Figure this is a relatively common problem so I’m putting together a thread on how the oscillating function breaks, how to fix it, and perhaps how to prevent it, or at least make the fan last longer before it fails.
The cause of failure on mine is the premature wearing of gears in the stepper motor which drives oscillation. Here’s some pictures:
These are the gears attached to the drive shaft and the first gears they interact with inside the stepper motor.
The part number printed on the motor is 28byj46-t026-12v
Why does it fail?
My thinking is that using the oscillation feature while having the fan set to an angle creates a moment arm that the housing doesn’t adequately brace. This introduces an angle and force between the gears of the rotor and the first set of gears they contact inside the motor.
To prevent this from happening, I think you would want to operate the fan in such a way that the housing is directly above and in line with the clamp; in other words, have the fan pointing straight into the room at a 90 degree angle, with no upward or downward inflection. When the fan is taken off of center from the arm, force is applied to the gears which causes premature wear and eventual failure.
Once I get my hands on a replacement motor, I’ll update the thread with the results whether it fixes it or not.
Did you submit a complaint or anything about your fan before? I had 4 of their fans, 2 broke and I just wrote it off and decided to buy thrift store ones instead. I would much prefer to try their new fans, but I don’t have an email from them.
That’s pretty cool right there. I like it. I’ve had nothing but good luck minus a faulty controller. They ran me through some diagnostics and when they found it couldn’t be solved put a new one in the mail for me the same day. Pretty awesome customer service.
I did decide to stay away from the oscillating versions of these fans due to hearing of issues like this though.
From how I was using mine, and how it wore out, I think it had to do with the tilt of the fan when using oscillating mode. The tilt puts extra wear on the gears which eventually grind away completely.
Out of all the replacements only one actually stopped working. The others clicked very bad and also some problem with the usb connection( fan will go from off to the setting that its supposed to be on, and then restart that whole sequence over and over). But aci customer service has been the best I have seen. No questions asked replacements, just ship the old one back. This upgrade you don’t even have to do that!
I actually have 6 of the s6 fans so this is awesome! Only one has actually failed on me and they sent me a replacement sometime ago. I noticed on the one that failed if you have your tents drawing negative pressure it keep the fans from actually moving fully from side to side and then the gears will make and audible click click click and then go the other way till they hit the tent sucked in and click click click. I believe a high CFM fan kit for your tent would fix this issue but this is the only issues I’ve experienced with the fans. When my one fan was going out it wouldn’t stay on anything over 1. Set it on 10 and it would immediately go back to one and keep shutting off randomly so im not sure that was even an oscillating gear failure
