Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan

Subject: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 12:59 PM

Just sorting out which fans are still working this summer..
One is a table fan, the sort that rotates..

It was cutting out intermittently last summer, and now wouldn't switch on at all.

So I gave it a good dusting, then started dismantling the base
to inspect the internal wiring.
That's when loosening the screws released a light brown fluid
which flowed out the joins...
So I immediately stopped trying to take the base apart.

What's that then, motor lubricant ?.
what else could be a source of liquid...???

I decided to cut the cable off and put it out for recycling.
But I'm still curious what that goo was...

I'm used to sweaty batteries buggering up devices, but this is a new one for me...

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 01:16 PM

Be careful that the internal resistance coils that these fans are someris fitter with are not heating up nd causing the insulating covering to melt - that could cause a fire
Your nose should give you a clue - it usually smells like fish glue
It's worth taking the covering off the base to see what's happening ut be sure to cover your desk - it can be a pig to get off
Lubricants on desk fans are minimal
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 01:18 PM

It isn't spilled Guinness, is it !!!
Jim

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: peteglasgow
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 01:24 PM

fish glue?! WTF?

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 04:52 PM

I've had a pair of table lamps about 10 years ago that started to smell of fish when they were about 3 years old. Only ponged when they were hot.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 06:05 PM

Your lamp has got diarrhoea.

Its your own fault. your support for the EEC has led you to feed it gooey French cheese, spicey German sausages and , and low quality warm water fish from seas which foreigners have been crapping in. Dirty buggers the lot of them!

A diet of British farm eggs will set it right. Eggs are very binding.

I doubt your lamp will be capable of squeezing more than one decent sized turd a week, but it will be a turd of a satisying firmness - the kind of turds that built the empire.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 06:28 PM

The ancient theory of the elements and humours explains this. The point of a fan is counteract an excess of choler (heat and dryness) in the room, and the antithetical humour is the cold and damp one, black bile, the humour of melancholy. Clearly some of it has got stuck inside, and the dark slime your fan is leaking is concentrated depression.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Jul 19 - 12:02 PM

fish glue?! WTF?

Bakelite is made from fish bones and when it starts over-heating it smells vaguely fishy. Overheating is usually from contacts/joints that are going high resistance. A bit of heat causes copper to expand, and the deformation from screws in the joint, which contract when cold. This then causes a bit more resistance which causes more heating. A vicious cycle then takes place which may take years but if the fuse or junction box is Bakelite ... it starts to cook. And smell. Not many of those installations left but I have experienced 4 fish smells in the last 25 years and they were all Bakelite, solved by replacing with modern hard plastic.

As to the liquid, it is most likely something that got inside sometime in the past. And a brew is implicated. Could be tea, how likely is that?

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Jul 19 - 12:08 PM

The Russians did it! :)

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Jul 19 - 12:18 PM

Mr Red - that explains the mysterious fishy smell of old light bulb fittings...

I'd say 100% certain no liquids got in.
Unless it's a by-product of manufacture...???

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 04 Jul 19 - 12:19 PM

btw.. brand new from Argos a few years ago...

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 11:23 AM

I know lots of things that are made of bakelite --
like the old plugged in telephone receivers --
but I never knew that bakelite
was made of fish bones.
Thanks, you taught me something new today.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 11:34 AM

if you were a fish, you would know that instinctively...

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 01:34 PM

Fishy smell = amines: vaguely remember that from chemistry days!

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 04:26 PM

yes you get it with fish, as well.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 04:45 PM

what about the fish that got very confused
when unkind shoal mates
told her she smelled like an old pussy...

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: robomatic
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 05:43 PM

Bakelite hasn't been in use for (lots and lots of) years, so if this thing was purchased recently, that's right out.
If it's recent, it might've been made in China. Maybe they found a way to incorporate fish gizzards in the insulation.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 04:12 PM

Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan

Probably old stock from June 2016. People keep telling me that that was when the brown stuff hit the fan.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 04:25 PM

Well either it was taken from outside our gate last Friday morning by the recycle team ,
or some fool nicked it before the lorry arrived...

