Quote:
Originally Posted by TYR
We have a 2009 Montana 3585SA.
The Fantastic Fan in the bathroom will not open, either on the automatic or manual settings. The black knob on the fan turns in the appropriate direction, but the vent will not open. Dave was just up on the roof seeing if there was an obstruction, but found none. I checked the 4 amp fuse on the fan and it looks okay.
Coincidentally, the smoke alarm in the hall was beeping yesterday. Dave checked the battery, which was okay, plugged it all back in and it was fine.
Anyone have any ideas or suggestions on the fan? We have no shower facilities and sure miss the fan!
We seem to keep having minor electrical gremlins . . . landing gear sometimes blows the inline fuse, already blown some light bulbs, etc. Perhaps coincidences . . .
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3120 Dometic/Fantastic fan lift cover motor.
Since new, one of our roof fans has been super sluggish raising the vent and sometime stops halfway. Today was the day I was going to find out why? I checked the voltage at the motor and it was 13.2v, so I removed the motor and put it across a new battery as a double check and it remained sluggish. Suspecting that maybe the gearbox attached to the motor might be the cause, turning it by hand on the bench is appeared normal, so I figured it must be electrical and inside the motor. The brush box and motor end cap is the black piece in the attached picture at the bottom of the picture and it held in place by four metal tabs. (see the red arrows)
I bent these all back and pulled the brush box off the end of the motor. The armature/commutator and brushes were covered in a black thick oily residue. I carefully cleaned the commutator with CRC and then wiped it dry with an clean cloth. The brushes are actually two very thin spring steel arms that seem quite flimsy, but considering the motor doesn't work for very long, hard, or often, they are obviously adequate. I needed to make up a little spring retainer for the brushes, so that I could get the motor end cap back on and there is provision in the plastic end cap for this to fit. I had resigned myself to spending the $50 required for a new motor/gearbox before I started this job and was just really interested why a new motor would fail almost when new? As I had more or less destroyed the four locking tabs, I just held the end in place with my hand after finishing the assembly and tried the motor again on a separate battery I have and now it worked perfectly at 17rpm as required. So currently, I have the black end cap/brush box sitting in my vice waiting for the araldite to dry overnight and I will then refit it. Pictured is the motor/gearbox hanging from the underside of the roof vent, so I could record the part number. I googled this before I undertook the job and couldn't find anyone else that had looked into why these things fail at times. So if it happens on yours and you are a bit of a DIY'er, give it a go.