My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim

Tim+ wrote:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim

Sounds like a bearing problem to me. I'd pull out the motor, remove the
end bearing plates, give them a thorough clean then soak the bearings in
3 in 1 oil to see if it's just dry phosphor bronze bushes. If it's got
ball bearings, I'd replace them and pray! then refit!

Capitol wrote:
Tim+ wrote:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim

Sounds like a bearing problem to me. I'd pull out the motor, remove the
end bearing plates, give them a thorough clean then soak the bearings in
3 in 1 oil to see if it's just dry phosphor bronze bushes. If it's got
ball bearings, I'd replace them and pray! then refit!


Umm, "The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing." Freely AND
smoothly. If you spin the motor whilst powered on the the fan only
setting, there's no apparent torque being generated by the motor. It
doesn't run briefly and then grind to a halt (or at least it doesn't run
any further than it would with no power at all).

Tim

On 27/11/2014 12:37, Tim+ wrote:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim


I guess the (economic cost) menas you've already had a look at Dimplex's
spares prices

It sounds from your description as if either the fan has more than one
speed, or is being controlled through something else, the fault may well
lay there rather than the fan...

Since it's labled as 230V, have you tried disconnecting it and powering
it directly?

Lee wrote:
On 27/11/2014 12:37, Tim+ wrote:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it
seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to
source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim


I guess the (economic cost) menas you've already had a look at Dimplex's
spares prices

It sounds from your description as if either the fan has more than one
speed, or is being controlled through something else, the fault may well
lay there rather than the fan...

Since it's labled as 230V, have you tried disconnecting it and powering
it directly?

Is this a brushed motor?

Capitol wrote:

Is this a brushed motor?

Brushless. There are only two connections to the winding. I suspect it uses
the heater element to drop the voltage for the lower speed. Can't see how
else it's controlled.

Tim

Tim+ wrote:
wrote:

Is this a brushed motor?

Brushless. There are only two connections to the winding. I suspect it uses
the heater element to drop the voltage for the lower speed. Can't see how
else it's controlled.

Tim

Hmm. I was thinking of hairdryers where the element is in series with a
rectifier and a DC motor and the speed is determined by the current
flow. Is the fan blade rubbing on something?

Tim+ wrote:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim

Does this help?

http://howtomendit.com/answers.php?id=197649

Tim+ wrote:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim

Searching using DuckDuckGo and Google.com brings up different
possibilities.

On 27/11/2014 13:59, Tim+ wrote:
Capitol wrote:

Is this a brushed motor?

Brushless. There are only two connections to the winding. I suspect it uses
the heater element to drop the voltage for the lower speed. Can't see how
else it's controlled.

Tim


Sounds logical, I was thinking it might have been a simple series diode
or SCR but shaded pole motors don't always react well to that kind of
speed control

Capitol wrote:
Tim+ wrote:
wrote:

Is this a brushed motor?

Brushless. There are only two connections to the winding. I suspect it uses
the heater element to drop the voltage for the lower speed. Can't see how
else it's controlled.

Tim

Hmm. I was thinking of hairdryers where the element is in series with a
rectifier and a DC motor and the speed is determined by the current flow.
Is the fan blade rubbing on something?

Would saying that "the fan spins freely" a third time make it any clearer?

Tim

In article ,
Tim+ writes:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

If it's a shaded pole motor, check the single turns around the shaded
poles haven't broken. Another possibility is that squirrel cage on the
rotor has broken connections - I've seen this once, and heard of it a
few times. In either case, you might be able to solder it back together,
but these conductors carry a high current (at very low voltage).

Yet another possibility is a winding failure which has not broken the
continuity, but has resulted in a shorted turn. This tends to make the
winding get much hotter than it should (and usually turns into a burned
out winding or a blown thermal fuse).

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Capitol wrote:
Tim+ wrote:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim

Does this help?

http://howtomendit.com/answers.php?id=197649

You know something, I think you may have hit on something. ;-)

I took the back off to check the bulbs (both blown) and when I tested the
fan with the back off the noise was much louder! It was then that I spotted
it has a motor driven spindle for the flame effect. The motor has clearly
stalled, slipped a cog or some other mishap.