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 12:03 AM

Today, I plugged in a table fan that hadn't been used for a year or so. No brown fluid seeped out! It's good to know that the problem punkfolkrocker encountered doesn't seem to have spread to the US.

I suppose the fact that US and UK appliances use different plugs provides a measure of protection. Until some jackass flies in with an adapter secreted in his luggage....

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 12:13 AM

Well.. as far as I can guess, if it wasn't lubricant seeped out of the motor,
then maybe something inside melted and remained in liquid form for a year
since the fan was last used...???

Is that even possible...?????

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Mr Red
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 02:44 AM

A lot of old cheap electrical products use wax to insulate and glue the windings of motors & transformers together. If the motor overheated it would melt. Maybe the heat would change the nature of the substance so it remained liquid. It would be a design feature to prevent the wax gumming up the motor and waggle mechanism. Which if that didn't happen would cause a much more catastrophic failure.

Just guessing but with experience of electricals & design.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 05:03 AM

Another component you might find in the base is a motor run capacitor.

There are even oil filled versions of these but I‘m not sure that would be the case with your desk fan.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 06:13 AM

It was a budget priced fan purchased from Argos within the last 3 to 5 years...

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 06:50 AM

Our pair probably match that (or Amazon) description.

I've not taken either of those apart but would guess they are similar to this in the base. Clip is in "foreign" but there should be enough to follow.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 07:17 AM

As I said, last year the fan started cutting out intermittently.
Jiggling the cable at the point it entered the base seemed to fix it.
I just presumed a loose connection, but didn't bother having a look inside.
This year the fan wouldn't switch on at all.
So I unscrewed the plastic bottom of the fan,
then found an inner base secured tightly with triangular socket screws.
As soon as I found the right tool and loosened them,
the light brown oily substance started seeping out.
I'd hope it wasn't toxic, but didn't want to find out.

So I stopped immediately and screwed the outer base back on.

The oil filled capacitor sounds plausible.
Are they used in new Chinese manufactured household electrical products...?
If so, could it have started leaking last year, causing the intermittent failure of the fan to spin...???

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 07:34 AM

It's all guess work on my part, pfr and I'm no electrical
engineer, etc.

The oil filled versions I found on a search have looked to me to be for bigger equipment than a desk fan.

I'd guess the use of a single phase induction motor with a capacitor is common for AC fans. It seems to be one of there uses...

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Jul 19 - 02:44 PM

An oil filled capacitor would be a plausible answer. If the oil leaked out and the with reduced capacity the fan would stop or fail to work properly. And you would have oil or some fairly mucky glutinous mess.

The capacitor just alters the phase on one of the two motor windings. To give it a little bit of a rotating magnetic field. Single phase motors have to have tricks like that to get started, but don't need them to run.

Oil filled capacitors were not that common in my days as an apprentice. But are reserved for relative heavy duty or for cheapness. And the oil would be brown.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Jul 19 - 04:53 PM

brown liquid ...

when you get old, it starts seeping out.

if you're lucky enough to still have fans, it seeps out of them too. I have found.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: BobL
Date: 11 Jul 19 - 03:00 AM

An oscillating fan will have a load of gears to drop the motor speed down to he speed of the oscillations. Gears need lubrication. Oil-filled gearbox?

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Jul 19 - 03:18 AM

if you're lucky enough to still have fans, it seeps out of them too. I have found

I have heard it called leaky gut. MS sufferers do talk about it amongst themselves - I am told.

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Jul 19 - 10:25 AM

.. or the never ending arse wipe...

Bowels are a primary topic of conversation with my old mum...

Subject: RE: Tech: Brown fluid seeps out base of table fan
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Jul 19 - 10:53 AM

Btw.. what's the temperature in the UK we could expect fans to no longer be effective,
when all they will do is circulate hot air.
Even at risk of the fan motor over heating and further warming up the air it pushes out...???