Fixing a fart extraction fan

One of the Electronics Magazines once gave away stickers of gates for one to attach to the top of 8/14/16 pin packages. Which certainly helped for prototyping.

Andrew Donaldson

Interesting circuit design, many thanks for the video! After having seen the resistor 'heat source' inside I'm not so keen anymore on replacing the extractor fans we have (in bathroom and toilet) with one of this kind.

Hagen

Oh, you actually mean a real fart extractor, I though F.A.R.T. SRL had branched out of transformers.

evilution

It's white. I thought it might have been grey.

Big Clive

It would require a slight circuit change. Possibly just another diode. But a resistor is probably cheaper.

Big Clive

Could the resistor be replaced with a dropper capacitor to make this thing run less hot, or would that require other changes as well?

Circuitmike

After reading some of the youtube comments left in the past you do know this is not the only faulty fan. 🤦‍♂️🤣👍

DC Allan

Is the white wire white or grey? Grey would be more logical as brown-b lack-grey are the modern phase colours.

Did you remember to empty all the farts before turning it on?

Raven Luni

Good stuff!

Michael Thompson

Pretty sure this is what happened to my friend's slow cooker... she was already set on buying a new one so it was no loss if I messed up the PCB... and I messed up the PCB. Perfect. Now I have some misc. parts because I extracted everything from the board that I might want for future tinkering and put the remains of the controller in the 'haz waste recycling' box for proper disposal.

Ryan Coleman

They'd have to be kept inside the case, but they could have been put on extended wires with heatshrink and tucked to the sides away from the resistor.

Big Clive

The circuit has to run on after the switch feed has been disconnected. The timing is long enough that the capacitor would have to be huge.

Big Clive

I would change it anyway. It's clear there's been a heat issue over time.

Big Clive

The new era MMLC ceramic capacitors have huge values now, but come with their own issues. Mainly cracking and shorting out.

Big Clive

i recently redesigned a colleagues circuit based on a microontroller, software, and a whole host of support components to a single NAND gate. Using a simple logic chip for a simple 2 signal logic operation never occured to him.

GL_1_Code1_1A

I love finding old 74 and 4000 series chips still out in the wild. It’s great to see that microcontrollers haven’t invaded every aspect of our lives just yet.

Matt Harrison

Soldering breed is not only good for de-solder work, it's also a good alternative for a flexible (unprotected) wire connection - or even, if fanned out, a good corona brush for your ion generator.

Zeedijk Mike

Also, wouldn't it have been a better idea to power the whole low-voltage section from the L-SW instead of L — and possibly increase the capacitor you replaced for the circuit to be able to run the circuit long enough after the L-SW goes off? Would probably get rid of the heat problem and best of all, avoid wasting 10 kWh of energy annually :)

Jonas

Would it have been a good idea to relocate the capacitor to a cooler neighbourhood with the help of e.g. wires or would it introduce other issues?

Jonas

To North Americans "electric shower solenoid" sounds very dangerous! (Yes, I've seen BC's clip that shows how they work).

Peter Laws

Fume extraction - Just used a fan like this and some square elbows and a sock full of an IKEA cooker hood filter granules (lowest-ish cost for activated charcoal). Because I now have to work in the lounge, my wife has the work room as her office since she is working from home. The fan I have in the bathroom has the switch wire triggered from the electric shower solenoid. DIY hack.

John Harrison

Yes, agree re the schmitt trigger, but in this case, that would lengthen the timeout, as it would have to discharge past center rail and then the hysteresis too! It might also have stopped or reduced the phase angle control caused by the dirty supply. The thing you failed to do in that vid is prove the innocence of the timeing cap. It might have run for a few seconds as you showed, but chances are that one could be on the way out as well. I would have at least run it to see if it stopped, and how long, or more likely just replaced both caps and be done with it!

William Taylor

This makes me want to invent a capacitor to replace electrolytics. Something less expensive so it takes over. ... Yeah, I got nothing.

Nani Isobel

I'm so used to replacing electrolytics in retro computers and consoles that the first suspect is Caps in anything over 5 years old that runs hot.

Wim

You'd probably have changed both anyway.

Big Clive

Yep as you were describing the fault - cap came to mind, those boards do get toasty (and seen a few cases discoloured/ melted ) enjoyed it and liked seeing the fix. Surprised you didn’t do it as a two part video; first part description and inspection, second part (after people comment ) the diagnosis / fix

RDM

I replaced one of those units recently as the fan motor died. The board and components around the 22K resistor were even more toasty and blackened than your example!

Bit spooky, I had a Manrose Gold fan fail in my bathroom last month, have to say I just replaced it as I thought about sending it to you Clive. Now I know what the failure was I'll keep it as a spare. Cheers Clive.

Keith Pawson

My first thought was "Capacitor". You have taught us well Master.

Mike Hughes

I guessed capacitor but, not the correct one unfortunately. Close but no donut.

Go BC🎊 talk dirty CMOS ❤️

Cerity