What a coincidence! I have a very similar Kitchen-Table-Pressy-Pressy-1000™️ . Great job. I just can't stand bad quality products like this. We'll be installing one in our camper too, and we're happy to pay the price for quality, but surely they could have gone a little bit further with the quality on this one. Especially the corrosion on the PCB. So big thanks for this. It'll save us some head scratching in the future. 😎👍🏻👍🏻
I was able to chat with the folks that make the Maxaire fan today at Overland Expo West, he said that they have a deal to provide their fan rebranded for Ford, but Ford said they needed to make the motor brushless, so now we know what it takes for them to make improvements. It will be a Ford-only exclusive offering for some time, but the motor will be the same form factorwith an -IF suffix. He said it should be available thru Ford parts. Soon.
As I plan my campulance build, I was astounded by the high cost of these fans and their poor apparent quality. And they're the best on the market! This - along with wanting to cover entire roof with solar, and only admitting filtered air - has set me down the path of designing a contained, ducted HVAC system around EBM-Pabst electronically commutated centifugal fans, which have the additional benefit of internal speed control via PWM input (and available in 24V to match my electrical system). Kudos on your first-rate MacGyvering!
The wealth of knowledge you so easily dispense is mind boggling. Thank you for taking the time. On a lighter note your voice ASMR qualities easily overpower the annoying fan noices 😊
Once again, another video of excellent bush fixes by Big John. Awesome - Love the detailed look at how you always come up with a solution with predominately the stuff you have on hand.
Man, I am plumb out of gumption to do something like that anymore, but then I’m not going out of the states and would just replace my fan so good on you for fixing it. Love that mag fix at the end!
This was so helpful, thank you! I only ended up cleaning out my motor and using a little WD-40 on the bearings as I’m on the road with limited tools and supplies. Hoping to swap out the bearings, polish my commutator and maybe shape the brushes a bit (they don’t seem to sit nicely against the commutator). There really has to be a brushless solution out there!
In this case I'd consider the WD-40 to be a solvent to clean the grease out of the bearings... Consider regreasing them by putting them both on the long end of the motor shaft, about 1/2 inch apart and then roll a piece of masking tape 90% around the outer surface. Then fill the void in the middle with some thick grease and wrap all the way around with more tape... Then push the two bearings together, this will force the grease through the bearings and it will come out both sides. Remove all the tape and wipe them down with a paper towel and reinstall... I haven't had to touch mine since doing that.
Bro!! My bearded savi bro !!! I fixed my Fan because of you !!!! Thank you for making me a better man and a better handyman today !!! We need more angels like you in the world. 🙏🏽👏🏽 All I did was take it apart clean it by hand and with the sham wham. And whammm smooth as original. It was driving me nuts when I didn’t have the music on. And was about to just throw oil inside its main shaft. That’s the ignorant me. But a little less ignorant because of you. Now I wonder if the main belt in my diesel transit is having not a bearing sound as I thought but a wear and powder inside the alternator. Cause it’s kind of the same thing but at it’s own annoying frequency. Well see. Thank you again 🙏🏽
A good brush bedding technique is to tape a strip of abrasive tape to the commutator (abrasive facing out) and reassemble the motor. Use a drill or similar to spin the rotor slowly and the abrasive tape will make the brushes conform to the diameter of the new commutator. It won't take long so keep checking progress and when done strip motor and clean out any carbon debris. Don't forget to remove abrasive tape!!
Once again, I love your videos. The style, the info, the electronics, everything. They've become my go-to infotainment! I haven't yet gotten a wemos board but I promise it will happen! I appreciate all the work and effort that goes into these videos. If you ever decide to teach a class or anything like that I'd love to be apart of it.
100% agree! We had to replace the circuit board AND the fan motor after they fried after only 2 years of use. First the PCB went out, got a new one, and then the motor went out, got a new one. We said no more and bought a DC to DC regulator to keep it at exactly 12v.
