I Took my House fan apart. It had AC going in, but not through it.
I got to this little guy, wrapped in Asbestos looking stuff.
He seems to be "OPEN"


I dont know what it is. Should it look Open?

 

It's probably a thermal interrupter, which opens when the temperature exceeds a preset point. In this case, the temperature may have exceeded 130°C.

 

130 C probably means the motor got WAY overheated, like, fried.
Make sure you have a fuse in place, then apply power to the motor. If it runs, find out why it overheated. If it blows the fuse, find out where to get a new motor.

 

Thanks.
I thought it was a Fuse of some sort or a Cap.
I'll short by it, and see if the fan motor works.
If so, I'll find a replacement.
Maybe I better see what a new fan costs?

 

Thanks.
I thought it was a Fuse of some sort or a Cap.
I'll short by it, and see if the fan motor works.
If so, I'll find a replacement.
Maybe I better see what a new fan costs?

Don't miss the point of what #12 was saying. There's a reason why the thermal breaker opened, and since the thermal breaker is a safety feature, you don't want to bypass it. Think smoke, heat, fire, no longer living in your house.

 

Sounds like your fan is broken. It is possible the thermal protection device failed by itself if nothing else looks hot. If you short it and the fan starts working again you might consider replacing the thing.

I peeked about some on Digi Key's site but didn't find any good fits for ya.

 

The Thermal device died when the fan got so hot it siezed. My wife recalled that just a bit ago.
So that fan is out of the picture now.
Plastic in the Garbage can and metal in the Re-cycle pile.

 

There is a ton of potentially expensive and useful copper wire (ok the enamel probably burnt off, but still). Copper mining is nasty stuff. so is the smelting process...

Also check the motor start cap. those buggers are expensive!!

I know it's easy to just throw it in the bin, But if you have no need for the salvage, how about putting it on a site like freecycle (just for a week or two) so someone lees fortunate may benefit.

I've been scouring local nature strips for anything with lots of copper, high voltage transformes (that still work, otherwise they are just wire and ferrite), or large Cap's. That stuff costs a fortune to by new!

Thats just my opinion. Hope someone finds it valuable..

 

I wonder if this is the start Cap?


I didn't know about FreeCycle, thanks.

 

Probably a run cap. Fan motors don't usually have start windings, and it's the right size for a run cap.

 

I did some plumbing and had a pile of copper pipe rolling about my pick-up bed for over a year. Some 20 or 30 feet of 3" OD from the vent pipe I replaced with PVC. Finally got a bunch of steel scrap from some frames we took down from my wife's shop. It was either drive to the dump or drive to the scrap metal place that I see on TV here all the time. Since I had to dump the load I went to the scrap place.

Turns out scrap steel is 11 cents a pound and I had 380 pounds of it. Took the copper pipe around the corner and hit the jackpot as it sells for some 2 or 3 bucks a pound.

Walked out with 400 bucks cash money. Nice.