I made a post in a thread about range hood lights and made reference to a fan upgrade to my range hood I had done and a poster there asked for details. I didn't want to hijack that thread so I started this one so others who might have done something similiar or even diifferent could chime in and share their experiences.
Like a lot of folks here, I too found the OEM range hood fan sorely lacking in both performance and noise so I decided to upgrade my fan. IIRC the factory fan CFM was around 80 to 100CFM so I wanted something at least that powerful and the more the better. I had to order the fans from Jameco and ordered two since they were only about $10 each one was a .9A 118CFM 120mmx120mmx38mm and the other a much more powerful 1.6A 151CFM 120mmx120mmx38mm model. Since I was planning on installing a wire wound resister to get two speeds I was going to try and use the higher CFM model which was noiser and if I didn't like the noise I would use the lower much quieter 118CFM. This fan info is from 2011 so it's about 3 years old and might not be current.
Next I looked at the over all construction of the range hood and the back vent section had air gaps in it which I duct taped and the front between the main chamber and the light along with access holes out thru the top and out to the front where the monitor panel was was open so I made a metal baffle to try and close off that from the main fan chamber ...
This is a pic of the fan chamber looking in from the exhaust outlet and you can see the access holes and the light which were all open to the main fan chamber.
This is a metal baffle I made to close off the above areas a little better so all the fan volume would go out the exhaust and not up into unneeded/wanted areas of the range hood..
This next pic is the new baffle installed and sealed with duct tape. While not perfect I felt it was a step up that what was there originally and the cost was only my time ...
Now for the fan install. When my fans came in I wanted to see how noisy they were and then see what sort of dropping resistor I would need to get a max speed and then something that was still good, but quiet. Well, my plans to try the 151CFM went south the minute I hooked my battery charger up to it and the dang thing tried to run away. My knee jerk reaction was to grap the fan ... BAD IDEA ... my thumb hit those 3800 rpm hard sharp plastic blades and cut my thumb in two places pretty good which was bad enough, but I was also able to break a blade off the fan so that was $12 gone and I was now reduced to only using the 118CFM for my install. Fortunately the thumb didn't need stitches so my new T-shirt advise is these larger more powerful fans are not your whimpy computer fans and are very powerful so be careful when messing with them they can really harm you.
Thus I mounted the other fan after testing it to just see if it worked with me holding the fan down ... don't need another fan T-shirt and having DW touch the power leads to the battery charger. I then mounted the fan to the mounting plate I had ...
This is a pic of the new fan installed in the range hood. With some experimenting for the slower speed I put a 3.9 ohm 10W wire wound resistor to power the lower speed. I can easily change this out w/o removing the range hood if I find that in use this is not the right size to use. You will notice the safety screen on this one which the other more powerful one did not have
I have now had this mod for over 3 years and no problems or issues and think it was a very worth while mod.
Larry
Like a lot of folks here, I too found the OEM range hood fan sorely lacking in both performance and noise so I decided to upgrade my fan. IIRC the factory fan CFM was around 80 to 100CFM so I wanted something at least that powerful and the more the better. I had to order the fans from Jameco and ordered two since they were only about $10 each one was a .9A 118CFM 120mmx120mmx38mm and the other a much more powerful 1.6A 151CFM 120mmx120mmx38mm model. Since I was planning on installing a wire wound resister to get two speeds I was going to try and use the higher CFM model which was noiser and if I didn't like the noise I would use the lower much quieter 118CFM. This fan info is from 2011 so it's about 3 years old and might not be current.
Next I looked at the over all construction of the range hood and the back vent section had air gaps in it which I duct taped and the front between the main chamber and the light along with access holes out thru the top and out to the front where the monitor panel was was open so I made a metal baffle to try and close off that from the main fan chamber ...
This is a pic of the fan chamber looking in from the exhaust outlet and you can see the access holes and the light which were all open to the main fan chamber.
This is a metal baffle I made to close off the above areas a little better so all the fan volume would go out the exhaust and not up into unneeded/wanted areas of the range hood..
This next pic is the new baffle installed and sealed with duct tape. While not perfect I felt it was a step up that what was there originally and the cost was only my time ...
Now for the fan install. When my fans came in I wanted to see how noisy they were and then see what sort of dropping resistor I would need to get a max speed and then something that was still good, but quiet. Well, my plans to try the 151CFM went south the minute I hooked my battery charger up to it and the dang thing tried to run away. My knee jerk reaction was to grap the fan ... BAD IDEA ... my thumb hit those 3800 rpm hard sharp plastic blades and cut my thumb in two places pretty good which was bad enough, but I was also able to break a blade off the fan so that was $12 gone and I was now reduced to only using the 118CFM for my install. Fortunately the thumb didn't need stitches so my new T-shirt advise is these larger more powerful fans are not your whimpy computer fans and are very powerful so be careful when messing with them they can really harm you.
Thus I mounted the other fan after testing it to just see if it worked with me holding the fan down ... don't need another fan T-shirt and having DW touch the power leads to the battery charger. I then mounted the fan to the mounting plate I had ...
This is a pic of the new fan installed in the range hood. With some experimenting for the slower speed I put a 3.9 ohm 10W wire wound resistor to power the lower speed. I can easily change this out w/o removing the range hood if I find that in use this is not the right size to use. You will notice the safety screen on this one which the other more powerful one did not have
I have now had this mod for over 3 years and no problems or issues and think it was a very worth while mod.
Larry
Larry, I put those same 2 lights from Wallyworld and DW loves them, the original light is almost useless. I did not do the switch mod you did, so all 3 come on or off but she is happy with that. ๐
LarryJM wrote:Jozzieo wrote:
Oh, could you explain the lights, they look nice. I am going LED for mine.
Picture of the new switch set up .... notice the dual speed fan switch on the far right and the unlabeled switch to the left of the switch labeled light which is now for the two new lights I installed.
Picture of the two new lights. These are lights from WM (12V general "dome lights" - $5.88 each) and now I have the option of just the original light, just the two new lights that really light up the stove 100% better than the dinky OEM one or running all three. Because they are now on each side of the fan fixture they remove all the shadow areas on the stove top that existed with just the single OEM light in front.
Larry
Jozzieo wrote:
Oh, could you explain the lights, they look nice. I am going LED for mine.
Picture of the new switch set up .... notice the dual speed fan switch on the far right and the unlabeled switch to the left of the switch labeled light which is now for the two new lights I installed.
Picture of the two new lights. These are lights from WM (12V general "dome lights" - $5.88 each) and now I have the option of just the original light, just the two new lights that really light up the stove 100% better than the dinky OEM one or running all three. Because they are now on each side of the fan fixture they remove all the shadow areas on the stove top that existed with just the single OEM light in front.
Larry