To anyone considering changing their brushes using this tutorial, do it! The only addition I would add is be careful when changing out your transformer. The metal leads are rather frail so you’ll have to be gentle with them. Otherwise, just make sure you keep track of where everything was located so (take a pic) when you re-solder everything and screw everything back together, you’ll know exactly where to put everything back.
Thank you for this video. It’s to bad no matter the price the RV is it’s all the same cheap crap. Maybe the marine industry is not as bad. Your a real man. Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.
Awesome video again...I think you did everything you could for the brush-less motor too. It made me think of the upgrades they made to the 12 large HVAC fans in the concert/NHL arena I used to work at; so they went from simple 1 speed motors to VFD driven motors, but they made a bad noise; so they changed the sign-wave in the VFD drive to be slightly less efficient and it stopped the noise.
I agree, you need a MUCH smaller motor. Possibly with a gear reduction as brushless motors like higher RPM. Consider a racing drone motor and some 3d printed stuff. They have much thicker shafts with a simple nylock nut. Using a 15a esc and esc tester you probably won't even need a sensored motor.
Dude, amazing. I've been dreaming of a brushless drop in replacement as well. Please make another video or reply here if you ever find a suitable solution. Would it be possible to stick one into the original brushed motor can? - fellow vanlifer Canadian.
You are such a HOOT! Did anyone else catch your flash text at 0:52 minutes about what else condenses and drips? I had to play it at .25 speed to read it...
one thing I would have to suspect is the diameter of the brushless motor, going larger and lower power provides a smoother but weaker motor. This would make the motor more quiet. I developed drones for years before DJI came into the picture. We were into extremely efficient large propeller designs that were very quiet at low RPM. I may look into winding a 3d printed prototype in the near future.
simple: put those small niobium magnets on the outside of each the blades, with your custom wound "firing" coils along the rim of the fan duct for maximum torque, minimum speed and build your own Bendini styled inductive spike re-generator drive.... simple... for YOU !
It's your ESC. I have many similar 6354 and 6374 motors running on electric skateboards I have built, and they do not make noise like this. For reference I utilize castle creations brushless motor controllers. On the VESC style ESC's using "FOC" control will give you quiet performance.
@@Everlanders Fair enough. I didn't have these issues with the hobby king or "enertia boards" varietal of this motor. Maybe they are wound differently. A brushless motor would be nice if you can find one that fits the size/power/noise constraints. Sorry it didn't work out.
@@Everlanders Thanks for your response. I enjoy your videos and your level of detail designing, fabricating and integrating relatively complex systems into your vehicle. Cheers!
Thanks. Sounds like I need to make up an overhaul kit for mine. Guess the fans are expected to get occasional use, not permanent. Pity. Now for the noisy open/close... Those bearings looked sealed from here, but clearly they're not.
@@Everlanders In the middle of a conversion now, will think about how to upgrade afterwards. Seems I need a decent motor, silent lid lift, motor control and radio comms. I think I'll add led lighting at the same time. Love you van build, btw.
I think the solution to using the smaller brushless motor is to build a housing with either gears or a belt and pulley to drive the fan shaft. I would go with making some sort of gear box with some nice ratios for the application. Have the motor mounted on some rubber dampners also. Its going to be tricky.
Thank you so much for all this info! I just ordered all those parts to rebuild my own motor. Have you had better luck with those softer brushes from the link?
Nice job on the repair, and thanks for the break-in tips! I would have tossed it and got a Dometic FanTastic Vent instead. No problems with my MaxxFan yet in our trailer (lifepo4 battery voltages), but I've been tossing around the idea of putting a diode in series with it to drop the voltage a little.
Love all your videos. It's unfortunate I am building a CTC (Cargo Trailer Conversion) and want to implement some of your monitoring and control systems. Loved your latest version of the monitoring system you made while the wife was away. What language am I going to need to learn to implement some of this?
InfluxDB stores the data, and Grafana displays it nicely in a web browser. The real trick is getting your desired data into the Influx Database. For that I use Python, but there are many ways to do it.
Have you ever considered trying to use a fantastic fan motor? It looks like it might be a brushless motor. Might take a little bit of modifications to the maxxfan to get it to mount probably.
