least to me.) Your moving hand thing is a sure sign of electrostatic
pickup.

George H.

Jamie · May 6, 2013

telengard wrote:

On May 5, 8:12 pm, Jamie
jamie_ka1lpa_not_valid_after_ka1l...@charter.net> wrote:

telengard wrote:

Just recently purchased a house and it has a whole house fan.
Unfortunately, the folks who installed the A/C disconnected the
motorized louvers to get into the crawl space a couple months ago and
I'm not sure exactly how it was wired. In the crawl space there is a
black (which had a wire nut on it) and bare wire and a white wire
which looks like it was curled up to not use it (it is not stripped).
The motor on the louvers has 2 black wires and a green wire.
Unfortunately, I could not find any documentation on the motor. We
have 2 separate switches so the louvers are independently controlled.

Just wondering what the wires on the motor are. The motor is a Dayton
Motor Shutter Model 2C904 115V 60Hz.

Any info greatly appreciated.

the two wires are your 120 volt AC lines from the motor..

in your case, you can connect the black wires from the motor to
the white and black wire that is capped off..

the green wire from the motor is the ground which is connected to the
bare wire you see..

P.S.
since there is a wire nut on the black wire, this tells me it could
be alive or at some point may come alive...
I would first kill the circuit that supplies that before attaching the
last black lead from the motor to that one.

Also, this appears to be a single direction motor, this tells me that
the shutter drive must not have a stop on it or it just keeps going
around and around.. Most likely has an eccentric wheel or a wheel with
an offset swing arm on it.

Jamie

Hi Jamie,

Thanks for the info, I have been shutting off the breaker when working
with this. I guess I'm surprised that the white wire would be used, I
guess the A/C guys may have just twisted it up for safety. That must
be the missing piece, I had tested both blacks to the one black
(assuming the white was was wrapped up as it was not used).

And yes, the motor has some kind of arm attached to it w/ a spring.
The white wire is the other power wire you need to connect one of the

black wires on the motor to.

THe only reason it is not protected via a wire nut is because that
wire ends up being the low side of the circuit, which should be near
0 volts. But don't take any chances to think it is just a ground wire,
just because it does connect to the ground back to subpanel.

Jamie

Jamie · May 6, 2013

Uncle Steve wrote:

Back again for some more abuse.

I'm building a 12V battery charger that will be controlled by a small
low-power microcontroller. I've not yet hooked up the
microcontroller, but most of the code is written and I'm trying to
finalize the charger electronics before I hook it up.

The circuit is very simple. An 18V 2A transformer, a bridge
rectifier, and filter capacitor feeds a main power rail. A 5V
regulator produces a few mA for the microcontroller, which I won't show
here. The charger is more or less as follows, though I will leave out
the resistor/divider taps which hook up to the ADC channels on the
micro.

+18VDC ---------------------------+
Q1 c e | D1 R1
-----\_/--------->|----\/\/\--------+12(batt)
b| |
+------+ |
| | +--+----------+
/ Q2 e\_/c |
R1 \ |b |
/ | e |c Q3
\ +--\/\/\------\_/
| R2 |b
| | R3 SW1
LED1 \_/ +--\/\/\-- \-- +5V
---
|
|
GND --------------+------------------------------------ GND(batt)

Q1 - MJE3055
D1 - 1N4004
R1 - .5 5W

Q2 - BC557
R2 - 200K

Q3 - 2N2222
R3 - 1K

The microcontroller will strobe R3 with PCM at about 488HZ with a duty
cycle dependant on the charge profile. R1 is the sense resistor and
permits measuring instantaneous charge current. I've got the battery
attached and can watch the voltage rise (and settle) as I manually
engage a switch attached as shown. The battery voltage as it came
from Wallmart was about 12.7V. Charge current with this circuit
is 1.4A at this point in its charge cycle. The heat-sink gets rather
warm, but it isn't all that big and I'm going to target 3 or 4A as the
peak charge current so I'll probably substitute a TO-3 package with a
much beefier heat-sink when I put the project in an enclosure.

So far, so good. The output of Q1 shows .6V ripple. Attaching my
scope to the base of Q1 shows an idle (SW off) voltage of 16mV and a
120Hz signal with a 70mVpp with a duty cycle of 17%. I'm not exactly
sure where this signal is coming from, although its frequency suggests
a causal relationship with the AC mains. There does not appear to be
any ripple on the 5V rail, but my scope isn't good enough to really
zoom in on it.

