Shared Knowledge
“Quieting an Envircaire Model 60000
Fan Motor”
My wife has an Envircaire
model 60000 hepa air cleaner unit in her artist studio. She has had this unit
constantly running for over 2 years now.
Recently, it started making
an intense noise to the point that it had to be shut down. As in this unit and
most similar units, the only mechanic device that could emit shut a sound was
the blower unit, I suspected that the motor bearings were dry or needed oiling
or otherwise repairing.
So unplugging the Envircaire
model 60000, I examined it by removing the air filter unit. Inside the cavity
where the hepa filter resides, I could see a large blower fan which was
attached to a motor shaft at the bottom and held to the shaft by a Phillips
head screw. Turning the unit over and
over, it appeared that the bottom of the unit was simply snapped into place and
so inserted a flat blade screw driver into the seam between the bottom of the
actual tower assembly and the plastic bottom cover. Now working the driver
around and the seam, it slowly began to separate and with the addition of a
second flat blade screwdriver, the bottom cover came loose and I removed it.
Up under the bottom cover was
the fan motor itself, held to the tower assembly by 4 Phillips head machine
screws. Again, examining the unit, I found that around the bearing point of the
motor there was in fact a bearing cup with a hole in the motor housing for oil
to be feed into the bearing oil cup. Using a can of WD40 with a long spout on
it, I slowly filled the bearing oil cup. With the cover off the bottom of the
unit, I replaced the hepa filter and the front grill cover and plugged the unit
into house power and turned it on. Still the bearing noise!
So I unplugged the unit from
house power, removed the front grill work and hepa filter and using a Phillips
screwdriver, loosened the plastic fan from the motor. I then turned the unit
over and removed the 4 Phillips screws holding the motor in place. I then
withdrew the motor from the unit to the point that I could get access to the
front bearing and sure enough, it also had an oil cup on it with an access hole
in the motor housing. WD40 into the front bearing cup and then while the motor
was not mounted into the tower, I replaced the hepa filter and front grill,
plugged the unit into house power and turned it on. Now note that the motor was
not attached to the tower but neither did I have it sitting directly on the
floor. Now the motor ran and I let it run for some time, like 5 minutes and
then unplugging the unit from house power, I put additional WD40 into each
bearing cup. Initially, when I removed
the motor from the tower unit, I thought I would simply take apart the motor to
get better access to the bearing cups but although I tried, I could not get the
screws holding the motor together, apart.
So I let the motor run for
another 5 minutes and went on about my business.
I then carefully picked up
the motor and turned it one way and then the other and I could not get it to
emit any sort of bearing sound.
Unplugging the unit from
house power and removing the front grill cover and hepa filter, I turned the
fan inside the tower such that the screw which keeps the actual fan attached to
the motor was up so I could get a screwdriver on it. I then aligned the flat
side of the motor shaft with the screw on the fan itself and slowly inserted
the motor shaft through the tower body until it aligned with the fan and I was
sure the fan and motor or mated correctly on the flat part of the motor shaft.
Now it did take me a little while to get the alignment correct as I had to move
the fan around and motor around at the same time, but it was not a great
hassle.
Now the fan on the shaft of
the motor, I pushed the motor all the way back to its mounting brackets on the
tower housing and using the 4 screws I had removed as motor removal, screwed
the motor back down tight to the tower assembly. I now used a Phillips
screwdriver to tighten the fan to the shaft of the motor.
Again, replacement of hepa
filter and front grill work and plug back into wall power. This time when I
turned on the unit, no bearing noise, what so ever.
With unit ready for my wife,
I aligned the bottom cover onto the bottom of the tower unit and pushed,
snapped it back into place.
One final note: never do
anything you are uncomfortable doing. 120VAC can kill you and if you work on
the unit with wall power applied, you could accidentally touch something which
you would not like.
I guess the whole point of this write up is to tell you that this model does have bearing cups on the motor, which will take oil. It is from my experience with other motors, that some motors now use cotton or similar as the actual bearing materials and these become dry after extended use.