51–60 of 63 posts
I've "fixed" countless noisy computer fans over the years with simple lubrication. Peel off the label, remove the bung, pry out the circlip and pull the rotor + blade assembly out, clean off any remaining old grease/oil, and then pack the bushing with petroleum jelly before reinserting the shaft. Reassembly is the reverse of disassembly.
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I’ve been tearing things open after ignoring the “dangerous if opened” stickers since I was 8 years old. I’m in my 30s, you’d think something would have caused me harm by now, but no.
There's a fair bit of survivorship bias in this. That said, modern power supplies use "bleeder resistors" to discharge the capacitors once powered off.
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I ran into this same setup with a microwave that failed in a few months after purchase and Walmart. Tried to deal with the manufacturer, but they couldn’t help and sent me to the retailer. Went to the store, popped it up on the counter, had a short conversation and got the expected “you have to deal with the manufacturer”. Is there anything else I can help you with today? Actually yes. Can you throw that out for me?…
My experience with cheap modern microwave failures has been the door sensor failing, which for safety ofc prevents the magnetron from running. I had one fail in about 2 months, thankfully fixable with a $10 sensor and 15 minute of work. Same goes for a lot of appliances, repaired a dryer that had its door sensor fail (in fact, they all tend to use identical door sensors as far as I've seen, dryers and washing machine…
There is no way of easily changing this bulb (inside the main casing with no access panel for the bulb) so for want of a single in-line fuse, the entire microwave was rendered scrap[0] by the lifetime of a light bulb.
[0] - Except for the fact that I care not for electrical safety "DO NOT OPEN" warnings of doom due to being actually competent with handling high voltage equipment and being able to do a board level repair on the burned out trace without touching the very large capacitors associated with the very high voltage side controlling the magnetron...
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> There's a fair bit of survivorship bias in this. Is there? This kind of statement has the potential to exhibit survivorship bias, but I feel like the opposite—"12-year-old dies replacing a power supply fan"—would make headlines. Definitely haven't seen that. Capacitors should be respected for sure, but people don't routinely die in DIY electronics tasks.
Electrical injuries claim some 1000 lives per year in the states, and 20% of all electrical injuries are sustained by children (lethal and non-lethal). I don't think every electrocuted child makes even local headlines.
An important side note is that Cooler Master’s “10-year Warranty” is garbage: > I looked at Cooler Master’s warranty, and for issues within the first two years you have to deal with the retailer. That would be Amazon in my case. So I looked at Amazon’s information on warranty issues. Their policy is that if it’s more than 30 days since purchase, you have to send it off to a third-party repair center and wait for them…
In Europe, it actually matches the law, it is actually better. - You have a 14 days retraction period, where you can send back the item and get your money back, defect or not. Amazon gives you 30 days and free return shipping. - Legal warranty is 2 years and is provided by the seller, not the manufacturer. It is Amazon in this case, but it could be a brick and mortar shop or any other seller, including independent se…
It helps prevent ewaste.
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Never had much success doing this. At best, it worked for a few days, maybe weeks before buzzing again. I tried a variety of lubricants, stuff that I had on hand (WD-40, 3-in-1, lithium grease...) but not petroleum jelly though. So unless it is a weird fan I can't find elsewhere, now, I just buy a new one.
WD-40 isn't a lubricant, 3 in 1 is really a cutting oil and too thin, and I can't imagine lithium grease doing well in a high speed bearing...it's really only good because I think it's less toxic. These are all real thin and not appropriate in a bearing. I'm not sure about petroleum jelly, but as crazy as it sounds I've packed all sorts of bearings including fan bearings with basic synthetic marine grease (the pink s…
WD-40 is a lubricant. The WD-40 company says it is [1], the Wikipedia article says it is, attempts to reverse-engineer the (secret) formula have found compounds typically used as lubricants and it is rather obvious to anyone who has used it.
It is the best lubricant for you application? Probably not, and that includes fans. It is probably not the best at anything unless you have an Atlas missile lying around. It is not the best lubricant, penetrating oil, water displacer, rust protector, etc... but it does all of it to some extent, and it is cheap and convenient.
Anyways, thank you for the suggestion of using gear oil, I didn't try this one and it sounds like a good candidate. I don't have marine grease but what I understand is that it is similar to basic lithium grease but formulated to resist the harsh marine environment (so maybe with some corrosion inhibitors).
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WD-40 isn't a lubricant, 3 in 1 is really a cutting oil and too thin, and I can't imagine lithium grease doing well in a high speed bearing...it's really only good because I think it's less toxic. These are all real thin and not appropriate in a bearing. I'm not sure about petroleum jelly, but as crazy as it sounds I've packed all sorts of bearings including fan bearings with basic synthetic marine grease (the pink s…
> WD-40 isn't a lubricant WD-40 is a lubricant. The WD-40 company says it is [1], the Wikipedia article says it is, attempts to reverse-engineer the (secret) formula have found compounds typically used as lubricants and it is rather obvious to anyone who has used it. It is the best lubricant for you application? Probably not, and that includes fans. It is probably not the best at anything unless you have an Atlas mis…
Marine bearing and chassis grease is really different than white lithium grease. Lithium grease in general probably isn't advisable on a fan the more I think about it as it tends to destroy plastic and rubber. On a real bearing like a wheel bearing even a thin coat of high pressure grease like synthetic marine grease is going to outperform basically everything else (unless you've got an oil pump involved), and again would be the first thing I'd try and pack a bearing of rotating assembly with hands down. t's probably cheaper or about the same if you go pick up something like a tub of Supertech synthetic marine. I'm sure if you go ask somewhere like BobIsTheOilGuy forums someone there will be able to point to an optimal solution.
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The main danger with CRT HV is not the HV itself but what the shock will make you do, such as jump and cut your hand on something sharp in the chassis, or even crack the neck of the tube, or fall and hit yourself. There is very little current available, especially if the set has been off, but it's comparable to a very painful static shock. Instead, the "low" voltage B+ supply is far more dangerous when the set is on,…
Beware. I took a poke from the focus anode of a CRT when I had a job repairing mainframe terminals in the early 80s. I thought I had discharged it, but apparently I didn't. I had to sit down in a quiet room for the rest of the work day, before I could function again. It was probably 13 kV, which was typical for monochrome displays back in the day. Also, anything in a CRT television can kill you because TV's tended to…
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Beware. I took a poke from the focus anode of a CRT when I had a job repairing mainframe terminals in the early 80s. I thought I had discharged it, but apparently I didn't. I had to sit down in a quiet room for the rest of the work day, before I could function again. It was probably 13 kV, which was typical for monochrome displays back in the day. Also, anything in a CRT television can kill you because TV's tended to…
The focus anode is lower voltage (~1kV) but its supply may be capable of higher current.
We had a procedure for discharging it, which I must have bungled.
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Electrical injuries claim some 1000 lives per year in the states, and 20% of all electrical injuries are sustained by children (lethal and non-lethal). I don't think every electrocuted child makes even local headlines.
That's more than an order of magnitude less than fatalities from cars. In my book, that puts it into "be careful" territory but far from "don't even think about it".