Absolutely not, they are brushed motors too... And I've had worse luck with them, much harder to repair because they are sealed motors that I can't repair.
I wish it was true... I hoped very hard that it was true... But this motor (look carefully) has sensors and I couldn't get it to stop cogging. But if you know what changes need to be made in software, please let me know.
You could look for a Sensored brushless motor, those tend to have less cogging, as the ESC doesn't have to guess where the stator is, or one with more poles, as the higher number of poles a brushless has typically the smoother it works. Sucks your diy idea didn't work out due to the extreme noise, would have been great
Would it be a good idea to convert the mechanism, using your brushless motor (seen in this video) and using a gear and belt to drive only the shaft of the old motor without all the stators and rotors that are making all the noise?
instead of the brushless motor, a small rc gas engine would be cool to try :D but seriously I like the repair approach much better than throwing things and buy new, which sadly is less and less avoidable nowadays.
Still better than those annoying shitbox pancake motors that scream when the "bearing" goes bad and buzz when they're new. In hindsight it may just be brush noise but after a lot of hours of use I've only seen them get louder and more annoying. Regarding voltage. That's insane to me that they would sell something like that knowing these systems exceed 14v. I asked the company and they said it isn't an issue. I called BS anyways and used a reg as you stated.
I always wanted a Maxxfan because of the rain proof design, I can't use one though because I don't have space between my existing roof hole where my fantastic vent is located and my solar panels. So my old Fantastic vent is still there My van is 22 years old of which 12 years were owned by me. this fan has been on for most of these 12 years and probably a lot before that. Still going strong I had to oil the lid switch a few times and clean the screen a 100 times but other than that no maintenance. I wonder if that motor could go in the maxxfan?
I really think that if you are going to replace the original motor you need an induction motor. They have no wear parts other than the bearings and are nice an quiet. You already have a place for a dc control board and I bet you could hack together a DC to 3-pahse speed controller that could integrate into your existing control system.
That's along way to go to fix a motor... I almost did the same for my alternator but went to scrap yard instead... also those bearings are double sealed you don't need to or can't oil them... due to the seal..😅 only oil or pack open bearings, sealed ones are.. sealed I guess.. the carbon dust will kill them all eventually....😢
after a year, has the better bearings and brushes helped or still squeaking? I have designed a 3d printed motor, but haven't got around to testing it yet. I'm still cleaning my motor every few months with the stock bearings.
The squeaking is largely due to the brushes, made worse by switching directions back and forth all the time... I've restricted my fan to 1 direction only and have not needed to perform any maintenance for the last year...
@@Everlanders interesting, mine is always the same direction and still squeaks every 1-2 months, We keep them on thermostatic mode one always in and the other out to vent the RV when not used.
Have you ever change out the dc 12 volt maxx air fan with a std. 12v dc motor that can then be turned on at the wall switch and maybe vary the speed that way.
In the larger towns you should be able to find stores that repair electric tools that should carry the brushes. I have had to rebuild drills and such down here.
Did you try using the Field Oriented Control (FOC) method in the ESC software? It generates a pure sine wave instead of the square wave that PWM generates
Ah I was going to ask similar. I believe you get a lot more motor noise with basic 6 step commutation. Sine wave drive should be much quieter but I do believe that when used with BLDC motor you still get some torque ripple. A PMSM (designed to be driven by sine wave) is wound slightly different and reduces the torque ripple.
I had an issue with my max air fan where in hot weather 30C + a component on the circuit board was overheating and the fan would shut down. Its a dam fan thats supposed to be working in the heat!!! I think they are designed very badly but as with most things these days sometimes you have no choice if companies have no competition.
@@Everlanders Ah I managed to get a 2nd board from max air and it seemed to "solve" the issue. However thinking about it I have not been in 30c heat since then so I bet the problem still persists. I just read up what it is. A over current self resetting component? When im back to base I will do that (forgot my soldering iron). Thanks for the tip.
