Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

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Woodtroll
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Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by Woodtroll »

Hello, friends,

Having no air conditioning in our old farm house, we depend on window fans to help keep us cool during the hottest parts of summer.

I have an older Lakewood window fan purchased about 1992, the heavy metal chassis kind that adjusts to fit the window and has three speeds, reversible for flow in and out, and a thermostat. This is not a newer cheap "box fan".

This is one of my favorites, but one of the contacts inside the switch has broken. It says on the switch, "Defond", then the usual 6A-120VAC, 3A-240VAC stuff and has the terminals marked, but it has no other part numbers. It has four wires coming into each of two opposite sides (8 total), and has two sets of contacts, one set above the other.

I've tried searching "Defond fan switch", "7-position window fan switch", "reversible fan switch", "rotary 7-position switch", and all kinds of other things without even coming close. Can anyone here point me in the right direction, as to a source or even a better set of search terms? It does not need to be an exact replacement, just functional, and I would like to retain the three speeds both in and out as well as an "off" position.

Any suggestions or leads are greatly appreciated! Y'all take care,
Regan
Running the ridges and rivers of Virginia's southern Appalachians
octagon
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by octagon »

With old equipment I often find it necessary to buy another whole unit and use it for parts. Some older stuff is pretty obscure. Good luck.
Woodtroll
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by Woodtroll »

Thank you. Yeah, it appears Lakewood is no longer in business, and I haven’t found anyone offering similar fans for sale new anymore. And I hate the new ones with small high-speed plastic blades that whine like a mosquito, like a computer fan on steroids. But these things were so commonly sold by multiple makers for so many years that I figured someone would still make a similar switch for it, if I only knew the proper terminology to do a search.
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by Sixgun »

I know the type of fans your talking about....I grew up with Hunter fans.......all metal with the power to suck out all the air in the house in about 30 seconds......I still have a couple of them but only use them in the garage...they are dangerous. By dangerous I mean they can burn your house down if your not there when the motor gives out.

My advice is to trash it...go to Northern or someplace that still sells these types of fans that are modernized for electrical safety.

This was on my pile of stuff I take to the junkyard once a year.....I can pop out the switch if you think it'll work....there's only a high or low and in or out.----6


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jeepnik
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by jeepnik »

Can you take a picture of the wiring on the switch. It may be possible to substitute toggle switches to do the job. Power, hi/low and forward/reverse.
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by GunnyMack »

Try Grainger, they have thousands of bits and pieces of all sorts.
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marlinman93
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by marlinman93 »

It's simply a reversible speed control, and off. But depending on what you want to do, it could be wired as a single speed, or rewired to work with another switch if I had an idea of how the wires are connected. I'd need a diagram of the existing switch and fan motor, plus a picture of the existing wiring connected to the switch.
It's also possible to jumper the bad contacts across the terminals if they're screw terminals, and use a switched outlet that can be plugged into the existing wall outlet, but has a switch on it to turn it on/off at the switched adapter.
It might end up needing to be rewired to make it less speeds so a switch is easier to find and wire. But will require some knowledge of the existing wiring still to advise you on how to do this.
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by Blaine »

marlinman93 wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 9:54 am It's simply a reversible speed control, and off. But depending on what you want to do, it could be wired as a single speed, or rewired to work with another switch if I had an idea of how the wires are connected. I'd need a diagram of the existing switch and fan motor, plus a picture of the existing wiring connected to the switch.
It's also possible to jumper the bad contacts across the terminals if they're screw terminals, and use a switched outlet that can be plugged into the existing wall outlet, but has a switch on it to turn it on/off at the switched adapter.
It might end up needing to be rewired to make it less speeds so a switch is easier to find and wire. But will require some knowledge of the existing wiring still to advise you on how to do this.
Do you think a potentiometer, rated for the motor/amps/wattage/etc, would be useful?
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marlinman93
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by marlinman93 »

