Fan Leveler

You all might remember that my ceiling fan failed and had to be replaced. When I disassembled it I found that the carbon brushes had worn unevenly due to the 5* angle of the motor as it was mounted against the ceiling.

I have corrected that by fashioning an leveler made of wood that offsets the 5* angle and brings the motor level.

Occasional use of the fan will not produce the problem, but since ours is on all the time (9 months of the year) this should make a big difference in the life of the motor.




This is the finished product (sans fan blades). The motor is now level with the coach.




This is the installed leveler, before attaching the motor housing.



This is a side view of the leveler showing the offset angle that levels the motor to the rest of the coach.

Wow...who wouldda thunk?? Very nice and great job of figuring out what caused the failure! I certainly would never have been able to figure that out!

Nice job Mike!!!

We don't use our fan very often, but that's a great idea. Looks like a project I will do this summer. Every time I think I'm done with the mods.....

John

Great find! Just like the others just when I thought I could put down the drill and level

That looks really good Mike!!

I'm wondering if everybody's fan has the same potential to go bad for the same reason. We have used our fan quite a bit. Fortunately, we haven't had any problems so far. But now I'm wondering if it's just a matter of time.

TC

TC wrote:That looks really good Mike!!

I'm wondering if everybody's fan has the same potential to go bad for the same reason. We have used our fan quite a bit. Fortunately, we haven't had any problems so far. But now I'm wondering if it's just a matter of time.

TC

TC,

I think that the potential is there, it's just a matter of how much the fan gets used. In our case we use it both in summer and in winter to keep air moving. In the summer we use it in forward to draw the warm air up to the ceiling and move it out of the living room vent. In the winter we run it in reverse so that any warm air trapped against the ceiling gets pushed down. It runs pretty much 24/7 for 9 months of the year.

You would not have believed the wear on the four carbon brushes. And, the wear was consistant with the 5* angle. The brush closest to the bottom of the angle was worn the most, with the two on the sides worn slightly and the top one hardly worn at all. That pattern is what tipped me off to why the fan had failed.

I'm hoping that this will solve the problem.

I hear a constant soft rubbing sound when mine runs. I wonder if this is the cause? Looks like I have some more investigating to do. Nice job and thanks for the pics!

Carpe Diem wrote:I hear a constant soft rubbing sound when mine runs. I wonder if this is the cause? Looks like I have some more investigating to do. Nice job and thanks for the pics!

Carpe,

That's the sound that started it for our fan. The rubbing sound got worse and then turned into a squeak. Woke up one morning and the fan had stopped. No luck trying to restart it. Took it apart and found what I found.

Looks like I definitely have another project added to the list them . Just got the kitty out of hibernation and the list keeps getting longer....lol.

Nice job of root-cause analysis there!