On 2013-08-31, Phil wrote:
Low speed , it is quiet, higher speed , rattles, I balanced the wobble
out of it years ago, have a 18" down shaft on the fan, checked the blades,
pushed up and down on the fan blades, arms, in the center of the motor
and have the play there.

How old a Hunter? We have both a more modern one which has an
electronic module to control the fan speed, and no obvious way to lube
it (sealed bearings, I suspect), and two older ones, which have a
reservoir for oil around the shaft inside the main housing. That would
have to be re-lubed by a pump oiler through the slots at the top. It is
unlikely to have gone low enough to really need refilling -- unless it
has been removed from the ceiling, allowed to tilt, and then replaced
later without replacing the spilled oil.

One of the two older ones has a buzz, and it is traced to two
things:

1) Chain for controlling the speed switch hanging down and
vibrating against the globe of the light assembly on the bottom.

2) Imprecise tightening of the four thumbscrews which lock the
white opal glass globe into the hub. At one time, I put a big
rubber band in the globe's groove, which worked until the rubber
gave up (as rubber bands tend to do). To do it right, I would
want to fill the groove with RTV and keep it rotating until the
RTV set -- and use that to avoid the screws vibrating against
the glass globe. (Obviously, if you don't have the light
assembly, this does not apply.

Take off the globe, and it is quiet enough. It is probably from
about 1978 or so, at a guess.

That one has about a 1/8" vertical play (by feel, not
measurement, and I consider this play *normal* for this kind of
motor. The weight of the rotor assembly (it is an inverted
rotor style motor -- part of why it can go so slow), the hub,
and the blades hold it quite firmly at the bottom of that play.


Balancing the blades works to minimize the swing of the whole
pendulum assembly, but should not have anything to do with the buzz,
though if the wood of the blades has shrunk, so the screws attaching the
blades to the hub arms are a bit loose, that *might* be a place where
the buzz could appear.

The buzz comes from the varying torque of the motor rotating the
upper shaft in its rubber hanging assembly. The torque is greater at
higher speeds. (And if the rubber bushing in the hanger has
deteriorated, you might have some buzzing from there, too.

Good Luck,
DoN.

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