Hi,
We’ve got a number of ceiling fans in our house, several of which hum while on. All of the fans are on dimmers but not all of them have the humming problem (at first I thought dimmers might be the problem). Any ideas here to help troubleshoot this would be appreciated…
Dave
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Replies
teach them the words..problem solved! 20 bucks please.
The Morphine s eems to do no good at all..I'd run all the way if I would not fall...
Fer $20, you oughtta head over there and teach `em the words yerself!
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He would go over to teach the words, but he's like you, he don't know them either.
Hum ME Hube....you must need more calcium in your diet, always lookin for a boner to chew on.
We don't need any more trolls ..go back under your rock and eat some slugs.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
The Morphine s eems to do no good at all..I'd run all the way if I would not fall...
on ceiling fans hum, some do , some dont. not much you can do, turn the tv volume up.
Does it work on HUBE? Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
The Morphine s eems to do no good at all..I'd run all the way if I would not fall...
don,t you know?
At least your consistent.
Hey, you are good at diet diagnostics. A lot better than your so-called construction advice
Oh....I know the words. Problem is I`m tone deaf.
I`m a hummer myself.
Actually....more a whistler.
DW is the hummer of the household.
But she`s a hella lot more an twenty bucks.
ATTENTION FELLOW BREAKTIME MEMBERS:<!----><!---->
If you`d like to discuss topics other than home building, come on down to the Woodshed Tavern. Great bunch of guys and gals letting off a little steam about everything and anything. Its not a special club, but.....as of Monday, March 14, the Tavern folder will go behind an access wall. Only those who request access to this folder by contacting [email protected] will be able to view and participate in discussions there.
Edited 6/4/2005 4:58 pm ET by JAYBIRD
How would you know it's more than $20....?
Cause I cant afford her.
ATTENTION FELLOW BREAKTIME MEMBERS:<!----><!---->
If you`d like to discuss topics other than home building, come on down to the Woodshed Tavern. Great bunch of guys and gals letting off a little steam about everything and anything. Its not a special club, but.....as of Monday, March 14, the Tavern folder will go behind an access wall. Only those who request access to this folder by contacting [email protected] will be able to view and participate in discussions there.
Wow..ya can't?
I just used some 151 Rum, no problem..LOL (G)
( a fifth was about 17 bucks)... Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
The Morphine s eems to do no good at all..I'd run all the way if I would not fall...
I don't have the answer, but I have had a couple of experiences on this:
On one job, the customer had a dimmer that had a little hole with an adjustment screw that stopped the humming.
Another job, the wrong speed control caused humming, the right one didn't.
I have seen fans that would hum on speed controls that wouldn't on their internal speed selector.
As I understand it, the speed controls "knock some of the teeth" out of the alternating current "wave" - it's full voltage, but "less teeth", which reduces speed.
On the other hand, I think some of the better fans have different windings for different speeds, and maybe they are non hummers.
The fans I have are "Regency's". They look decent -fit and finish-wise, the dimmers have a little blue screw on the face of them that I tried adjusting (oh, these are fan dimmers). If I adjusted to the "L" low setting I got the least hum. I also got the least speed out of the fan. I'm going to check the manuals now and see if I can find out where they were made and how expensive they were...Thanks Fonzie and all of you who chimed in...
Espo,Obviously there are some on here who understand the "deep things" of this, but I have seen what you describe - don't know exactly what "waves" that adjustment screw "lines up". I think you are supposed to have your fan set in the high speed position then control with your wall speed control. Still I have seen some expensive fans/controls that hum. It is irritating.
IF you are a total DIY, the fix for the hummers is to dissassemble, rig a clamp fixture for the stator windings, dip (preferably vacuum impregnate - I use a big 'ol pressure cooker for fan motor sizes) in an electrical varnish (Glyptol, DC997, etc., some type will be avaliable at Grainger) You will need an old oven to bake it in also with the core tightly clamped.
Other non DIY solution is to replace the hummers. Cheaper in time and effort to replace worst offenders. Can you say which brand you have now? Chinese motors are notorious for hum, and many actually fail after a few years due to the insulation getting rubbed off the wire due to movement between the winding and the core.
The basic cause of hum is movement of the motor stator caused by magnetostriction (as the motor steel stator is magnetized by the ac sine wave, it stresses itself -think of magnets pulling themselves together). Loose stator laminations worsen the effect and give out higher frequency noise due to laminations hitting each other. A second lesser cause is movement of the windings themselves (wires attract with current in the same direction, reply in opposite).
A regular cheap triac dimmer is controlled to turn on at a time after the ac sine wave has gone thru zero volts - that gives a square edge to the waveform rather than a smooth sine wave, the square waveform edge generates higher frequency magnetostriction and hum noise. The series inductance dimmers/speed controls diminish hum noise (unless the dimmer makes more noise) So, if noise amplitude and frequency increases as you dim the lights, you have a triac or SCR type dimmer.
Your problem may be a simple as different makes of fan, some having poorly bonded windings or laminations, or if all the same make, poor quality control on the stator manufacture, esp if they hum with dimmers clicked to full on.
DW worked for GE at one time routing big 50 ton power transformers from east coast plants thru panama canal and by rail. We toured Glenn Canyon dam just after she had shipped one there many years ago - she then understood why the engineers called them "big hummers".
Try replacing the variable triac dimmer with a 3 position fan speed controller that switches capacitors, as they don't controll the speed by chopping up the wave.
Mike
It's O.k. to think out of the box, Just don't walk off of the plank!
Is the hum related to age of fan?
I have had cheap fans which hummed from the get-go
I also had a pretty nice Hunter Fan that I swore by for the first 2 years--------first year absolutely silent operation----second year---extremely quiet---damn near absolutely quiet
3rd year---hhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmclickhmmmmmmmmmmmmclick hhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmclick
turn that baby up all the way to clickclickclickclickclickclick.
Stephen