The other side of the coin is that the Q2/Q3 network seems to be
rather sensitive. When I pass my hand over the breadboard the
distortion described above doubles and I can get an amplitude of 1V on
that distortion by standing up suddenly while sitting in front of the
idle circuit. It is difficult to say what is happening because I can
double the distortion by attaching the scope to a wall-wart USB
charger, and I know I haven't yet calibrated the scope all that well
either. (Scope shows 4.5V from the 5V regulator.) But the fact
that I can affect the circuit just by moving things in the general
vicinity is, um, rather shocking.

Besides installing the circuit in a metal case, are there any easy
solutions to fix that 16mV idle voltage? Should I just change the
BC557 to a 2n2222 and work out how many of what kind of resistors I
need to supply the 3055 with the mA it needs to dump several amps into
the battery? I like this version because it is easy to set up and has
a low part count, but I'd really like to get rid of the noise and the
sensitivity to movement.

Regards,

Uncle Steve

Kind of curious how that LED is handling the current when you only have

a .5 ohm R feeding it? Even if that bias on the base was current
limited, you'll be suppressing the voltage to the battery no more than
what the LED forward voltage is plus the 0.650 drop from the base and
emitter.

As for the noise you maybe seeing, it's possible you are picking that
up because of the wires hanging all over the place. You most likely have
lights with ballast circuits in them, they can generate noise, putting
your hands over the circuit is just using your body to convey the noise
closer.

bjts are grate for acting as R.F. detectors...

Jamie

Jim Thompson · May 7, 2013

On Mon, 06 May 2013 12:01:44 -0400, Uncle Steve <stevet810@gmail.com>
wrote:

Back again for some more abuse.

I'm building a 12V battery charger that will be controlled by a small
low-power microcontroller. I've not yet hooked up the
microcontroller, but most of the code is written and I'm trying to
finalize the charger electronics before I hook it up.

[snip]

Uncle Steve · May 7, 2013

On Mon, May 06, 2013 at 06:59:01PM -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

On Mon, 06 May 2013 12:01:44 -0400, Uncle Steve <stevet810@gmail.com
wrote:

Back again for some more abuse.

I'm building a 12V battery charger that will be controlled by a small
low-power microcontroller. I've not yet hooked up the
microcontroller, but most of the code is written and I'm trying to
finalize the charger electronics before I hook it up.

[snip]

How is the charger "controlled"?

Do you mean that the output CURRENT from the charger will be a
function of the "duty-cycle" from the micro-controller?

The average current, yes.

Or do you have some other algorithm in mind?

I've used a similar technique in other circumstances. In this
instance the ADC measurements of the carger circuit will determine how
much energy will be dumped into the battery at any given time, again
/on average/. Lead acid battery chemistry has significant hysteresis,
so I do not at this time expect any major problems with this strategy.
The instantaneous current at any time will be limited by the power
supply, so it's not as if there will be tens of amps rushing the
battery while the power transistor is turned on.

Regards,

Uncle Steve

--
There should be a special word in the English language to identify
people who create problems and then turn around and offer up their own
tailor-made bogus non-solutions designed to completely avoid the root
causes of the situation under consideration. 'Traitor' might be a
good choice, but lacks the requisite specificity. One of the problems
with contemporary English is it lacks many such words that would
otherwise categorically identify certain kinds of person, place, or
thing -- making it difficult or impossible to think analytically about
such objects. These shortcomings of the English lexicon are
representative of Orwellian linguistics at work in the real world.

Jim Thompson · May 7, 2013

On Mon, 06 May 2013 22:16:14 -0400, Uncle Steve <stevet810@gmail.com>
wrote:

On Mon, May 06, 2013 at 06:59:01PM -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:
On Mon, 06 May 2013 12:01:44 -0400, Uncle Steve <stevet810@gmail.com
wrote:

Back again for some more abuse.

I'm building a 12V battery charger that will be controlled by a small
low-power microcontroller. I've not yet hooked up the
microcontroller, but most of the code is written and I'm trying to
finalize the charger electronics before I hook it up.

[snip]

How is the charger "controlled"?

Do you mean that the output CURRENT from the charger will be a
function of the "duty-cycle" from the micro-controller?

The average current, yes.

Or do you have some other algorithm in mind?

I've used a similar technique in other circumstances. In this
instance the ADC measurements of the carger circuit will determine how
much energy will be dumped into the battery at any given time, again
/on average/. Lead acid battery chemistry has significant hysteresis,
so I do not at this time expect any major problems with this strategy.
The instantaneous current at any time will be limited by the power
supply, so it's not as if there will be tens of amps rushing the
battery while the power transistor is turned on.