Blaine wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 4:48 pm

Do you think a potentiometer, rated for the motor/amps/wattage/etc, would be useful?
If it's a motor rated speed control, and the fan motor is wired so it could be used with a rheostat. A fan rheostat has to be the reverse of a rheostat used for lighting. The fan type start at full speed, and get slower as you turn them up. This avoids motor damage from a slow speed start.
Still need to figure out the wiring so it can be bypassed to the full speed run, and then connect the fan control into the full voltage lines and use it to control speed.
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by Jay Bird »

Doesn't make a whole lot of common sense taking the time and energy on analyzing the worthiness of a 30 year old $75 fan.
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by Woodtroll »

Thanks, guys, for the feedback.

These type of fans seem to be no longer made, at least not that I can find, so that's why I was hoping to find some type of similar replacement switch. I wouldn't have thought it would be that tough to find. But I agree that it's not worth doing a whole lot of work to overhaul if I can't find a replacement switch. But I also don't see what's wrong with trying to fix a "30-year old $75 fan" that apparently has no modern replacement options. There's a lot of folks on here dumping money into obsolete guns that could just as easily be replaced by a $200 synthetic stocked bolt gun. But that's not the point, is it? :)

And Sixgun, yes, these fans and lots of other home equipment have potential to start fires if you leave them running unattended - your point is well taken. Although we've had several over the years, the two we use now both have thermally protected motors (with thermal cut-off "fuses"), and we only use one in the kitchen in the evenings, and one in the bedroom at night to cool it off enough to sleep. We try not to leave anything at all running in the house when we're gone except the well pump, water heater, refrigerator, and wood stove in season. And when we're gone more than a day or so, all of those are turned off, too, except the refrigerator.

Thanks again,
Regan
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marlinman93
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by marlinman93 »

I'm with you Regan, and would much rather fix old things, than live with the disposable society thinking some people seem to have adopted these days. If something is a good product, and I can figure some way to fix it with inexpensive parts, I don't really care how much of my time it takes. My time is free, and I'd rather spend it than spend my money.

Wish I could see what you have there, or find a wiring diagram for the existing switch so I could help figure out how to rewire it with a different switch, or a switch maybe with less speeds. Did this all my working career, but tough to even suggest what to try without seeing what you have?
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by Blaine »

Woodtroll wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 5:02 pm Thanks, guys, for the feedback.

These type of fans seem to be no longer made, at least not that I can find, so that's why I was hoping to find some type of similar replacement switch. I wouldn't have thought it would be that tough to find. But I agree that it's not worth doing a whole lot of work to overhaul if I can't find a replacement switch. But I also don't see what's wrong with trying to fix a "30-year old $75 fan" that apparently has no modern replacement options. There's a lot of folks on here dumping money into obsolete guns that could just as easily be replaced by a $200 synthetic stocked bolt gun. But that's not the point, is it? :)

And Sixgun, yes, these fans and lots of other home equipment have potential to start fires if you leave them running unattended - your point is well taken. Although we've had several over the years, the two we use now both have thermally protected motors (with thermal cut-off "fuses"), and we only use one in the kitchen in the evenings, and one in the bedroom at night to cool it off enough to sleep. We try not to leave anything at all running in the house when we're gone except the well pump, water heater, refrigerator, and wood stove in season. And when we're gone more than a day or so, all of those are turned off, too, except the refrigerator.

Thanks again,
Regan
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Woodtroll
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Re: Electronics Help, Please? Need to find replacement switch

Post by Woodtroll »

Thanks, guys, I appreciate your interest.

Marlinman93, thanks for the offer - it sounds like you have the knowledge to make this work. I'll pull the switch out (wires intact) and try to get some photos for you; each wire position has a letter stamped into the metal plates on the switch, and I remember seeing a label on the motor that told which three wires controlled the speeds. If I can figure out how to attach photos, I'll send photos and/or sketches via PM tomorrow and see if you can make sense out of it.

Thanks again, everyone!
Regan
Running the ridges and rivers of Virginia's southern Appalachians
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