Modern build­ings require less and less heating energy. For more effi­cient oper­a­tion and depending on the building size, heating systems can be designed smaller than ever before. When outdoor temper­a­tures change or extra service water requires heating, higher power is temporarily neces­sary. In these cases, gas heating system deliver fast energy input with few envi­ron­mental conse­quences. To ensure ideal combus­tion with top consump­tion and cont­a­m­i­nant values in all possible scenarios, a gas blower with as wide a power range as possible is the best solu­tion. Power modu­la­tion allows boiler manu­fac­turers to cover a broad appli­ca­tion spec­trum with only one blower model. And end users have greater comfort because a more effi­cient device whose high modu­la­tion level delivers lower heating and cooling losses covers their higher perfor­mance require­ments. Both save time and money, reducing their carbon foot­prints for building heating.

Figure 1: The new VG 100 gas blower func­tions with a modu­la­tion of over 1:10 in the 3-50 kW range.

Today, heating systems must adapt to the avail­able space in build­ings. Espe­cially in the smaller power range, end users are no longer willing to devote an entire room to the heating system. Condensing hot water heater and gas boiler manu­fac­turers have responded to customer needs with models that provide high comfort with minimum dimen­sions – and are envi­ron­men­tally friendly as well. Indi­vidual variety has only one disad­van­tage: the gas blower require­ments. Manu­fac­turers either rely on a wide spec­trum of gas blowers to cover the heating power range – one for each of the many hot water heater concepts – or forgo the oppor­tu­nity for hot water heater opti­miza­tion and make do with one or two gas blowers. With a new gas blower that can adapt to a wide range of instal­la­tion scenarios and heating outputs more easily, hot water heater manu­fac­turers can cut costs signif­i­cantly.

Vari­able, compact design

As an envi­ron­men­tally friendly fuel variant that does not require space for its fuel supply, natural gas is in demand the world over. To adjust to the multi-faceted require­ments of today’s modern build­ings, ebm-papst Land­shut is offering a newly devel­oped premix gas blower for instan­ta­neous water heaters. The VG 100 blower is the first of a new blower gener­a­tion. It covers a power range of 1.5-150 kW (Fig. 1). It func­tions with a modu­la­tion of more than 1:10 in the 3-50 kW range and in compar­ison to the previous model, has other bene­fits such as around 5% more effi­ciency. This gas blower is predes­tined for use in modern, effi­cient warmth gener­a­tion.

Figure 2: The modular system makes it easier to realize customer-specific solu­tions on the housing side.

The new blower’s side part is made from sheet instead of the usual die cast aluminum. The new solu­tion enables optimal plug posi­tioning according to the customers’ require­ments. The venturi element and side part are sepa­rate in order to easily realize customer-specific solu­tions on the building side (Fig. 2). And the aero­dy­namics were improved in the process, resulting in a more compact blower that provides signif­i­cantly more options for inte­gra­tion into instan­ta­neous water heaters. Despite its smaller dimen­sions, the new blower achieves a higher delivery rate than its prede­cessor (Fig. 3).

Compact, high perfor­mance motor

Figure 3: Aero­dy­namic and motor-related opti­miza­tion improve the delivery rate despite compact dimen­sions.

At the same time, a new motor has been devel­oped for the blower plat­form. The devel­op­ment improves effi­ciency and reduces the amount of mate­rial used at the same time. The motor with zero main­te­nance ball bear­ings provides increased power for air delivery adapted to the higher power range – packed into more compact dimen­sions. New sole­noid mate­rial and improved stator geom­etry also make their contri­bu­tions to perfor­mance. Another focus of the devel­op­ment work was noise reduc­tion. In addi­tion to reducing the airborne sound, the devel­opers focused on reducing the vibra­tions (struc­ture-borne sound) using state-of-the-art devel­op­ment tools.

Figure 4: Noise output is signif­i­cantly lower than in compa­rable blowers. This saves extra noise insu­la­tion in the hot water heater.

They opti­mized isola­tion from vibra­tion and improved the motor’s reac­tion to vibra­tion in general. As a result, the new blower’s sound power is signif­i­cantly lower than that of its prede­cessor (Fig. 4). End consumers are now even more likely to respond posi­tively to a gas-condensing heating system. The elec­tronics were also completely revised and the blower has optional bus inter­faces for easy inte­gra­tion into digital systems. In this way, oper­ating states such as power, service state, temper­a­tures, oper­ating voltage and other data that are saved in the blower’s control system can be opened to enable preven­tive main­te­nance or (remote) trou­bleshooting and inte­gra­tion into the hot water heater controls. The new version requires much less (PCB) mate­rial. By using the cooling concept proven in other prod­ucts, the elec­tronics are located in the cooling airflow to increase the blower’s service life and reli­a­bility. A motor protec­tion cap connected to the housing encloses all drive compo­nents. The stable motor cover design decou­ples the blower from the motor for lower noise levels and can with­stand any rough handling in the down­stream assembly process.

Conclu­sion

As the first repre­sen­ta­tive of a new gener­a­tion of effi­cient gas blowers, VG 100 features high modu­la­tion rates and extremely compact dimen­sions. It reduces gas blower vari­ance. With signif­i­cantly improved effi­ciency and reduced noise emis­sion, the gas blower is the answer to the require­ments of today’s gas-condensing tech­nology market in the power range of up to 50 kW.