andycivil's video: Repair a fan that doesn t spin properly Bionaire BT440RC-CN

I had this Bionaire BT440RC-CN oscillating fan to have a look at, it would spin happily when lying down, but in its vertical position it would slow down and stop on the lower settings. I managed to get it working again, I thought I'd show you what I did in case anyone else has the same problem. First thing is to unhook the cable, and take out the four screws that hold the base on. Then you need to pop off the silver-effect side pieces. Then this bottom back cover comes off with four screws. Then another three from the longer, upper back panel. I'll show you what the plastic lugs look like, so that you can work out what you're prying off, there's no easy way to do the ones that go inside, you just have to force them. Then you have to split the two halves to get the back panel off. A flat knife that you can slide in is probably best to avoid damage. Again, here's a close-up of the lugs you're working with, so you can see how to get them apart. When the back is off, you'll see that the top of the column sits in a bearing that you can remove with two screws. The bearing just comes away. The bottom of the fan blade assembly won't come off the motor, and it's connected by a rubber coupling to reduce noise, so don't put too much force on it. Next, you have to remove the four screws that hold the motor to its frame. Now this is the awkward part - I found that the motor bolts had thread-lock on them, so I was forced to cut them off with a saw, knowing I'd have to replace them with new ones later. So the rotor just comes out, and we can look inside the motor. There's the problem: black crud inside the bearing. Incidentally, it looks like you can undo this coupler, but I found it threadlocked, so I just left it. I cleaned off the spindle and put quality grease on it. This is the part that matters, I dug out the black residue carefully without scratching the inner surface. And I was careful to remove as much as I could with a q-tip before putting it all back together again. So in the end, this tiny pad of dirt was enough to make the rotor sticky enough to stop spinning. There's nothing hard about reassembly, just put things back together in reverse order, and you should be rewarded with a fan that works on all three speeds.