Calvin Sambrook wrote:
"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Harry Bloomfield writes:
Lobster brought next idea :
I have a portable dehumidifier (Wickes own brand; I think it's a
compressor
model?) about 18 months old which has stopped working.

The humidistat appears to be working in that if you turn it up, it
clicks in
and the dehumidifer motor starts working; however the water output
container
remains bone-dry.

Any thoughts as to what might be wrong, and whether it's repairable
or a bin
job?

A compressor type has a motor and you suggest a motor starts -so it is

Actually two motors - the compressor and the fan.
In mine, it's the fan which makes most noise and starts when
you turn it on. There's a 3 minute delay before the compressor
starts up (mainly to ensure that if there was a momentary power
interruption, the compressor doesn't try to start instantly
when it would most likely fail due to existing pressure
differential in the system). The compressor generates a small
amount of low frequency vibration, but very little of the noise,
and I doubt most people would notice it switching on 3 minutes
later.


You can easily check that the fan is turning as you can see it and feel
the airflow. Small dehumidifiers tend to have the crapiest fan motors
imaginable, open frame and as far as I can tell with metal on rubber
"bearings". Mine seized very early on and had a lot of trouble starting
but would keep going once it did. Lubricating the bearings fixed it.

If it's not that then use your IR thermometer (everyone on uk.d-i-y has
one now don't they?) to check that the cold bit gets cold..

It can be a bit hard to do that, I used my multimeter and a K type
thermocouple.