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 the idea behind brushless dc motors, it's so ridiculous that we can build the things at all. Take what's essentially a multi-phase ac motor, and then have solid-state electronics switch between the phases. Fancier ones can even do things like detect the rotor position by measuring the effects of the (typically permanent magnet) rotor on the winding fields, and apply torque to hold the rotor in place.
The correct term for an AC variable speed drive is an "Inverter Drive" Telemecanique call them Altivar but that's a trade name. Brushless DC motors are in reality AC motors which are not new at all it's just the miniature Inverter drives that they are more popular. But still will never have as much low speed Torque as a DC motor. With DC you can have Full Torque at Zero speed, it is possible with ac using full flux vectoring however they are very complex and require the motor to have an encoder.
@@CalvinWalton it's called flux vectoring it's a pain to set up on Industrial motors. The first versions had a habit of blowing the smeg out of the tank capacitor's
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 :)
@@dylconnaway9976 bruh cats are the best. They don't need to go outside, they don't smell bad, they aren't loud. Yeah they might be nosey but kids are too but cats don't cry. Dogs smell like ass all the time from going outside.
I saw this video in my feed and saw it was 17 minutes. At which point i took 10 seconds on Google which revealed that the motor could overheat otherwise. Now i have to go pee. Additional fun fact, I still spent less time the previous comment and this additional explanation than it would've taken me to watch this video. I mean, good on you if you want to know the detailed history of fan speed mechanisms or whatever this content creator is talking about... But i really gotta go pee.. priorities i guess.
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.
Mental note: When becoming an evil Bond villain make sure the electromagnetic field on my industrial fan makes enough torque to not be stopped by a MI6 agent's hand
When I was a child I had an old reel to reel tape recorder with that type of shaded pole induction motor, where the manufacturer has got clever and put secondary windings on it to drive the electronics so it was a transformer as well
Yah, for example, he could talk about VFD's (variable frequency drives) and their uses and quirks. He could then go from VFD's to PWM (pulse width modulation) which is how most VFD's operate. The uses alone for PWM would be a whole series.
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.
It probably needs a clean up and regressing or fresh oil on felt(usually around the bush).. It depends on the design as to which it is. Most modern fans in Australia since the 90's, a light layer of grease does the trick after a dismantle and clean. (Don't robes the bushes unless they're designed to be easily removed, just clean them through!).
@@nerhu59 When I see three stories, three phases, three videos. I do not see coincidence, I see providence. I see purpose. I believe it our fate to be here. It is our destiny. I believe this night holds for each and every one of us, the very meaning of our lives.
Before watching the video, I really thought the main reason for _1-2-3-OFF_ was to save the fan from inadvertently being left on. My reasoning was that if you're in a hurry (or just inattentive) and turn the knob towards 'OFF' before rushing out of the room, you'll immediately be aware that you didn't turn it all the way if it's now on '3' (or 'max'). But if '1' were next to 'OFF', you might think the fan's slowing down means it's about to stop as you walk away, when it'll actually be wasting electricity for all the hours you're away.
Have you noticed that it's like that on gas stoves? I still think the reason is safety, so you don't accidentally leave it on the tiniest flame and not notice.
I never thought that before, but thats a good point and some solid thinking! As for gas stoves that do the same thing, it could be for safety, but now after watching the video I think it's so the flame has enough gas to ignite in the first place from being set to the "high" setting.
I was not (willing to sit through this). Does he ever answer the question? 10 minutes in and I still don't know. And I guess I don't really care either so I ain't gonna finish the video.
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.
@@fatherofdragons4880 Fleming’s rule is an easy way to determine the relative orientations of electric and magnetic fields. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleming%27s_right-hand_rule
What I wanna know is why do ceiling fans have one useful setting, a useless setting, and a tornado mode that makes me wonder if my fan is gonna break off. Like, at least put something in between useful and tornado and get rid of useless.
If the fan wobbles too much when on high it's unbalanced. Much like balancing the wheels on a car after installing tires, there's weights that can be applied to fix this.
