Any electronic/electrical wizards in here?

In my case with this ef5. The convection blower they used along with the positioning of it is just a poor design all together. Although it does live to up to the "quiet" design fairly well.
A double sided squirrel cage mounted on the bottom of the stove. One of the cages are sitting half way under the combustion blower housing dwflecting a good amount of air. The other cage fan is directly below the air intake tube. 4 inch fan blowing around a 2 inch pipe. Doesnt make sense to me.
180 cfm blower that is partially covered reducing the actual output possibly by atleast half. And a whopping 3 amp motor at that. (It is a weird design.)

My intention is too fab up some ductwork and mount a regular cage fan style blower of equal ratings and a hell of alot cheaper i might add and attatching it to the back panel of the stove. (I dont care who you are or if you say ohhh noooo you cant. I can and i intend to do so)
But that is for a later project. Just being able to turn the blower up higher than the heat level setting may suffice. So i plan on adding the blower speed control first.

I am one of those people who think many things could have been made differently and modify it to make it better. Just because the manufacturer made it that way doesnt mean anything other than thats what was cheapest and easiest way to mass produce it.

 

Good for you

I love it when the "Anti-establishment" attitude struts about.

Looking at the fan design, two things come to mind, the first is the engineers just F'D up and hacked it together to salvage the mess, or that the corporate bean counters got involved in the mix.

The latter happens far more than it should.

There are designs that will work and get by.
There are designs that are fair
There are designs that are good
There are designs that are very good
Lastly, there are designs that are great.

A "just get by" design does not achieve much unless it is tested and tested and the flaws recognized and reworked.

Usually a great design is not achieved in one shot, but rather takes time and testing and more testing.

The best tests are many times achieved in the field with a test model that is reviewed by end users.

If the final incarnation is one that was hacked by the bean counters and was based solely on the cost to produce it it will be an epic failure.

The auto industry has had some real side shows with some of these POS

Possibly, if the real reasoning the engineers had for some of the choices made were available for scrutiny we might get more insight.

Bottom line, many stove companies are not staffed by high paid aerospace "can't fail" type engineers, but rather a much different cut off the stack.

The company is looking at one goal "$$$$$$$ profit" and this gain at the least possible cost.

Sadly, any changes the manuf's make "MAY" result in a particular model having to be re-certified, and this costs $$$$$$$$$$$$$

Soooo, here we are, Mr, Ms consumer and we stumble into the stove shop and ask a few questions and pick the pretty new stove that's going to look soooooo elegant in the family room and heat the shack to a nice cozy temp all winter.

Then the fun begins, ahhh well sort of.

After a short time we find out like Captain Kirk did with the Enterprise "A"

"Lets see whats shes got" he said.

And on it goes, down hill from there.

 

Actually, looking at the pics, the placement of the fan such that it draws some air in past the draft fan housing (Hot side) really does not hurt anything, and will help keep the cabinet cooler.

The dual Sq cage fan is smaller and allows it to fit in a smaller footprint.

Still, the inability to adjust the speed is not a real bell ringer.

 

I would normally agree with you on that. I had asked the question at first elsewhere "if it was designed to cool the exhaust"
But i think everyone thought i was stupid :-/

But regardless, standing in front of the stove. The left side has 1/2 the airflow exiting than the right side. Seems to me its being baffled/deflected too much.
You can see in this pic it is clearly tucked under the combustion housing

 

Even so, I wonder what's inside the stove heat plenum ???

Are these outlets separate from side to side or a single plenum with two outlets ???

Really looks like the stove was designed and then the fan was added as an afterthought, and whatever would fit was used.

A larger fan simply will not go in there.

Your idea of a larger remote mounted fan is a good fix me thinks.

A big AZZ fan out back with a good controller would be sweet.

Get a fan with a screen on it to prevent things from getting sucked into the sq cage

You can easily see any buildup of lint, pet hair etc. and vacuum it off.

 

Basically that shiny piece of metal you see above the air intake is the back side of the exchange. Folded nicely around the sides and the top. The air gets blown from the blower into the opening for that exchange area a few inches away. Then the air channels thru 10 - 1"x3" rectanglular exchange tubes.

I have more than enough room behind the stove to mount a blower remotely. I think i ended up with atleas triple the clearances placing this stove where the 25 pdv was.

Tecnically, the wall behind the stove is the laundry area and soon to be bathroom. I could always mount the blower remotely in a cabinent in there to really reduce the noise. But the sound of air moving doesnt bother me as long as its hot air.