Fans; High is next to Off on purpose

Good gravy are there just so many motors out there. Like brushless DC motors which are absolutely cool in their own right! Therefore I just want to put up here that you should definitely not go thinking that all motors work like this, because many don't! In fact, the universal motor? One of the reasons those are still so common despite their (relatively) shorter life is that they create gobs of starting torque on their own. An induction motor would be absolutely awful for something like a power tool with its poor starting torque, unless you went real fancy with a VFD and stuff. It's all about what's best for what purpose!

I love how this guy's delivery makes him seem not quite unhinged, but maybe just dangling precariously from the last screw on the last hinge lmao

"It operates a lot like transformers but it is in fact a Decepticon" God I had to take a break after this one

I never once asked this question before, but I was still willing to sit through a 16-minute video explaining it.

TLDW: Initiating the spin requires more power than maintaining the rotation. This is why if you have a fan thats dying you can sometimes spin it by hand to get it started and it will run fine.

I always start like "why does he need 17 minutes to answer this simple question" and I always leave like "huh, that was a lot of information."

Mental note: When an evil Bond villain tries to chop you up by turning on an industrial fan, you should grab the blade before it starts turning.

My Cold Spot fan sold in Sears in 1950 has no speed control and no switch. Just plug it in and it runs. Bought it at an antique shop years ago. Before using it I took the motor apart and did a thorough cleaning of the rotor & stator. Cleaned the air vent slots and the two bushings. Put it back together and used # 30 oil to lube the bushings. I recommend that you do the same to your antique fan. It will make your fan happy. If I lived in the same town as you I would do the work for free if you didn’t feel comfortable tackling the job yourself. I can’t afford to be a Patreon so it would be my way of giving back.

I have an oldish fan (maybe 30 years old, so looks fairly modern compared to the real antique fans) with push button speed control. It very often fails to start on low. I discovered on my own that if I put it on high first, then switch it to low, it does fine, so that's what I normally do. I did assume the higher power was helping it get started, but I'm very glad (because I'm also a big nerd) to know the details of what is going on. As for why this particular fan can't start on low, I'm guessing it's higher bearing friction due to its age since it used to be able to start on low just fine.

I feel like this one episode generated an entire season of future episodes.

"this is an antique so i don't want to take it apart" proceeds to stall the motor

I always thought it was a safety thing, since you're more likely to shut the thing off when it's going faster.

TC, thank you so much for always having such good captions/subtitles on your videos. I hope you never forget how appreciated they are and how many people they are immensely useful to. It's hard to find effortful captions these days and content creators who are conscious of this need and feature on their videos and who consistently put in the time to making them well-written for their viewers. I am very grateful 🙏🏻

As an avid fan collector, I’m thoroughly impressed with this video. The explanations are FANtastic. The off-high-medium-low sequence is the most commonly found on fans with rotary switches. But there’s plenty of fans with the increasing speed sequence. Also, that’s one fine 1930s Robbins & Myers 1304 table fan you got there :)

"These look a lot like transformers, and indeed operate a lot like transformers but they're actually decepticons"

"But that's a story for another time" <-This is how you know you're doing it right There is so much stuff out there & so much to learn but ALSO you are pacing yourself (I'm still learning to do that second part) Can't wait to learn more, at another time!

“These look a lot like transformers, and indeed operate a lot like transformers, but they’re actually Decepticons.” That got me laughing a lot more than it should have.

Me, looking at my fan: Why the hell are you so complicated? Fan: Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I counted no fewer than three "stories for another time". Looks like you have lots of material for us for the foreseeable future. :)

"'Nearly all' is subjective, please don't write letters" is the most internet thing ever I'm loving content creators setting boundaries with fans