I assumed by the red color that they were sealed, unfortunately they are plastic cages, shielded not sealed... 😔 next time I will source sealed bearings... 👍
I hope this dude's wife appreciates the level of sheer uber-handyman she has. The old saying comes to mind: _If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy._
@Everlanders Love the vid, go a question if you don't mind, with your maxxairfan wifi control using the WeMos boards do you have a way to detect that the fan has been turned on manually by the buttons on the fan and update the relevant virtual pin on the bylnk server and app? This avoids the fan being on when the app says it's off etc.
@@Everlanders that's fair enough, I'm doing the same thing for others systems in my van, the inverter for example I'd like to be able to turn it on though WeMos and the OEM switch. Only way I could think of doing it is to connect the OEM switch to a d1 mini pin and have that edit the virtual to keep both switches in sync
@@jonnyflanders1229 You'll find you don't use the switch in day to day use... but if your dead set on it, just take the switched 12 volts from the switch and put it through a voltage divider or an optocoupler and then read that with the Wemos and report to the server...
Much the same as a brushed motor, except the motor has no brushes and the magnets spin and the windings are stationary. Additionally, there is an external speed controller that pulses the windings in series. The timing of these pulses is calculated based on the magnets passing the unused coil, this would be a sensorless motor, or a sensored motor would have hall effect sensors imbedded in the motor which the controller then uses to time the motor.
@@Everlanders I was thinking on the plastics where dust builds up, it just a automotive spray kinda like rainx, should allow you to use air duster to clean it. I guess instead of max fan, you could install an inline 6 inch duct fan somewhere and never worry about noises.
Great Ideas, most electric radiator fans I found pulled 20 or 30 amps which seemed overkill, the PC case fan was a winner however, I installed this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Hah89Am0HyY.html
For anyone else looking this is the fan I've installed in addition to the MaxxFan - Nearly the same airflow for 10% of the power consumption and 10% of the price... www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08LH4DWK8
What you need to do is simply install a Cox 049 engine in there and that should about do 'er. Plus, no more electrical concerns, just pure reliable gas power. You're welcome!
@@Everlanders Indeed, I understand completely just like a stepper motor I was thinking more like a servo motor idea but that would need feedback. I came across this but probably an overkill for a fan motor ;-)...
Is your last name MacGyver ?! If the can needs “frequent” cleaning, your new connector will come in handy. MaxxAir should be embarrassed…how did they become the de facto rv vent?
Perfect! I've since added additional logic to heat the water just a bit in the morning, and as the batteries get nearer to full, the temperature setpoint keeps increasing to a maximum of 80°c. Then it turns off when the sun goes down and it's still plenty warm till morning 🌄 I've also tied our 2 air systems to this logic, so as the batteries approach 95% the air compressors fill our air tanks for water pressure and pneumatics with excess solar...
@@Everlanders your very smart. I love playing around with circuits and whenever something breaks I try and fix, before I replace but you make me look like a newb, if I remember correctly you did that for living tho
Mmm.. those aren't ever going to last.. you're putting a quick on-off motor designed for 100 hours of use in to an application that needs a 10,000 hour motor. In a DC application, that means either a car radiator fan, or a HUGE computer fan.
@@Everlanders Look forward to an update. I just busted a fan blade off a 1983 Airstream ceiling vent fan last night. The motor is still kickin.. but I'll probably be looking to upgrade myself unless I get lucky and find a matching blade. :/
I've been playing with these 250mm PC case fans, they move 80% of the air that the Max fan does at a fraction of the power consumption. I did a video for members encasing the control PCB in epoxy here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A0kDrbiQaa4.html You can find the fan on Amazon by searching for the ASIN: B08LH4DWK8
@@Everlanders Very cool! I ended up with a robust looking radiator fan that was flat. The computer fans are 10,000 hour motors as well. I'm sure it will work out very well for quite a time. I think your major concern will be keeping dust from piling up on it, because it is lighter. It's a catch 22 though, because if you add a dust filter, you HAVE to change it regularly or you're choking off the motor. :P The world needs a self dusting motor. :D
