Fan stops randomly?


 
J

Justin F

New member
Hey there -

I have a HM 4.3 build which was working great. Then recently, seemingly at random, the fan will just stop spinning. If I unplug the cat5 cable and plug it back in (I hardwired the fan to the cat5 cable to make sure nothing else was causing issues), the fan starts again, will run for a random amount of time (2-60 min, just depends) then stops. The only way to get the fan back on is to unplug and plug it back in (works most times). Reboot of the HM and Pi don't help.

Help? How can I troubleshoot/fix this?

Thanks,
-Justin
 
My guess would be a problematic fan. Try wiring the fan directly to a 6-12v source and see if it remains on for more than 2-60 minutes.
 
I'd check the voltage on the 25V 47uF capacitor when the fan isn't on and see if it has 12V or not. Also check the big MOSFET when it is stopped to see if it is hot at all (it should not be). You need to determine if there's a problem in generating the voltage or delivering it (a problem in the connector or wiring itself). You can also try setting the output mode to "PULSE" in the webui (instead of "VOLTAGE"), which would take the feedback circuit out of the equation as well.

The solder points you should look at start from the BLOW pin and then follow the traces back (the blue line in the troubleshooting image):
 
Justin F said:
Hey there -

I have a HM 4.3 build which was working great. Then recently, seemingly at random, the fan will just stop spinning. If I unplug the cat5 cable and plug it back in (I hardwired the fan to the cat5 cable to make sure nothing else was causing issues), the fan starts again, will run for a random amount of time (2-60 min, just depends) then stops. The only way to get the fan back on is to unplug and plug it back in (works most times). Reboot of the HM and Pi don't help.

Help? How can I troubleshoot/fix this?

Thanks,
-Justin
Click to expand...

I know this is an old post but did you find the solution?

My fan also quit during a cook and since then I wouldn't trust it during a long cook. I have been adjusting the airflow manually since then. I was assuming a component on the board burned up so yesterday I decided to troubleshoot the problem. To my surprise, when I plugged it all up the fan worked. I adjusted the settings for the next 2 hours with the fan and meter laying on the couch and worked fine the whole time. I still don't trust it for a long cook until I do more testing on a real fire.
 
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