I love the useless setting! It's designed to cycle the air around without a lot of air flow. My fan is on the 1 setting all winter to help circulate the hot air from the ceiling to the floor. Hot air rises so all the heat in your house just sits up at the ceiling and your floors stay cold. A ceiling fan will push that hot air down or pull that cold air up and helps keep the room more equally heated
@@WeneDog0628 I used a penny to ballace a fan's blades once. I used double sided tape with a penny to find the balance point then super glued the penny in that spot on the top of the blade where it would not be seen...
Wild, I work at an observatory and I’m trying to understand/redesign our single phase and 3 phase motors used on our dome, but had no idea what I was doing or anything about how they worked. Thankfully I had older engineers figuring out the important stuff, but I can’t believe your video about fans would be the connection I needed to figure out the part of a telescope system!
I got lost about 3 minutes in. After that it was just me listening to him ramble and show some fancy diagrams. I really just don't get this stuff, and most likely never will 😅
Well i actually hate this since fans are really irritating, j mean when you turn it on and its already its highest speed your like,welp....that was it,thats the max,see?no satisfaction
If you think it is weird now go back in time 50-90 years when there were pockets of DC, 25Hz and 50Hz grid in the country...Then consider the time before outlets were standardized where each room would only have a lamp or in some cases a lamp and a power receptacle that consisted of a lamp socket near the baseboard of the room with a little door to cover it when your electric fan or other device wasn't connected...
I figured it was for kids, since they like to do things like turn knobs, and they usually like to turn them to one extreme or the other. Instead of turning it to a more dangerous high speed, they would turn it to either off or low.
I guessed the reason correctly, because my cheap fan stall a lot, I need to turn it with hand before it can turn on its own, just like old propeller plane, so I guessed it has something to do with torque and friction
@@Scumful The logic is that if a child turned the knob, it is likely they would turn the fan off or to a lower speed. The reason that might be important is that children also like to stick their fingers in fans. If the fan is off, the child would not get injured. If it is on low, the child's fingers are likely to get less damage, or possibly stop the slow moving fan blades and receive no damage. I thought the logic was pretty clear.
“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.
@Ken Hudson to this day we have to do something like that. I'm sure you've used a pull start lawnmower or weed whacker at some point, right? Just like the old wind up cars and biplanes, you're pulling a cord wrapped around the motor to get it spinning.
@@AndyZach Kettering made the first practical electric starter motor for cars in 1911 and Cadillac used them on their 1912 models. He was a cofounder of Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, abbreviated as DELCO (later bought by General Motors and merged with their spark plug division AC Ignitions to become ACDELCO). Kettering was a very prolific designer, and had near 200 patents in everything from electrical designs to paint to diesel engines to cruise missiles (in 1918) .
I've been working in factory automation for years, mostly in the higher-end servo field, but I started out in college working with single-phase induction motors. This is the best and clearest explanation I've ever heard. And I spent the first eight minutes of the video hoping you'd say "shaded pole" and then you did. It's the little things...
I had an old (60's, 70s?) fan which used to stall relatively frequently. Eventually, I realized dust had gotten into places it shouldn't have an increased the required starting torque. It had no issues after a deep clean
OMG, I remember! They were the last youtube videos I watched the night before my cardiac arrest. Made for some interesting dreams while I was in a coma.
@@ancientflounder It's hard to explain, especially due to amnesia, which means my limited memory of watching the videos is divorced from any time cues. In other words, I remember watching it fuzzily, but upon waking I couldn't remember if it was hours, days, weeks, or months earlier. (It was 3 days) But what I do remember is like an alternate timeline where CED was a success, among other timelines I dreamed about. Then I woke and a short while later the Pandemic started, making me wonder if I died in one reality and woke up in another, as if I was choosing a reality from different programs on a videodisc. Even now, I feel kinda like I'm in the film Existenz, where at the end the guy is like, "Hey, tell me the truth. Are we still in the game?"
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 🙏🏻
This is the third channel I know of that actively does that. I personally don't need the captions and rarely if ever use them, but I do appreciate them for those who do. I always think significantly higher of channels that do, it's a small but extremely helpful thing for a lot of people
I agree sometimes I like watching g his stuff while listening to music. Plus he writes scripts and uses a teleprompter which I'm sure makes it a bit easier for him to do this.
