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Bruce really kicked this off with his nicely built Baker Fan, seriously.......all steamers need a Baker Fan as an accessory to drive off your engines.......it will upscale your enjoyment.
Funny enough.....I've had a number of queries on Youtube asking me "How did Bakers use 'Baker Fans' did they use them to spread the flour"?
THE BAKER FAN
The Baker Fan was developed by the Baker Co. as a load for
running-in new engines and not as there seems to be a tendency to
expound at the Reunions, as a device for the measurement of
horsepower. There are two reasons why these fans are inadequate for
such use. First, their performance is air density dependent, and
second, the speed is relatively insensitive to the power input.
At higher elevations, the air is rarefied (less dense) and the
fan spins more easily. Therefore, the power input to the fan would
be less for the same rate of turning.
The normal air pressures at different altitudes are well known.
From those values, I have calculated the change in air density with
altitude and, in turn, the change in the amount of power required
to drive the same fan at the same speed at three specific
locations. If 50 horsepower were required to drive a fan at a
particular speed at Rochester, N. Y. altitude (510 ft.), then only
48 horsepower would be needed drive the same fan at the same speed
at Olean, N. Y. altitude (1438 ft.) and 40 horsepower would suffice
at Denver, Col. altitude (5219 ft.).
Minor biasing of the performance of such fans is also caused by
day-to-day fluctuations in barometric. These changes would
generally be of the order of less than 3 percent either plus or
minus from the norm.
That the fan is subject to the biasing effect of air density
changes is only one of the shortcomings as an indicator of power
input. The power consumption of such a fan varies (at least as a
first approximation) as the cube of the rotational velocity.
Expressed in non-mathematical terms, as a more powerful engine
tends to turn the fan faster, the resistance of the fan to being
turned increases sharply and the more powerful engine fails to turn
it very much faster than a less powerful one. -
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Nice bit of information, thanks. Baker fan is definitely on my to-do list especially as you and Bruce have done the figuring out for us.
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Nice write up Jim, these are relatively easy to make & such enjoyment to run with literally "any" steam engine.
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Interesting information. Thanks for sharing it.
Jim -
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Thanks Jim, reading that article was interesting, and did answer some questions I have had about them.
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Baker fans are indeed one of the most fun things to run with your steam engine. I usually run mine every time I steam up. I think they would be good sellers if they were available commercially . After having seen full size Baker fans run at the Mt Pleasant , Iowa Thrasher Reunion , I can tell you that the miniature ones work exactly the same at loading down any engine belted to one.
D. E. Jones -
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A steam engine working at Old Threshers, now that’s a rare sight 😛 😂
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Baker fans are indeed one of the most fun things to run with your steam engine. I usually run mine every time I steam up. I think they would be good sellers if they were available commercially . After having seen full size Baker fans run at the Mt Pleasant , Iowa Thrasher Reunion , I can tell you that the miniature ones work exactly the same at loading down any engine belted to one.
D. E. Jones
It's my go to accessory now, it's such a difference running an engine on a Baker fan than just watching a flywheel turn with no load. -
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Baker fans are indeed one of the most fun things to run with your steam engine. I usually run mine every time I steam up. I think they would be good sellers if they were available commercially . After having seen full size Baker fans run at the Mt Pleasant , Iowa Thrasher Reunion , I can tell you that the miniature ones work exactly the same at loading down any engine belted to one.
D. E. Jones
It's my go to accessory now, it's such a difference running an engine on a Baker fan than just watching a flywheel turn with no load.
I agree about having a load. That’s one of the main reasons I like generators. -
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Here, I’ve borrowed a photo of one from another site for you Jim.
[ Guests cannot view attachments ] -
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DANG....that's big !
looks unusually outa place....was it to big to move & they just built a residential complex around it ? -
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Awesome ...... what does the plaque say?
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That thing looks to be huge compared to the car.
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I did come up with this about a Baker fan:
The Baker fan was built for A.D. Baker, who produced steam engines in Swanton, Ohio. It was designed to put a "load" on an engine so that an engine in a factory could be tested under "working conditions." To double the speed of the fan requires 8 times the horsepower.
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Awesome ...... what does the plaque say?
it says, "if you're foolish enough to stand to close to this fan when running, you'll probably get sucked in & sent into the next county."
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