I recently bought a 500 cfm inductor fan for my grow room. I wired it to a power chord for a computer and its running like a100 cfm fan. I think the fan had 12 gauge wires and the chord was 18 gauge. Would it make that much of a difference or do inductor fans only work well with existing airflow in ventilation systems?
NO, your fan takes about 1.5A . AWG #18 wire can support it unless it was defective. You made wiring mistake somewhere.
It all comes down to wattage and what the wiring in your walls is and how much wattage is being consumed at the outlets. If your room wiring is 12 gauge that is usually made to handle a 20 amp fuse so 120V * 20A 2400 watts of capacity So if that circuit is good for 2400 watts, I would unplug anything else that is plugged into your strip to keep the wattage there available for your big fan. Buy a Kill-a-watt meter from Home Depot or Walmart. They are very handy little meters and you can plug your power strip right into the Kill-a-watt meter and see directly how much wattage is used as you plug in loads to your power strip. The cord gauge being 18 is pretty light. But usually they have a built in fuse that will blow if you exceed the wattage of the power strip for a minute or so. Try to plug into the wall recepatacle directly for the big fan as the wiring is probably 12 gauge and will take the load a lot better. Look for a input label on your 500 cfm fan. Check the amperage draw at 120V. Usually fans aren't real bad once they are up to running speed.
