Westinghouse Table Fan - Dating, Capacitor, and Switch PSA

[Isaiah Sampson]

Hello all,

I have a few questions about a Westinghouse fan I picked up recently and a PSA about the switch (at least as I found it).

When testing the fan at the sellers house, only one speed worked; this was the high speed based on the power drawing being about 0.73 amps. The cord was pristine.

The blade is plastic, but has a ridge running between each blade to lock them together and stiffen them, which is great. The base/stand and motor housing are aluminum; the cage is steel.

Switch PSA:

When I got it home and plugged it one, the switch shocked me. The switch is a three-position rotary Leviton, with the internals being a tricorne-shaped plastic spinner with contacts on 2 of 3 sides. After removing the switch, testing with a multimeter, and disassembling the switch, I figured out that the eccentric spring, which is connected to the external knob and drives the tricorne contact spinner, was touching the copper spring tab of whichever wire was not in the circuit. In the off position, depending on how I had oriented the non-polarized cord plug in a receptacle, that meant the either the hot or neutral of the receptacle was in direct contact with the switch knob. I have no idea if this is a flaw in the switch design or if someone opened up the switch before me and removed a part. I solved the matter by shimming the eccentric spring with a 1/4" fiber washer from Home Depot to keep it off of the wire contacts. 

Questions:

• Anyone able to provide dating?
• The capacitor is a thin plastic wafer with no labeling at all, and signs of leakage. Anyone know what to replace it with?
• Is the switch issue known to others, or is it more likely someone messed with it before me?

[Daniel Herczeg]

I was unaware that the Westinghouses of this model even had capacitors. I'm soon going to go digging through mine to replace the wire that runs from the base to the motor, as it blew up last night, so wish me luck.

[Lawrence Smith]

that is not a capacitor, it is a heat sink to absorb current to give the fan 2 speeds. that is why those get hot in the base on low speed.  

[Daniel Herczeg]

1 hour ago, Lawrence Smith said:

that is not a capacitor, it is a heat sink to absorb current to give the fan 2 speeds. that is why those get hot in the base on low speed.  

That makes a lot more sense. I was wondering why a desk fan of that sort would need a capacitor.

[Rod Rogers]

It's actually a resistor.

 

~Sparky~

[Daniel Herczeg]

That makes even more sense.

[Tom Zapf]

THINK MID 1950S... THEY DO GET HOT IN THE BASE 

[Isaiah Sampson]

Thank you all for correcting me on the resistor. However, it has no continuity across its leads and I need to replace it. The motor winding's resistance is 40 Ohms. Would the resistor typically be a particular percent of the winding, say 10%? I don't have any laying around to test if I would be happy with the speed from a spare.

[Lane Shirey]

Didn’t someone find a suitable replacement a few years ago on eBay?  If you were a member you could search for that topic in the old forum content.  But you’re only showing guest status. 

[Kyle Shelstad]

That fan does not have a capacitor, that is a resistance coil that gives you the low speed.  the older resistors were nichrome wire wrapped in asbestos insulation.  Because you have a fan with the Hemcolite blades, that makes it an LA4 which ran from 1953-1958.

[Levi Mevis]

I have this same exact fan, its a westinghouse LivelyAire Model 12LA4 and that ceramic block is a 5 watt dropping resistor which is what is used to give the fan its low speed (its a two speed fan) and my fan's dropping resistor was open as well and I ended up just buying from ebay a NOS ceramic wirewound resistor that was rated at 47 Ohms 10 Watts that had spade connectors on each connector end and I just wired it into the fan using spade connectors and its worked fine since, unfortunately with mine the blades are out of whack because when you power on the fan it makes a distinct rattling noise until it gets up to speed.

[Brandon Osborn]

I just picked up one of these fans (or a similar version) last week and am having some regrets because I can’t find any info on them! This was a bit helpful and is one of the first threads I’ve found about it. Motor hums on both speeds but not spinning.