This guy’s rhythms, tone, and terminology makes this the highest quality education I’ve ever seen in terms of helping true novices understand complex topics.
Stalling is still a thing on PC fans. When you bypass auto fan controls on modern motherboards (to allow fan stop) you need to measure manually how much duty cycle you need to start the fan again reliably. I have 3 exact fans models but each on of them starts at different %, so I end up taking the highest value. The reason for this is to activate the fans quietly when you need them, scale them to the desired temperature.
Same as me in Australia, we just have 3 buttons for different speeds on our fans. But I do have a very cheap fan which sometimes doesn't start on low speed at all, it just stalls or takes about 45 seconds to get up to speed.
same, i live in germany, never saw that before. i have a fan with a button that you press to turn it on and a button to change speed, or those clicky buttons idk how to describe but even on fans with turn-knobs its just Off-Low-Mid-High. is this just in the US?
Same in Sweden. I have a desk fan with a rotary power switch which is in the order 0 to 3, with 0 being of and 3 being high, never seen a fan with high after off.
I’m in Singapore, and there are no fans with high next to off that I have seen.(idk, maybe because former crown colony?) They are all just 0, 1, 2, 3 buttons
I can't sleep without a fan blowing full blast at my face! I'm glad the high setting is right next to off because I never use the medium and low settings. Fun fact: in South Korea, a lot of people are superstitious about fans and somehow think that fans blowing at night is dangerous because they think the fans steal your breath, lol.
As a guy which English is not the main language, I congratulate the readiness to release subtitles to your videos. It really helps maintaining a basic understanding of the sentences being said thus helping non native speakers to keep up with the content. TY
The jokes in this episode are the peak of nerd humor. We will never surpass “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” “This is my biggest fan.” And “these are not transformers, they’re decepticons”
I was in the navy, we called your civilian 1:17 "stall condition" pole slippage. but we still refer to the normal operation of electric motors as "making it go all spinny" 1:33
I am awestruck by how much antique stuff he keeps. Fans, toasters, jukeboxes, even cars. Now here is someone how loves the way "things were in the good old days" but is modern enough to recognize and appreciate progress
@@JohnLA1980 I once read that back during the Revolutionary War, the French asked American boatbuilders why they made them so that the boats would fall apart after a few years. "So we can build more boats!" was the answer. I have no idea how "true" this story is.
Interesting trivia: Electric fans were the first common household electrical appliance. Light bulbs were, of course, first, but this was the first common use of a motor.
There is a bit of overlap with vacuum cleaner and washing machine, but in general due to the cost, electric fans were available earlier, around 1900-1909. The vacuum cleaners were available from around 1908 in mass. And washing machines from around 1915. There were available earlier (as early as 1904), but really only started being used widely around 1925-1928. All due to the cost of course. Same for hairdriers, they only kicked off around 1920.
More interesting trivia Michael. One of the very first electrical appliances was an electric vibrator. This was used in doctor's offices to bring women to orgasm. Years ago women had a lot of sexual hangups and sexual frustration, doctors diagnosed this as hysteria so the women would come in and the doctor would masturbate her, obviously, this took considerable time on the doctor's part so the vibrator was developed. As they use to say "truth is stranger than ficton."
I've been curious about this forever. I understand why old some dysfunctional fans I've had to deal with wouldn't get started until I physically spun the blades myself to get it started. Very interesting.
@@MetallicMutalisk Check out the closed captions at the end of the video: "I've been informed Decepticons are still Transformers." "I apologize for making that joke with zero real knowledge of the Transformers franchise, but hey."
"They look a lot like transformers and indeed operate like transformers, but they're actually Decepticons" This is why I love your channel, incredibly interesting and intelligent information, all shown with a degree of humor and charm. God you almost had me in tears laughing at that one. I saw it coming but I didn't think it actually be the joke you go for.
