fan problem

I'm having a little problem....

I'm running a Hyfire II with the hot air jacket. I have 4 six inch ducts with inline fans leading from the stove to different areas of the house. All the fans are identical with 2 fans plugged into each end of the pigtail. It appears all 4 fans have died at the same time.

I thought at first it was a problem with the stove so I cycled the thermostat (Coaltrol) onto the MAX setting which I knew should cause the fans to go all out and I put a meter on the pigtails and there was power. So I plugged the fans into an extension cord and ..... nothing.

What could cause all the fans to go at once? One fan is about 10-12ft from the stove so I've always worried about over heating it, but could one fan failing cause the rest to fail also??

Any advice will be appreciated...

Kevin

What is the amperage draw of the 4 fans? I am guessing you are running these off a relay from the coaltrol? Can the relay easily handle the current draw of the fans? Maybe one fan went bad and caused a spike in current draw exceeding the capacity of the relay? Try one fan at a time to see if another clue pops up. A lot of guesses on my part so I could be heading a completely wrong direction!

Heat could have caught up with you. And yes, when one failed, the others would have been hit with that much more heat resulting in quicker failure of the others.

This is all particularly true if you were running off the speed controlled convection output of the Coal-trol. By running the fans at lower speeds you may well have accelerated their failure in that hot environment.

When you get them replaced I'd suggest increasing the CFM setting to its maximum (50) and if possible moving the fans further from the stove. Also check to see what your fans are rated at for ambient heat and make sure they are well above the max of what you're going to encounter at the position in the pipe you mount them. No way to tell what this is going to be without running them, so I'd suggest getting one fan, mount it and hook it up and run the stove full out for a while then go to the CFM screen, this will run the fan at the minimum speed it will run which should create a worst case heat environment for a given fan, measure the temp in the pipe before the fan and see if it is in spec for the fan. If it is over, increase that CFM setting to its maximum value and take a reading again to see if it improves or not.

Some duct fans are not rated very high, could have had too much heat, are they rated for 150+ Degrees?

Did you have them plugged into the CoalTrol? It can only take like 2-3 amps for Convection Fan outlet. If so, maybe you are drawing too much thru the CoalTrol.

Post the make and model of the fans. Detailed information makes
for better guesses as to what the problem could be.

These are the fans (6") I was using. Seems like they should have been ok. I can't find anything else that even comes close to those specs. Was the .64 amps too much for the stove? That would have been a max of 2.56 amps.

Specs say they have a one shot fuse. Is it OK ?

I would think they are okay, But not sure how well they respond the variable speed? Certain motors cannot handle low speeds or lower voltage. Maybe you had the CFM ? setting on the coaltrol too low for the motors to respond and possible burn out the thermo fuse or the motor itself.?

I would check with mfr to see they can be controlled with variable speed input voltage, etc....

And remember to increase the CFM setting to it's maximum, this should keep the motors cooler and ensure you aren't in a situation where they are being powered but are not turning.

WNY wrote:I would check with mfr to see they can be controlled with variable speed input voltage, etc....

Yeah, that was the problem. They did make it two full winters though...lol It does surprise me they all went out with-in 24hrs of each other.

For reasons I don't completely understand, they said I could buy a variable speed switch from them and the fans would be fine.

pvolcko wrote:And remember to increase the CFM setting to it's maximum, this should keep the motors cooler and ensure you aren't in a situation where they are being powered but are not turning.

I'm having trouble with this, I can't seem to find the cfm setting.

I'm not exactly sure which model of Coal-trol I have, I want to say it's either the Standard or Standard+.

CFM is in the advanced menu: http://nepacrossroads.com/about6316.html#p63592

Default is 30, recommend setting it to 50 for your situation.

I have a number of fans distributing air from my Poconos. They are not connected to the stove air directly. These were the cheapest and best fans I could find and they blow more air and are reliable. To me electric motors run best flat out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSr10wh4cB0

However ,I am not an engineer so take my advice with a pinch of salt.

pvolcko wrote:CFM is in the advanced menu: http://nepacrossroads.com/about6316.html#p63592

Default is 30, recommend setting it to 50 for your situation.

Thanks for the info.

Do you think making this change would keep the fans from failing or at least last significantly longer without making any other changes or do you think I need a different set-up altogether. This set-up worked really well until now, so if I can get the fans to last even 5-7 yrs instead of 2-3, I could live with that. I'm not looking for a guarantee, just an opinion.

pvolcko wrote:CFM is in the advanced menu: http://nepacrossroads.com/about6316.html#p63592

Default is 30, recommend setting it to 50 for your situation.

I hate being a pest, but my Coal-trol CFM setting only goes from 1 to 6, default was on 1. If I run through the numbers, the fans seem to run constantly on settings 2-6, they start running at 2 slowly and by 6 they are running all out. I only tested at each setting for a few minutes.

Btw...I don't have the new fans yet so this is with the factory fans. I had taken the factory fans off for my set-up but with the other fans down I wanted to have something to wash the heat off the stove.

Thanks again....