HELP - fan not blowing


 
A

Andrew Flusche

TVWBB Member
I used my brand new HM 4.1.4 successfully a couple weeks ago. All worked as planned. I carefully put it away. I wrapped the fan & can attachment assembly in a baggie, rubberbanded it, and put my WSM grill cover on.

I've got the smoker fired up right now, and the fan is supposed to be at 100%, yet it's not on at all.

How can I troubleshoot this quickly and try to fix it? Maybe water somehow got into the fan and killed it. Or maybe my connections are loose.

Thanks in advance!

PS: Live cook here: http://smokeyfrancis.dyndns.org/luci
 
Update - I have a basic voltage tester, and I've confirmed that power is getting to the fan itself. The only conclusion I can come to is that the fan is dead. I guess I'm disabling it for this smoke and using the HM as a temp gauge only.

:(
 
If the fan is handled roughly (or by the wires) the wires can come off the solder joints on the fan. Look where the wires attach to the fan (you may need to pull back the sticker) to see if both wires are still soldered on. I've repaired my fan wire connections a time or two after handling it carelessly... I've used my fan through heavy rain and KNOW it's gotten soaked many times, so I'm not sure water would kill it so easily. I've also left the fan out in the weather for weeks at a time and that didn't kill it either...
 
i used the copper pipe method of getting the air into my Akorn. First time around i had the pipe pushed in too far and it would let the fan spin. Can check that route as well as connections
 
Thanks Albert!

Unfortunately, neither avenue helped. The wires are solidly connected to the fan, and nothing is obstructing the fan wheel itself.

But thank you for the ideas!
 
You can just jam the red wire inside the plug from your wall wart, making sure the wire is all inside (not out at the edge and/or hitting the outer ring) then tap the black wire to the outer ring. Either be very careful not to short the inner connector to the outer ring when you insert the red wire, or insert the red wire while the wall wart is not plugged in, then plug in the wall wart and tap the ground to the outer ring. 12VDC isn't going to harm anyone, specially while touching just the ground, so don't worry about that.
 
RalphTrimble said:
You can just jam the red wire inside the plug from your wall wart, making sure the wire is all inside (not out at the edge and/or hitting the outer ring) then tap the black wire to the outer ring. Either be very careful not to short the inner connector to the outer ring when you insert the red wire, or insert the red wire while the wall wart is not plugged in, then plug in the wall wart and tap the ground to the outer ring. 12VDC isn't going to harm anyone, specially while touching just the ground, so don't worry about that.
Click to expand...

RESOLVED.

And now to explain why I'm the moron of the day:

I was plugging the fan CAT5 cord into the Pi's CAT5 jack, instead of the one on the HM board. Yep.

But thanks to Ralph's troubleshooting idea, I confirmed that the fan was working fine. Then I started studying the HM board to see if something came loose, and I saw the lonely CAT5 jack that I should've been using.

The good news is that the HM works perfectly, if used correctly. And I put a piece of electrical tape over the Pi jack so this won't happen again.
 
Ahh, good old "user error"... at least you didn't give up on it! I was pretty sure the fan didn't die from water, cause I've actually had enough water go through the fan where it had to slow down to spit it out and that didn't kill it... I would think after this experience you won't need the tape to know when you've got the wrong CAT5 jack....
 
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