So, at the end of the day, not the fan heater motor at all! Apologies to
all those that I misled.

Tim

Tim+ wrote:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim

I suspect that the feur may be feuer (german for fire) and that fea-j
is the internal code that refers to the product. You haven't specified
the Dimplex model name of the fire, which might give us a clue.

Even if the fan spins freely, I'd still try the bearings, there is not
much drive torque in a shaded pole motor.

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article
,
Tim+ writes:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

If it's a shaded pole motor, check the single turns around the shaded
poles haven't broken. Another possibility is that squirrel cage on the
rotor has broken connections - I've seen this once, and heard of it a
few times. In either case, you might be able to solder it back together,
but these conductors carry a high current (at very low voltage).

Yet another possibility is a winding failure which has not broken the
continuity, but has resulted in a shorted turn. This tends to make the
winding get much hotter than it should (and usually turns into a burned
out winding or a blown thermal fuse).


Cheers Andrew but had a massive "doh!" moment this evening when I found
that the noise wasn't coming from the fan motor but another hidden one for
the flame effect.

Tim

Tim+ wrote:
wrote:
Tim+ wrote:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim

Does this help?

http://howtomendit.com/answers.php?id=197649

You know something, I think you may have hit on something. ;-)

I took the back off to check the bulbs (both blown) and when I tested the
fan with the back off the noise was much louder! It was then that I spotted
it has a motor driven spindle for the flame effect. The motor has clearly
stalled, slipped a cog or some other mishap.

So, at the end of the day, not the fan heater motor at all! Apologies to
all those that I misled.

Tim

Glad you got there, now we search for the flame motor?

"Tim+" wrote in message
...
Capitol wrote:
Tim+ wrote:
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it
seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the
motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but
I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to
source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim

Sounds like a bearing problem to me. I'd pull out the motor, remove the
end bearing plates, give them a thorough clean then soak the bearings in
3 in 1 oil to see if it's just dry phosphor bronze bushes. If it's got
ball bearings, I'd replace them and pray! then refit!


Umm, "The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing." Freely AND
smoothly. If you spin the motor whilst powered on the the fan only
setting, there's no apparent torque being generated by the motor. It
doesn't run briefly and then grind to a halt (or at least it doesn't run
any further than it would with no power at all).

Sounds more like fan speed controller problem. Tho its hard to see
why it makes a grumbling noise when its on the full fan speed setting.
Maybe just an unusual failure mode in the fan speed controller.

On Thu, 27 Nov 2014 12:37:00 +0000, Tim+ wrote:

My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it
seems to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the
base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the
motor runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but
I'm not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff
bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to
source a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v
14W Fuer FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Some of these fans are thermostatic. Any obvious control there?


--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £30a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

"Tim+" wrote in message
...
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it
seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.


Is there excessive axial play on the shaft?
Occasionally the rotor slides and catches on something.
There's usually a couple of washers on the shaft to locate it.
These motors usually have "shading rings" to make them self starting
(A single thick turn of copper wire)
Make sure the joint on this is intact (usually brazed)

Make sure there's nothing chucking about inside the fan housing that's
catching on the fan.

"Tim+" wrote in message
...
My daughter has a decorative fan heater/fake fire (a Dimplex machine).

Most of the big black box is just for the decorative fake fire and it
seems
to have a pretty conventional 2 or 3kw fan heater built into the base.

On the "fan only" setting, the motor just buzzes. Ditto on the low heat
setting. On high speed (a available when high heat is selected) the motor
runs but makes a continuous grumbling noise.

The air output seems adequate to prevent the elements overheating but I'm
not happy with it. The fan spins freely so it's not a stiff bearing.

If it were *just* a fan heater I'd just chuck it. Is it possible to source
a replacement motor (at an economic cost)? The motor is a 230v 14W Fuer
FEA-J. Google hasn't been my friend so far.

Tim

Smell the windings.
Rarely, there are turns shorted out due to defect in insulation.
Fishy smell indicates overheating.