When I was a child playing around with Lego motors, my dad often warned me against stalling the motors lest they burn out. I never quite understood how that would work - until around the 13:00 mark in this video! Much love, as always
I had wondered about this ever since I first saw an induction motor in physics class at high school and when I asked about how they wouldn't start I was just given a nothing answer, I had completely forgotten about it. As I learned more I had just assumed that they would use a capacitor to create a phase delay, and then never really thought about it again. I never knew about shade poles, such an ingenious if not MacGyver-esque solution. Great video man!
When i started to learn electronics i was like, cool, this so logical and easy to understand. At a certain point i gave up and went back to believing it's essentially all magic, infused with lots of maths and some occult quantum stuff sprinkled on top. It's better that way.
i think he screwed up the "breaker box in your home" saying to use two 110 vac for 220 vac and you only get 208 vac .isn't all US homes usually 220-240 coming into box? being two separate 110 vac hot's? I had a 220 compressor and no 220 outlet.but had a 220 line changed to two separate 110 outlets for my washer and gas dryer. they took out the 220 breaker and installed two 110 [20 amp] breakers. I ALSO use these outlets for running high amp stuff outside with a ground fault extension cord. but I made a 220 adapter using those two hots for my compressor. it worked fine. until it did not. IT stalled and melted the motor. expensive mistake. MY biggest stupidity was ,those two hots ,were still going back to two separate breakers and i think only one tripped. so stupid . learned it from a youtube video. stupid.
@Jestivius Jovial_Emperor so what is normally coming into a US. residential home, like for stove and dryer ? would i need a new line from the pole for 240? Now I'm really confused.
immrnoidall you missed the line about it coming in as three phase. Because the phases are 120 degrees apart, the ac voltage between two of them is 208.
I look forward to learning about both the female reproduction system and Lenz law when I get older....... maybe I can find out where all my kids came from!
@@Tinfoilpain according to my EMF class: nothing in nature wants to change, so it tries not to by counteracting change. Basically inertia but for everything in physics instead of just acceleration.
6:09 “something like a fan which could be running for DAYS at a time...” Laughs nervously at the fan in my room that I turned on and forgot about years ago.
1000+ days is still "days." Also, don't turn that fan off unless you want to buy a new one. A fan that's been running for that long will very often die if you turn it off and try to restart it. As we said of hard drives in I.T., "it's like patients in an old folks' home, you put them down to sleep and some just don't wake up."
When I was working at an apartment complex, I was staggered by the number of motor driven devices that were just left by the dumpster. If your fan is not wanting to start on its own, take the motor apart, give it a good dusting, and lubricate the bearings. I still have those fans that I use decades later.
@@Asu01 I have a pretty cheap fan laying around, its bearings are a bit sticky, so i have to set it to high just set it back to low. It just won't start by its own in the low setting :P Electronically drive brushless motors are one of my favorite devices, my precious ♥️ xD
My initial thought : "This must be anothet weird US thing". After reading the comments : "Yep" I have never seen ANY device with speed/power settings that has a high setting next to off.
230V land here, can't say I've seen this either. Table/floor standing fans usually have push button controls, and ceiling fans aren't really a thing at all.
I live in Europe and every gas stove I saw had Off, then High, then Low on the knobs. Probably similar reason - easier to light the flame when there's a lot of gas coming out.
