Help needed on portable battery project

[Valadrix]

Hello, I don’t know much about electronics but need some help from people that do -

I have a project where I’m making a forge out in the wilderness, to have oxygen as a constant supply to the Furness I need something like a hair dryer to blow in air. Now obviously out in the wilderness I don’t have a mains socket to plug a hair dryer in.

So here’s my question - I’m trying to do all this for free, I can get a hair dryer but need a portable energy source to power it for a day at a time. So far I can get lots of AA batteries for free too, if I cut the hair dryers wire, is there a way I can make a massive battery from lots of AA that I can connect it to? This has to be free as that’s the challenge, I can use common house hold items - if this is possible how many batteries would I need and how long would it last? Any other ideas on creating an portable power supply please let me know.

Thanks

 

[jaredwolff]

Better to connect a hair dryer to a bank of 12V lead-acid batteries with an inverter. Maybe add in a solar panel to recharge but that depends on how long you're going to use said forge.

 

[dave9]

It's been a long time since I tore apart a hair dryer, but aren't most of the cheaper ones just a brushed DC motor with a rectifier in series? If so then you don't need an inverter but the remaining question would be how much airflow you need since that's still a heck of a lot of AA batteries and how long it needs to run because a AA, not much capacity.

I think your quest is self-defeating. Why bother spending time, which has value, to end up with a poor result, consuming things that also have value (AA cells) when you could just get a normal DC squirrel cage blower for around $10?

Frankly it all seems rather bizarre, why is there a need for a forge out in the wilderness? If you're going to be spending much time there, set up a solar array and battery bank so you have power for a multitude of tasks.

 

[kellys_eye]

If you're going to use anything more than a few 10's of watts for any length of time then forget all the solar/wind crap and just get a small portable generator.

A small (<1kW) inverter/generator costs less than £200 and will run for hours at low load on a single tankful. It will also provide power for all the other 'out-in-the-wilds' thing that people tend to use - iPhone, laptop, cocktail cabinet etc.......

 

[WHONOES]

You could use a 12V car vac converted to blow instead of suck and power it from a large 12V battery in conjunction with a solar panel or wind turbine.

 

[davenn]

Hello, I don’t know much about electronics but need some help from people that do -

I have a project where I’m making a forge out in the wilderness, to have oxygen as a constant supply to the Furness I need something like a hair dryer to blow in air. Now obviously out in the wilderness I don’t have a mains socket to plug a hair dryer in.

OK, so do you really need to use a hair drier ? as in do you need to blow hot air or just air?

if you just need to blow air, then a 12V DC fan is the best and cheapest way to go.
Messing around with 12V to 230V AC mains voltage is just a huge waste inefficient of power


Dave

 

[KMoffett]

Hair dryer motors are low voltage brushed type. The heating elements drop the voltage from line for the motor. Disassemble one and remove the heating elements and power cord, and run battery wires to the motor. I don't know how long the bearings will last under continuous.

Ken