Question about these fan motors

[Joe Leger]

New member first post!
While i have been stuck home extra time lately i thought itd be a good time to dig through my storage for a suitable motor for a micro hydro project just for experiment sake.

Managed to find a radiator with dual fans from a 95 subaru i scrapped a few years back. Ive been told older cars pre 2000 era generally have a PMA radiator fan but im unsure so i cracked one of them open.. Unsure what im seeing i know engines much better than motors!

I have two of these. They have solid 4 spring loaded brushes up top (that was fun to hold inplace to reassemble) 4 external wires in 2 pairs, one of each pair is combined to a single wire i assume these are grounds.

Im not afraid to cut and solder some coil wires in sequence or add a diode whatever it is, just need to know what im working with so i can start reading more

[Andy Rhody]

I'd spin the shaft and see what kind of volts it will make.

[Joe Leger]

I'd spin the shaft and see what kind of volts it will make.

I'll grab the ol volt meter and give it a shot today. Excuse of the day to break out my new 20v drill.

[Joe Leger]

Spun it up with a couple different configurations of the wires. So far have only made 1.5v output

[Rob Beckers]

Voltmeter set to AC or DC?
I wonder... With that commutator it may well be DC coming out. View it at as a mechanical rectifier (each half of a sinewave comes out going in the same direction).

-RoB-

[Joe Leger]

Voltmeter set to AC or DC?
I wonder... With that commutator it may well be DC coming out. View it at as a mechanical rectifier (each half of a sinewave comes out going in the same direction).

-RoB-

I had it measuring in DC havent tried AC
Edit 0v on ac

Okay now we are cookin with fuel. Put my drill on high speed and managed to make it crank out 5.8v but the drill clutch slipped starting load so its gonna take some torque and gearing up, But hey it works without external power... And i have 2 :)

Did some experimenting when it was at lower speed. Yellow and black tie together, or run independent, blue and green can functon seperately or independently and make similar voltage even with the other disconnected. .

[Joe Leger]

Well i never had any luck making useful output with those fan motors.
But yesterday i got a Linix 24v 180w mobility scooter motor (and a new much nicer volt meter)
Gonna check tomorrow and see if there may be another motor in the misc parts pile going over there.

this one makes voltage even being spun real hard by hand. i can put out voltage with the highest ive seen at 4.4v on a real hard spin but even spinning by hand over time it produces 1-2.5v consistently so this one is gonna be useful for projects

[Joe Leger]

Well i never had any luck making useful output with those fan motors.
But yesterday i got a Linix 24v 180w mobility scooter motor (and a new much nicer volt meter)
Gonna check tomorrow and see if there may be another motor in the misc parts pile going over there.

this one makes voltage even being spun real hard by hand. i can put out voltage with the highest ive seen at 4.4v on a real hard spin but even spinning by hand over time it produces 1-2.5v consistently so this one is gonna be useful for projects

Definitely directional if i reverse the probes and spin the motor the other way i can spike it between 6v and 8v by hand. Managed to get 18v with a drill but i couldn't center the drill because of the shape of the shaft coupler so it can definitely do better the drill only stayed put for a couple seconds.
Working on a chain drive, geared up water wheel to try out. I have a creek in mind I previously partially dammed with large rocks to get a faster center channel.