On 7/20/2012 11:12 AM, TomR wrote:
DA wrote:
TomR wrote:

A friend of mine was asked to repair a Harbor Breeze ceiling fan.
damaged capacitor:
http://i50.tinypic.com/kdk7l2.jpg

Don't waste your time trying to find a Harbor Breeze capacitor (or any
other replacement part for that matter). Harbor Breeze as well as its
cousin Hampton Bay (sold at HD) are just brands owned by marketing
companies that themselves appear to be nothing more than fronts for a
conglomerate of Chinese manufacturers. It's quite possible that both
are in the end manufactured in the same place, just the US fronts are
different. The whole setup is not geared towards repair of any kind,
just replacement of the entire unit if still under warranty or, they
hope, purchasing a new one if the warranty had expired.

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?;

I think the motor is fine. The melting of the capacitor is suggestive
of over-current condition or a manufacturing defect which quite
possibly was there from the beginning. In either case, the motor's
windings are capable of withstanding higher currents and the motor's
metal body parts are capable of losing excess heat much better than a
resin-encapsulated capacitor. So, the capacitor is likely to go first.

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?

There's always a reason but it may be a transient one and may be hard
to pinpoint, especially if it's the first occurrence which may end up
being the only one. It could have been something that was obstructing
the blades during a start at one time or perhaps some dust made its
way into bearings and made the start harder. Best course of action
right now is to just replace the capacitor (a $15 item) and see if
the problem persist.

Look for 4.5/6/6 capacitor on the Net, there should be some on offer.
A quick search on Amazon yielded this:
http://www.amazon.com/BM-Ceiling-Fan...dp/B004QOY0I4/
which is a 4.5/5/6 mkF, not an exact replacement but should work.
Also, your original one is 350V for the 4.5 mkF capacitor (there are
three individual capacitors in there) and that seems to be a bit hard
to find. I think your best bet would be to either stick with 250V for
all three (it's a 120V device anyway) or perhaps get three individual
ones of proper value and connect them as indicated on the original
capacitor (grey is common for all three and the rest are color coded).

Since you have the fan down and accessible, be sure to use the
opportunity to check and oil the bearings.

Thanks. That's all good and helpful information.

I just ordered the replacement capacitor from this company:

http://crs-industries.com/Capacitors...5hlhe76k9qo 0 .

As you mentioned, they didn't have one that said 350 VAC, but since it is a
110 VAC circuit the 250 VAC replacement part made sense to me too so I just
ordered it.

There were only 3 online ceiling fan capacitor companies that I had found so
far. One didn't appear to have this size capacitor. Another (which had the
part) requires a $25 minimum order plus a $10 minimum shipping charge. The
company above that I ordered from was the least expensive and has a direct
online ordering system that worked. The part was $13.50 plus $4.96 for UPS
shipping for a total of $18.46.

From what you and others wrote, I have a feeling that this will fix the
problem. I assume that it will take about a week to get the part and then
I'll post back how it worked out.


The 250VAC capacitor should be ok, but remember that 120 volts is the
RMS value; the peak could be as high as 177 volts. There are a lot of
ebay stores that sell parts for fans. I just ordered an new remote
control unit from one of them.