How to control the fan speed in a stirplate (home made)

[beeramI]

Hi,
I made my own stirplate with a computer fan and it looked and worked okay. It is basically a fan mounted in a wood craft box with an on/off switch and a potentiator. The fan was cheap and died recently. I replaced the fan with a heavy duty fan from Radio shack (120 vac)

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103787

the potentiator I was using does adjust the speed but even at the lowest setting it is too fast. I tried using a light dimmer switch from Lowes and the fan makes noise but won't even turn. Here is my question.

Can I adjust the speed of the new 120 vac fan? If so with what?

Thank you in advance.

 

[SlowBoy]

To control the speed of an AC motor you need to adjust the frequency of the power supplied to the motor. The easiest way to do this that I am familiar with is a drill press/ router speed controller (see below) but this may not work for such a low power fan, I am guessing this is the issue with your ceiling fan controller. I use a DC fan pulled from a DLP television, it has held up very well for me, I just find low power DC to be easier, cheaper, and safer to work with.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009KAEP7A/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Be safe