# Bought a year-old furnace blower for a DIY air cleaner, need help on plug thingy



## SoCalBonnie (Mar 13, 2019)

I watched a couple of videos about creating an air filter with a squirrel cage fan, so when I saw a furnace blower fan for sale near me I rather impulsively bought it. I don't know anything about wiring but want to learn.










The seller could only tell me his heater guy installed it last year when the original one broke. This year he decided to upgrade his system and his contractor replaced it with something bigger. So it's in really good shape.

A bracket was covering the label so all I could see was that it's a 1/2 HP.




























One of the numbers on the label (622081) keeps pulling up "Nordyne" links in Google searches, Like this one. That link says it's 1075 RPM and 115 volts. That should be okay for a DIY air scrubber, shouldn't it?

My plan is to make a rolling cart kind of like the one Jay Bates made for our three-car garage (containing my very small workspace).

And when I saw that white plug on this blower I thought, Wahoo, I don't have to wire anything, just find a receptacle for it! But I don't know what it is called, so I don't what search terms to use for instructions. "White plug thingy" brings up nothing useful, LOL. And the staffers in the Home Depot electrical department didn't know what to do with it, either.

I found lots of informational videos and articles on this topic but none have wires already configured in one of these white plugs.



















So if I want to set it up so I can plug it in and turn it on (with a regular "off/on" switch) what do I need? Or should I just cut off the white plug and figure how to wire it from scratch?


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## wapakfred (Jul 29, 2011)

It looks to me like you have a 4 speed blower. You can get a switch to change speeds, or juts wire to one of the speeds for a single speed operation. From your feed, the Neutral (white) will go to the white wire on the plug (looks like there may be 2 of them and I'm not sure what to do about that). then the black wire from your feed will go to either the black wire on the plug (high speed) or the blue one (medium high), or the orange one (medium low), or the red one (low). the ground should be connected as well. I had a 4 speed blower on a cleaner I built and with mine I only used the 2 lowest speeds. I'm not a sparky, so wait for someone to confirm or deny what I said. I'm also wondering if that second white wire (if that's what I see) is the ground(?).


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## lew (Feb 13, 2008)

Cut off the white plug. Connect the white WIRE to a plug and the connect ONE of the other wires to the plug (Black wire for highest speed). If you want an on-off connection, put the switch in line with the BLACK wire (or whatever speed wire you have chosen). Tape off any unused wires separately so they can't touch each other.


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## lew (Feb 13, 2008)

I put one in a box and mounted it in the basement window


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## SoCalBonnie (Mar 13, 2019)

Thank you for your help!

So if the black wire is the highest speed, is the red wire the lowest? (Because on the wiring diagram black is at the top and red is at the bottom?)










Edited to add: Thanks, Lew and Fred, I posted too quickly, reread what Fred said and I answered my own question!


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## wapakfred (Jul 29, 2011)

Yep.


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## dbw (Dec 2, 2013)

If you want to have 4 speeds you can use a 4 position rotary switch. It would be better if you used a "break before make" switch as opposed to a "make before break" switch. A break before make switch breaks the connection with one terminal before making the connection with the next terminal. If you want to make a variable speed blower you can install a rheostat between line hot and high speed (black). Make sure the rheostat you select can handle the watts, which in this case is 373 watts + a fudge factor. BTW 1hp = 746 watts.


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## Delete (May 19, 2017)

Nice motor, the motor is grounded to the fan housing, which would be grounded along with everything else to the furnace housing. There are only five leads coming out to the plug 4 for speeds and the white nuetral, you will have to bring another lead out from the grounding on the motor (the green wire) to your ground wire on your power supply.

I have a bunch of similar 3 speed 3/4 hp motors. I installed one on a copycat craftsman lathe that I redesigned into my mini-lathe. Combined with a 3 step pulley it gives me 9 speeds. As you can see I used common household switches, 3 position switches are hard to source up here, its a simple matter to switch one off first before changing speeds to another.


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## JohnDon (Mar 14, 2015)

If you want to keep the connector, Google "Molex 03-09-2062"; it looks like the matching connector.


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## SoCalBonnie (Mar 13, 2019)

Wow, I searched for that connector but couldn't find anything but that looks like the matching part. Thank you, JohnDon!


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