@@AaronSmart.online Ceiling fans are a definite must in the tropics and sub tropics ( so most of the EU, aside from those places around the Med, are out), and all of them I have met start off as high, medium and low. mostly because they tend to have bearing issues with time, and the bearings ( or bushings, depending on how old the fan is and who made it) will tend to become sticky with time, but so long as the fan is able to start turning they will run. Thus you start on high, to get the best chance of the bearing getting it's hydrodynamic film built up and thus reducing wear, as a slow moving bearing or bushing is going to have very high loss,, simply because of metal on metal contact. In general the fans only start to give issues when older, and often I cure it with a new capacitor, as most ceiling fans I meet are not shaded pole types, but split phase. Bearings getting stiff it is possible to lubricate them, but often the housings are pressed together, making it hard to get to them for a good repair, and the modern trend is to use that horrid CCA wire as well. The ones on my ceilings are around 20 years old, and still work well. The smaller fans almost all are split capacitor, though the old GE fan is rather odd, in that it achieved phase rotation by having variable reluctance in the pole pieces, using thinner sections of the poles to provide a saturating magnetic field. As the field saturates it appears to shift, allowing the fan to start as the field is moving, and not just varying with time, just like the shaded pole does, but without the need for the copper shorting coils to bring about the field saturation in the motor. higher starting torque simply because there is no circulating current in the pole pieces, so more energy available to induce a rotor current, plus the rotor is skewed, so there is a bias as to start direction built in. Yes 230VAC country, currently ( amazingly) 233.2 VAC , though it can go up to 247VAC at times, but after they replaced the 90 year old transformer across the park (it started leaking from the base valve, so went for repair instead of just a new valve) the newer one ( still around 30 years old, they are refurbished because of the cost of new ones) is set more closely to 230VAC instead of the old one being 240VAC. I lived in a place with the original 130 year old 250VAC supplies, and there cooking was great, but appliance and lamp life was not, though your lamps were extra bright. That will never change, as they would have to replace over 50 transformers at once, so keep the taps on the low side instead to meet spec for high voltage.
Back in the day where if you stuck your finger into spinning blades and lost a finger, that's Darwin telling you it's your fault. Their motto: "Safety third!"
My grandparents had one of those heavy, metal fans with barely any grill. They look worse than they are. The edge around the circumference is always protected, and if your hand approaches the blades from the front, it will most likely be pushed back due to the angle of the blades. It's only a problem if you come at it from behind, where the leading edge will hit you first. I wouldn't let a toddler near one, but for older children and adults, it's fine. You'd really have to _want_ to injure yourself with them.
@@ironcito1101 well, pc fans are pretty much like that (because they're supposed to only be used internally, so without any finger-risk) but I've been able to cut myself 2 or 3 times while working on them when turned on :) (I couldn't shut them off because they were servers, and I didn't make any hardware change anyway)
Great topic! I'm always mindful of any electric motor in this regard. When an electric motor stalls its always bad news. For example my 6 year old son occasionally drives his power wheel into an immovable object while continuing to hold down the accelerator and you can bet on me shouting "let of that pedal! Your going to burn that motor up!". I also have to deal with this in my profession working in a grain elevator. We have plenty of very large 3 phase motors that drive our conveyor belts. Most if not all of our big motors use a soft start and are linked to a PLC (Programmable logic controller) which will abort startup in the event that not enough rotation is detected within a specified time frame in order to prevent motor damage. Some of our motors pull over 100 amps on initial startup! Even with all that protection we still occasionally burn up motors.
I bought a cheap used quad bike with a weird "semiautomatic" gearbox that doesn't give you a manual clutch (it's centrifugal) and won't shift into neutral if there's even a hint of power applied. It also has a sticky throttle (I'm waiting on the replacement). If you get it stuck against something it stalls in a condition where you can neither put it back in neutral nor slow the engine down to idle and you're just sitting there with the clutch slowly burning until you turn it off entirely. Did I mention the electric starter doesn't always work and it doesn't have a starting pedal?
Ah, that starting current. It's funny how many places this shows up. For instance, computers. Many motherboards designed for server use (and several designed for home use, especially these days - though ironically this could be becoming redundant due to changes in technology) have a bios setting that causes phased power-up of the hard drives. Why is that? Because the hard drive motor spins up when it powers on and this draws considerable current. Which is fine when your computer has 1 hard drive, but can overload your power supply if you have 10 hard drives all powering on at once. But, since the steady state current draw of a hard drive isn't that substantial, it's easy to circumvent this just by ensuring that each hard drive powers on at a slightly different point in time... Of course, with the increase in use of solid state hard drives this becomes less relevant. You could also ask why it's only considered for hard drives, when a modern computer can have a half dozen or so cooling fans... Ah well. XD
@Ryan Schaffer where do you get your information from? I've worked in countless plants. Most motor just use a contactor. I personally work on VFDs (variable frequency drives) At a good plant only 10% of motors use VFDs or Soft starters. Please don't make stuff up.
