the death of yet another O2KOOL fan

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the death of yet another O2KOOL fan

Postby bobhenry » Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:33 am

I love my little O2KOOL fan. The 3 way power make it the ideal little fan for a teardrop or small trailer. Internal batteries will run it for hours and with direct 12 volt or 110 option it is a great little fan.


HOWEVER .............

I have killed 2 of them. They just quit , a couple led lights will light up and that's it. I returned the 1st one and Wallyworld exchanged it no questions asked. This is my second and it was found dead New years eve when we took our bedroom with us to visit friends and celebrate New Years.

Arriving home I decided to investigate and disasembled the fan. As near as I can determine the circuit board is the problem. The little fan has had a few hard knocks , forgotten and left on a shelf or hanging and in transit getting bounced off of God knows what heading hear and there.

I decided to see if the fan would run. (I actually suspected the motor was fried) .

I cut out the circuit board and the nicad battery pack. I clipped the wires to the fan motor leaving them as long as possible. I hooked them to a 12 volt battery and to my delight the little fan ran.

SO...... I extended the wires and spliced on a male cigerette lighter plug. Since my trailer is equipped with 12 volt outlets I will still be able to utilize my little fan. It now only runs on high but that was all I ever used anyway. The fan is polarity sensitive in that if you wire it up and find it blowing out the back instead of the front switch the wires.

If you salvage the little high/low speed switch you can actually use it to reverse the polarity to make it exhaust instead of blowing. While the blades are pitched wrong for the exhaust mode it still moves a suprising amount of air.

So if your little O2KOOL fan dies reserect it. This change should make it bullet proof ( unless the motor itsself expires). The fan has lost over 60% of its weight and is now feather light.

I just can't throw things away it is a character flaw but I have learned to live with it since it saves me money occasionally. ;)
Growing older but not up !
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Postby TENNJIM » Fri Jan 02, 2009 2:48 pm

Thanks for the input. I use my O2KOOL fan on batteries or plugged to 12 vdc. It still works after two summers of camping, but if it dies your suggestion would work for me assuming I don't lose the motor. It's a great little fan.
8)
Jim B / Utah
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