# Ceiling Fan Axworthy Ghost- NOT!



## Doc Doom (Aug 28, 2008)

I thought I had a sweet, easy idea for an Axworthy Ghost. I made a a large (7" dia.) pulley from a set of tin plates and mounted it to the bottom of a ceiling fan. Ceiling fans are made to run for long periods of time and are silent. After a couple of months playing around trying to slow down the speed using various fan motor controls without success, I hooked it up to see just how fast it would be. As I feared, it was way, way too fast and looked unnatural, but not in a good way. 

I went to my local Lowes and HD and spent some more time in the ceiling fan sections. Not all fans run at the same speed, but none of them indicate RPMs on the box, deferring to cubic feet of air moved. Fans with large, palm frond shaped blades appear to turn slower, but I can't afford $150 to see just how much slower. Ah well, my wiper motor is on the way....


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## Bone Dancer (Oct 7, 2005)

Thanks Doc for the heads up on the ceiling fans. Reporting on failure or problems is just as important as showing your sucsesse. Frankly a thread of "Things I tried that failed" wouldnt be a bad idea. It might save the next person time and money.


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## kprimm (Mar 14, 2009)

Agreed, every failure is really a stepping stone to success.


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## eanderso13 (Apr 10, 2008)

I built my axworthy years ago with a ceiling fan motor from a cheapo fan from Walmart. I used a regular old light dimmer to control the speed and it seems to work pretty well. 

I'm working on revamping and solidifying the pulley mechanism for the Kansas winds so we'll see what happens.


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## Doc Doom (Aug 28, 2008)

eanderso13 said:


> I built my axworthy years ago with a ceiling fan motor from a cheapo fan from Walmart. I used a regular old light dimmer to control the speed and it seems to work pretty well.
> 
> I'm working on revamping and solidifying the pulley mechanism for the Kansas winds so we'll see what happens.


I don't know what you did. I tried four different ceiling fans. (Mrs. Doom wasn't real happy that I temporarily rewiring the ones in the house). Neither a dimmer switch nor a three speed fan control switch did anything to any of them.


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## eanderso13 (Apr 10, 2008)

Doc Doom said:


> I don't know what you did. I tried four different ceiling fans. (Mrs. Doom wasn't real happy that I temporarily rewiring the ones in the house). Neither a dimmer switch nor a three speed fan control switch did anything to any of them.


REALLY?! That's maddening...I'll look at my design tonight, if you are interested, but I'm pretty sure I just wired the dimmer into one side of the extension cord I wired to the fan motor.


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## NickG (Sep 12, 2006)

this is interesting because I just so happen to have a ceiling fan I got from a coworker last year that's simply too big to use in the kids room.


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## DarkPassenger (Nov 7, 2009)

I also just picked of a ceiling fan from a co-worker... And an Axeworthy Ghost was the first thing that came to mind.

I would imagine a dimmer should work just fine. My buddy had his setup that way when the fan was installed in his home, so I would expect the same results but I guess I'll need to go confirm that.


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## jdsteel82 (Aug 27, 2010)

Have you tried a variable AC transformer? But then again they are a bit pricey and defeat the purpose of using a ceiling fan motor. But then who knows.... I can find a ton of things to use a VACT for.


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## RoseHillManor (Apr 22, 2013)

Has anyone else tried this yet? I have an old Ceiling fan motor, and was thinking about making an axworthy ghost from it, but I won't even attempt if mine goes hey-wire


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## Haunted Spider (Sep 6, 2010)

As far as I know this thread stopped 3 years ago meaning people gave up on the idea. It sounds as though you can slow the fan speed by using a dimmer switch. The problem with this will be that the fan is not meant to run on a dimmer and will run the motor at an un-natural speed due to giving it less power than it should have. The problem everyone is having is the fan spins too fast. I don't see why you don't gear it down to what you want. 

The fan runs a motor just like a drill press. You can use a small gear on the end of the fan, and a larger gear that it drives and the larger gear will spin slower. Tie it together with belts if you want, or make up your own gears if you know how. 

