TLDR Want to salvage broken fan for blade to use in a "human powered" fan or other non electrical fan, need help/designs/idea, no experience.
I'm dorming in college at the moment and the weather is very humid. I'm also not too flush on cash, so buying things isnt really in my field of view. That being said, while looking through the garbage (cause i was throwing mine out) i saw a table fan. I assumed it didn't work, for it had a burnt smell, so someone probably let it run all day or something, and it didn't work.
So i decided to see if i could salvage this fan, well more like the fan blade and use it for my own personal fan, but im not good with engineering / electronics, so i thought of other means.
I came across a fourm post about fans and read something interesting:
"The "human powered device that works by "yanking on a chain" is probably nothing more than a weight with some sort of escapement to slow its descent. Review your basic physics (if you took physics in HS) and you get into potential energy. Raise a heavy weight a short distance in a short time, and you are storing potential energy. Let that weight descend VERY slowly and control its descent rate with gearing, and you are using a portion of the potential energy you stored when you raised the weight. If a 50 lb weight were raised 7 ft (ceiling height ?) you have stored 350 ft-lbs. How fast you raised the weight, measured in seconds, and you have the basis for converting your sweat into horsepower. "
So i tried googling the concept and got a bunch of engineering jargon...
Could anyone come up with some sort of design that i could make with duct tape, cardboard and some string? Or maybe another means of powering a fan blade without electricity?
I'm dorming in college at the moment and the weather is very humid. I'm also not too flush on cash, so buying things isnt really in my field of view. That being said, while looking through the garbage (cause i was throwing mine out) i saw a table fan. I assumed it didn't work, for it had a burnt smell, so someone probably let it run all day or something, and it didn't work.
So i decided to see if i could salvage this fan, well more like the fan blade and use it for my own personal fan, but im not good with engineering / electronics, so i thought of other means.
I came across a fourm post about fans and read something interesting:
"The "human powered device that works by "yanking on a chain" is probably nothing more than a weight with some sort of escapement to slow its descent. Review your basic physics (if you took physics in HS) and you get into potential energy. Raise a heavy weight a short distance in a short time, and you are storing potential energy. Let that weight descend VERY slowly and control its descent rate with gearing, and you are using a portion of the potential energy you stored when you raised the weight. If a 50 lb weight were raised 7 ft (ceiling height ?) you have stored 350 ft-lbs. How fast you raised the weight, measured in seconds, and you have the basis for converting your sweat into horsepower. "
So i tried googling the concept and got a bunch of engineering jargon...
Could anyone come up with some sort of design that i could make with duct tape, cardboard and some string? Or maybe another means of powering a fan blade without electricity?
