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Fan maintenance
<< When
the fan in my CustomSealife fixture started making noise almost 2 years
ago >>
Michael reminded me of something worth mentioning:
I bought an inexpensive fan from Radio Shack a few years ago that initially
did a nice, quiet job of helping to cool my bedroom tank lights. Gradually,
the noise became more and more bothersome to me, to the point where, when I
read these posts, I was tempted to purchase another fan that had quiet as an
engineering priority.
When I took the hood off to check the make and model, etc., I noticed it was
covered in dust and garbage -- so I naturally cleaned it. Inside the fan
housing was wedged a dried out leaf from one of the Hygro stricta which had
obviously gone emerged and become caught in the turbine. This turned out to
be the source of the low level, but annoying whine which, over a period of
time, I had become so used to hearing that I assumed it normal for this grade
fan after a year or so of use.
Once I cleaned and lubricated it with graphite, it was once again as quiet as
I needed it to be. I didn't need a quieter, better engineered fan after all -
I just needed to maintain the one I had.
Point is, sometimes this type of thing can creep up on us, and a fan within a
large, heavy hood with enough light crammed in it to need a fan in the first
place, can easily be overlooked when it comes to maintenance.
Bob Olesen
West Palm Beach