My wife mentioned the exhaust fan in her bathroom stopped working. I verified the plug was still seated and the blower cage spun freely.

I then removed it and went to a different bathroom in the house that has the identical fan. In order to get her fan back up immediately I removed that fan, which I confirmed worked fine and proceeded back to the original bathroom.

Before I installed the pilfered unit I grabbed a multimeter and checked for voltage at the receptacle: 118 vac with switch on, nothing with switch off. Looks good.

Put the donor fan in and nothing. Doesn’t come on. Wtf.

Naturally I then went and installed the suspected bad fan in the other bathroom and it works just fine. Both fans work in Bathroom B, neither works in Bathroom A.

Bathroom A shows voltage at the receptacle, but doesn’t work still. What am I missing?

The neutral?

quote:

Originally posted by stoic-one:
The neutral?

2 contact only… it is the type of fan that has a frame that contains a hardwired 2 contact receptacle and the motor assembly has a 2 contact plug as part.

Certainly possible I’m not understanding something.

It looks pretty much like this, except it is mounted to a metal frame and the whole frame drops out of the ceiling where it screws different a different hardwired frame.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Broan...th-Fan-Motor/1092217

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Br...BN/202191735#overlay

This is it.

Check wire nuts to fixture. You can read 120 with no load, if there is a bad/weak connection due to corrosion you may not be able to maintsin 120 under load, in other words not enough current getting to fan to spin it.

quote:

Originally posted by PeteF:
Check wire nuts to fixture. You can read 120 with no load, if there is a bad/weak connection due to corrosion you may not be able to maintsin 120 under load, in other words not enough current getting to fan to spin it.

I had something like this before. It's why I use WAGO now for ceiling fans, etc, since it's also often solid to stranded, and that's a bad connection.

Remember a fan needs a big enough oomph to get started, that's why they don't go off-low-med-high, they go off-hi-med-low.

quote:

Originally posted by PeteF:
Check wire nuts to fixture. You can read 120 with no load, if there is a bad/weak connection due to corrosion you may not be able to maintsin 120 under load, in other words not enough current getting to fan to spin it.

I will do that. Thanks

Had a bad motor in mine. Cheap and easy to replace.

quote:

Originally posted by K0ZZZ:
...Remember a fan needs a big enough oomph to get started, that's why they don't go off-low-med-high, they go off-hi-med-low.

Dang, I always wondered why that was. Makes perfect sense now that someone points it out.

quote:

Originally posted by PeteF:
Check wire nuts to fixture. You can read 120 with no load, if there is a bad/weak connection due to corrosion you may not be able to maintsin 120 under load, in other words not enough current getting to fan to spin it.

Ok I checked these connections. White to white, black to black. I undid them, one at a time, and reconnected. No corrosion observed. Nuts are nice and tight. The copper of the wire looked good and not oxidized.

Connections are tight and secure but still not working.

I wanted to be sure that I didn’t get the two fans confused so I took it to a different outlet in a different room and it worked fine.

The mystery continues.

Should I cycle the gfi breaker or whatever it is called?

Edit: I forgot to add that the noninsulated ground wire is not attached to anything.

Attache the ground and my bet is it’s the switch in the wall, if the fan works in another room.

Switches go bad, and most people read the switch at the screws on the sides-where you are getting a reading from the wire attatched to it.

Swap out a single pole switch from somewhere else and see.

^^^ Yep, my guess is in the switch too.

I can switch out the switch, but to be clear I never tested anything at the switch. I tested for voltage at the receptacle, and it was there.

I also wondered if the receptacle itself is bad. I’m not sure I’d be able to get a replacement of of those, but I suppose I could hardwire the fan straight to the romex?

If there's power at the receptacle, then it's not the switch.
You know that the fan is good, having tried it in another room. You know that the good fan from the other room doesn't work in this room.
Attach that ground wire and let us know if it did the trick or not.

That fan should not need a ground to work . Is the plug making a tight connection in the receptacle ?

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
That fan should not need a ground to work . Is the plug making a tight connection in the receptacle ?

It feels solid with no wiggle, but honestly the female receptacle seems to be the last possibility. I am considering just hard wiring the fan to the romex. Plenty of room and wire to make that happen. There is already a switch controlling it so that isn’t a problem.

I admit I don’t KNOW that the receptacle is the problem but this plan would eliminate a point where the problem might be. Thoughts?

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
That fan should not need a ground to work . Is the plug making a tight connection in the receptacle ?

It feels solid with no wiggle, but honestly the female receptacle seems to be the last possibility. I am considering just hard wiring the fan to the romex. Plenty of room and wire to make that happen. There is already a switch controlling it so that isn’t a problem.

I admit I don’t KNOW that the receptacle is the problem but this plan would eliminate a point where the problem might be. Thoughts?

It can't hurt to try .

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
That fan should not need a ground to work . Is the plug making a tight connection in the receptacle ?

It feels solid with no wiggle, but honestly the female receptacle seems to be the last possibility. I am considering just hard wiring the fan to the romex. Plenty of room and wire to make that happen. There is already a switch controlling it so that isn’t a problem.

I admit I don’t KNOW that the receptacle is the problem but this plan would eliminate a point where the problem might be. Thoughts?

The female receptacle is the most likely culprit based on your testing. I would plug something else into it and see if it turns on/off. Hard wiring straight in would be a good way to go also.

Check the connections at the switch

quote:

Originally posted by cheeze:
Check the connections at the switch

I'd definitely do this before altering the fans wiring.