On 7/20/2012 1:03 AM, TomR wrote:
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?
That is a fairly common cause of fan failures. I have had it happen
more than once. The failure shouldn't cause any other damage to the
fan. Replace it and the fan should be as good as new.
My problem the last time I replaced one was that they are hard to
find locally. It used to be that most hardware stores carried them,
but they don't any more.
Bill