Regards,

Uncle Steve

Uncle Steve · May 7, 2013

On Mon, May 06, 2013 at 06:44:23PM -0400, Jamie wrote:

Kind of curious how that LED is handling the current when you only have
a .5 ohm R feeding it? Even if that bias on the base was current

That's the other R1. The R1 attached to the LED is 2.2K, a mistake I
updated in a later post.

limited, you'll be suppressing the voltage to the battery no more than
what the LED forward voltage is plus the 0.650 drop from the base and
emitter.

As for the noise you maybe seeing, it's possible you are picking that
up because of the wires hanging all over the place. You most likely have
lights with ballast circuits in them, they can generate noise, putting
your hands over the circuit is just using your body to convey the noise
closer.

I have CFL lights, a stereo, a HDTV, several laptop computers, 4G
phone, oh, and there's a single fluorescent tube in the bathroom. but
the signal I'm seeing at the base of Q1 (NPN) is 60/120 Hz at 70mVpp
(depending on how the scope sees it) on 16V DC, and I'm only seeing
the positive side of the ripple. At power on, the spikes are much
larger and fall over a couple of seconds to the stated amplitude. The
transformer that is powering everything has no regulator, only a
bridge rectifier and a 470uF filter cap. There may be some ripple but
it must be very close to the resolution that my scope LCD can display.
Open-circuit voltage is 26V, which quickly drops to 19V with a 1.6A
load, so I'm wondering if a 7818 regulator would clear things up, but
that would necessarily introduce a different problem.

bjts are grate for acting as R.F. detectors...

The wires hooking up anything related to Q2/Q3 are no more than four
inches long; everything else (other than the 5V supply rail for the
uC) is attached to the 18V rail. I can tighten things up on the
breadboard a bit, but if RF is getting to the transistors through
their 1" leads there's little I can do about that. ISR that antennas
are sensitive to wavelength as a function of lengths, and VLF antennas
are measured in the hundreds of meters. Obviously IANAEE, and I know
much less about antennas than I do about transistors, which is next to
zilch.

Regards,

Uncle Steve

--
There should be a special word in the English language to identify
people who create problems and then turn around and offer up their own
tailor-made bogus non-solutions designed to completely avoid the root
causes of the situation under consideration. 'Traitor' might be a
good choice, but lacks the requisite specificity. One of the problems
with contemporary English is it lacks many such words that would
otherwise categorically identify certain kinds of person, place, or
thing -- making it difficult or impossible to think analytically about
such objects. These shortcomings of the English lexicon are
representative of Orwellian linguistics at work in the real world.

Michael A. Terrell · May 7, 2013

Jamie wrote:

telengard wrote:

On May 5, 8:12 pm, Jamie
jamie_ka1lpa_not_valid_after_ka1l...@charter.net> wrote:

telengard wrote:

Just recently purchased a house and it has a whole house fan.
Unfortunately, the folks who installed the A/C disconnected the
motorized louvers to get into the crawl space a couple months ago and
I'm not sure exactly how it was wired. In the crawl space there is a
black (which had a wire nut on it) and bare wire and a white wire
which looks like it was curled up to not use it (it is not stripped).
The motor on the louvers has 2 black wires and a green wire.
Unfortunately, I could not find any documentation on the motor. We
have 2 separate switches so the louvers are independently controlled.

Just wondering what the wires on the motor are. The motor is a Dayton
Motor Shutter Model 2C904 115V 60Hz.

Any info greatly appreciated.

the two wires are your 120 volt AC lines from the motor..

in your case, you can connect the black wires from the motor to
the white and black wire that is capped off..

the green wire from the motor is the ground which is connected to the
bare wire you see..

P.S.
since there is a wire nut on the black wire, this tells me it could
be alive or at some point may come alive...
I would first kill the circuit that supplies that before attaching the
last black lead from the motor to that one.

Also, this appears to be a single direction motor, this tells me that
the shutter drive must not have a stop on it or it just keeps going
around and around.. Most likely has an eccentric wheel or a wheel with
an offset swing arm on it.

Jamie

Hi Jamie,

Thanks for the info, I have been shutting off the breaker when working
with this. I guess I'm surprised that the white wire would be used, I
guess the A/C guys may have just twisted it up for safety. That must
be the missing piece, I had tested both blacks to the one black
(assuming the white was was wrapped up as it was not used).

And yes, the motor has some kind of arm attached to it w/ a spring.
The white wire is the other power wire you need to connect one of the
black wires on the motor to.

The only reason it is not protected via a wire nut is because that
wire ends up being the low side of the circuit, which should be near
0 volts. But don't take any chances to think it is just a ground wire,
just because it does connect to the ground back to subpanel.

No, it doesn't. It connects to the Neutral, if the circuit is 120
VAC. It may be the other side of a 240 VAC circuit, if it's not wired
to code.

Whole house fan motor

telengard

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