@@AttilaTheHun333333 "Beef. It's What's for Dinner" is an American advertising slogan and campaign aimed to promote the benefits of incorporating beef into a healthy diet. . It's just a silly reference.
The stand fans I bought after moving into my current house are stupidly powerful and we only ever run them on low. In addition, they have a separate on/off switch from the speed switch (the controls are digital, and they have remotes) and will power on in the same mode they were in when turned off--unless you unplug them, in which case they start on "high." Clearly they don't need to start on high to avoid stall, as the commutator takes care of that, but it's still the default start mode because, as he said in the video, "this is just how it is and we're all used to it by now so why bother changing it?"
@@Bacteriophagebs the difference between efficiency of electrical output and also the electric motor has made it such that modern fans operate a lot better than ones in the past. odds are, it is kept as a mechanic to minimalise the probability of it not producing enough torque and eventually heating up the internal components, only to then melt the fuse and force it to be repaired.
@@alessudot As I tried to say and phrased very poorly, I suspect that the electronic controls in the fan automatically apply max current on startup, like with power tools or the ceiling fan switches he discusses in the video. I said "commutator," but meant "commutator controller."
I always assumed it was for the same reason as on a gas cooker: There you want clarity between on/off and no gas leaking into your house when you thought you turned all the way off; plus the big burst catches more easily when turning on... So I assumed to have electricity running without the relief of turning would be similarly bad.
I like your oversimplifications. They allow those of us who just want to know why to learn why without needing an advanced degree to understand all the subtle nuances of the explanation.
@@Fetherko I'm not Nikola Tesla or Thomas Edison - or even this guy - but his explanation jibes with my own knowledge of and experience with electric motors. Enough so that I'm content to accept his explanation, as far as it went. But of course if you'd care to explain what's erroneous about his ELI 5 description of the principles at work, then by all means, enlighten me....
One benefit to having high first that isn't related to reliability of starting is that it helps the fan get to your desired speed faster. I keep my bedroom ceiling fan on low most of the time to keep a marginal amount of air flow. And when I turn it on after it's stopped, it takes a while to actually start doing anything helpful. It starts moving, but it takes way too long for my 21st century attention span to appreciate. If it turned on high for a couple seconds, like the switches you showed off, or required me to set it to high before going to medium and then low, then it would reach the speed I want faster than waiting for the weak low start force to get it up and running
I have a master's degree in physics. I took one semester course in electric circuits. And yet, most of the information in this video is news to me. In particular, i never learned anything at all about 3-phase power in school. The amount of knowledge that humans have amassed is huge.
I watched this video long ago and it all makes sense. Just recently I remembered I have a box fan from the 1970s that has the settings OFF, HIGH, LOW, OFF. It's worked great over the years with just minor oiling. It's motor seems rather large. Just wanted to offer that counterexample.
I watched this video yesterday, and today I managed to make my effed up floor fan work by yanking it to max before using the sensible medium speed. It used to be weak, but after that it works perfectly! The breeze on my bottom is lovely. I'm jot even kidding, this video helped me in a very hands on way. Thanks!
I have a fridge fan that stoped turning last week. I replaced with a new one, but still didn't knew why the old one stopped working. Now your video is giving me a clue.
I love that you're stuck at home in quarantine and just looking around the house and saying "oh yeah i can make a video about how that works". More productive than I've been
Nice concept and episode -- it got me to take a double-take on some our 3 still in use Westinghouse fans (more than 100 years old) - and THEY start at low. They are a nice complement to our 99 year old house....and push massive amounts of air!
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 the idea behind brushless dc motors, it's so ridiculous that we can build the things at all. Take what's essentially a multi-phase ac motor, and then have solid-state electronics switch between the phases. Fancier ones can even do things like detect the rotor position by measuring the effects of the (typically permanent magnet) rotor on the winding fields, and apply torque to hold the rotor in place.
I don't know why I watch you but I do and I love it please keep doing what you're doing!!!