If it isn't slow enough yet, then attach another small gear in line with the larger one and put it to yet another large gear. That would make it spin much much slower. It is all about the ratios of the gears to the first and how to slow it down with reducing the power to the fan and causing issues. 

Good luck.


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Good ceiling fan info here - http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=26816


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## HomeyDaClown (Oct 3, 2009)

After many years of trial and error, my basic setup is still running after nearly 15 years.

After adding a fourth pulley to the system this year to make the trip longer, I went back and re-visited Scott Axworthy's page http://www.scaredy-cat.com/afg.html

Most of my setup is identical to his except for a few improvements that made things easy. I use two different size pulleys from the AC drive motor to give me enough ratio to reduce the drive wheel speed. These are tied together with a heavy duty sweeper belt which helps keep it silent. Instead of bicycle wheels I use 12" aluminum compressor pulleys (surplus center had them on closeout) on bearings with 16" heavy plastic serving plates tied to the bottoms to keep the line in place. The final step was to make a spring-loaded swivel bracket on the drive to keep tension on the line.

The most important thing I learned from Scott was to use black crab potting line (crab cage line) instead of fishing line or anything else that stretches too much. I've been using the same line for the past 8 years since I added a third pulley to the system.


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## Runfromron (Sep 22, 2006)

K.I.S.S. people, please!

Instead of complicating things by trying to control the motor speed, adjust the pulley size to fit the speed of the motor using your junior high math skills. It's a LOT cheaper!

For instance, I just looked at my living room ceiling fan. On low, it turns at approximately 30 RPM. How fast do you want your ghost to go? Figure it out by walking along an extended tape measure while counting "one thousand one, one thousand two", etc. Let's say, just for instance, that you found that a speed of three feet per second was what you wanted. That's 36". If the fan turns at 30 RPM, that means that it makes a revolution every two seconds, or one-half a revolution every second. For the ghost to travel the required three feet per second, the pulley would have to have a circumference of 72" (2 X 36=72). Circumference = Diameter X pi (3.1416), OR Diameter = Circumference /pi (3.1416). So, 72/3.1416=22.92 or rounded off to 23". Obviously, that's far too big a pulley to be practical, but by figuring out the RPM of the higher speeds, a much smaller pulley would be needed. For example, if the highest speed of the fan was 120 RPM (I'm guessing here), the pulley would only have to be 5 1/2 " in diameter. That would also give it more torque. It's a lot easier to do the math than to describe it. I know many people HATE math, but it's far easier and cheaper than investing in a speed controller that might or might not do the job.

A ceiling fan CAN be used for an AFG. Just dust off your old math skills! Or, just go here:

http://math.about.com/library/blcirclecalculator.htm

Plug in your data, and it'll be solved for you.

Good Luck!

Ron, a proponent of recycled ceiling fans


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## shaunathan (Sep 18, 2005)

Have you considered making a gear for the outside of the motor and using gear ratios to slow the effect down? I don't know how big the area is that you're hiding the motor, but you can have the smaller gear on the fan shaft move a larger gear, that would slow the effect down.


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## spinman1949 (Jun 29, 2009)

Doc,

The trick is not just RPM, but Feet per second. My small pulley axworthy has a motor that is runing at 800 RPM or more. But because the drive roller is only about 1 1/2 " in diameter the speed is perfect. 1 1/2" X 3.1428 = 4.5 inches roughly. 800 rpm times 4.5 = 3600 inches per minute or 60 inches per second which is a bit faster than walking pace. Of course I must admit that for my design to work, it must be almost bow string tight. I think I have shared it before on this site.


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## Doc Doom (Aug 28, 2008)

I started with a pully made from metal plates about 7" in diameter. I tried a couple of smaller diameter wheels, but even on the slowest speed, it went way too fast for my liking.


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## bert1913 (Oct 27, 2011)

i've used these to slow down sewing machine motors, massagers etc.
SE - Step Less Speed Controller - Electronic, 15 Amps - [email protected]@[email protected]@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/[email protected]@[email protected]@41ZpO9lRfzL


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## terip (Sep 18, 2016)

Now I am scared to try a ceiling fan as that was the plan still hope to make it work as that is all I have but will check into the dimmer switch idea. Thanks


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