Tomsic wrote:
"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.

Thanks. That's good to know.

In the second photo of the three which shows the back of the capacitor, in
the center of the area where the plastic is melted there is a silver area
that is some kind of melted metal -- lead, solder, or whatever.

Hopefully, replacing it with the new capacitor will fix the problem.