Hello,

Hopefully someone can shed some light..

I have a fan with some sort of fancy electrical control board. The fan does not move (no humming - nothing - no power) although the fancy switchboard lights up. I want to try to bypass the control board and wire the fan motor directly to the live wire.

HOWEVER - the control board sends THREE live wires to the motor, as well as a neutral and ground wire.
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The three wires are for lo/med/hi and they all seem to wire into the coils attached to single threads of coil. The neutral wire has a small circuit thingo in the loop and goes through a black box.

Can anyone explain what these things are?or how this setup functions?
I do not know enough about electrics to diagnose this (I was hoping for a simple two wire setup- 40 years too late I think). Is there any test I can do to find out if the motor is working? I really just want to turn it on and off at the wall.


I have attached some pictures - not sure if you can make out all the threads?
BLUE=neutral/RED-WHITE-BLUE=live/
Circuit board shows original wiring - you can see the wires where I've snipped them off (rhs and lower edge).

Any help greatly appreciated.. I hate throwing things away that probably work!

THNAKS

greenb1

If your located in the USA, even Canada has their own similar rules, any electrical device must be used as it was built from the manufacturer. Any modifications will void the UL listing.

To diagnosis if the motor works or not requires using a test meter, usually some sort of Digital Volt Ohm meter.Then having the knowledge of how the meter works, and of the circuit(s) being tested.

What concerns me also is those fine copper wires I see to the left, and any connections to those, or exposed copper. These wires are usually only insulated with a thin varnish.

Is saving a few bucks with this thing bursting into flames and losing life or property?

Hi tkrussell, thanks for your reply.
I kind of assumed that this operation would void any kind of listing. I do understand enough to know what I'm doing and not to do anything really stupid - obviously I'm not about to tape the whole thing together, plug it in and wander off for lunch. The whole system is fused at the plug (UK).
Also, if I had a multimeter that'd be great.
I'm really just asking if anyone can explain how the three live wires and the boxes interract? Do the r/w/bl wires each power a separate set of coils? And if so, how are these coils isolated from each other? And what's the box/resistor for?

Thanks

Without knowing the make and model number of the unit you are trying to modify, there is no way for anyone to know the purpose of each wire.

It would be unethical to for anyone to help you modify the unit.

A fuse may not prevent loss of life or property for a miswired or poorly modified unit.

Working on electrical without a meter is like a blind person trying to drive a vehicle.