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?