"TomR" wrote in message
...
"TomR" wrote in message
...
A friend of mine was asked to repair a Harbor Breeze ceiling fan. He was
told that the pull chain for the fan switch had pulled out and was
missing. When he opened it up, it was true that the chain for the fan
switch had pulled out. It's a 3-way 4-wire fan switch and he bought a
replacement switch but hasn't put it in yet.
But, when he opened up the ceiling fan he found that the capacitor had
burned and melted. Here are 3 photos (in .jpg and URL link form) of the
damaged capacitor:
http://i45.tinypic.com/j9o5g5.jpg
http://i47.tinypic.com/102jry9.jpg
http://i50.tinypic.com/kdk7l2.jpg
http://tinypic.com/r/j9o5g5/6
http://tinypic.com/r/102jry9/6
http://tinypic.com/r/kdk7l2/6
It turns out that finding Harbor Breeze support or parts through the
manufacturer is apparently a virtual impossibility. The Harbor Breeze
ceiling fans are sold at Lowes, and Lowes has some parts such as
switches, but Lowes does not sell capacitors.
We found at least two online third party sources that sell ceiling fan
capacitors, and my friend just ordered the replacement capacitor. It
should arrive next week.
I didn't even know that ceiling fans had a capacitor in them, and I don't
know what the capacitor does. We just saw the burnt and melted part and
figured out through some Internet searching that it is a capacitor.
My question a
1) Given the burnt and melted condition of the capacitor as shown in the
photos, is it possible (or likely) that the ceiling fan motor itself is
also bad?;
and,
2) What does the capacitor do; and do capacitors sometimes just burn and
melt like this one did without that being caused by something else such
as a bad motor?
P.S. The photos were taken with a high megapixel camera, so zooming in on
each photo for a close up view is possible if that would be helpful.
Capacitors are a weak link in any electronic device. They're sensitive to
heat, age, voltage surges and are easy to manufacture in large quantities
with poor quality which means they work for a while and then fail. The
capacitors in the pictures appear to be the ones used for the fan speed
selection. It's certainly not uncommon for capacitors to fail and to heat
up, melt plastic and turn black before they do.
Tomsic