Brushless "DC" motors are just AC motors with DC compatible power circuitry.
The correct term for an AC variable speed drive is an "Inverter Drive" Telemecanique call them Altivar but that's a trade name. Brushless DC motors are in reality AC motors which are not new at all it's just the miniature Inverter drives that they are more popular. But still will never have as much low speed Torque as a DC motor. With DC you can have Full Torque at Zero speed, it is possible with ac using full flux vectoring however they are very complex and require the motor to have an encoder.
@@CalvinWalton it's called flux vectoring it's a pain to set up on Industrial motors. The first versions had a habit of blowing the smeg out of the tank capacitor's
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
Watch at 1.5x speed, it's even better.
@@Bacteriophagebs 1.5 try 5x
@@gagamaus What extension are you using?
'unhinged'? Just a joking /playfuyl, very slight quirkiness
Fans. It's what's for dinner.
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 :)
May the algorithm look kindly upon this small offer of a like and a comment
@@pablorepetto2759 shurely they shall
@Ethan Stam Still more normal than people that like cats. Godless killing machines...
@@dylconnaway9976 bruh cats are the best. They don't need to go outside, they don't smell bad, they aren't loud. Yeah they might be nosey but kids are too but cats don't cry. Dogs smell like ass all the time from going outside.
@@JonManArmy Bruh there is no "best" animal, just preferences.
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."
and he is actively cutting the details down, so that it doesn't turn into a highschool physics class
I saw this video in my feed and saw it was 17 minutes. At which point i took 10 seconds on Google which revealed that the motor could overheat otherwise. Now i have to go pee. Additional fun fact, I still spent less time the previous comment and this additional explanation than it would've taken me to watch this video. I mean, good on you if you want to know the detailed history of fan speed mechanisms or whatever this content creator is talking about... But i really gotta go pee.. priorities i guess.
@@fallenhoenix1255 just so you know the actual video is about 6 mins long. It's repeating itself, probably a editing mistake.
There are no simple answers, only simple minds
It used to be 25 minutes..17 is about right
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.
Thank you. This was the comment I was looking for
Thank you.
I love you bro
Thanks
Best summary of a 17 minutes video. Sweet.
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.
Mental note: When becoming an evil Bond villain make sure the electromagnetic field on my industrial fan makes enough torque to not be stopped by a MI6 agent's hand
Gabriel Malta mental note: get strong enough to stop overclocked industrial fans.
Mental note: if becoming an evil bond villan, electrify the fan blades on the industrial fan to stop people from grabbing it
@@demomandemopan370 electricity makes things hard to let go of, I fried a cable box once so I know
@@demomandemopan370 Mental note: bring scissors when i become an MI6 agent so i can cut the blades
"It operates a lot like transformers but it is in fact a Decepticon" God I had to take a break after this one
The spooky part about this comment is I started reading it right when he said it 😂
When I was a child I had an old reel to reel tape recorder with that type of shaded pole induction motor, where the manufacturer has got clever and put secondary windings on it to drive the electronics so it was a transformer as well
The deadpan delivery just makes it so much more
That was about as inaccurate as anything a politician could say, or a republican.
@@cyanimation1605 Republicans are politicians
I feel like this one episode generated an entire season of future episodes.
Robert Headley But that’s a story for another time.
Ac, heat exchanger, thermopumps... Hell yes!
How do I get a crooked obtuse angle next to my name? Lol. I've seen them around.
Missed chance to call it breezingly smooth jazz
Yah, for example, he could talk about VFD's (variable frequency drives) and their uses and quirks. He could then go from VFD's to PWM (pulse width modulation) which is how most VFD's operate. The uses alone for PWM would be a whole series.
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.
It probably needs a clean up and regressing or fresh oil on felt(usually around the bush).. It depends on the design as to which it is. Most modern fans in Australia since the 90's, a light layer of grease does the trick after a dismantle and clean. (Don't robes the bushes unless they're designed to be easily removed, just clean them through!).
probably just needs a little zoomspout or 3in1 (blue can)
probably should just get a new fan
@@balthasargerard7246 I only use it in the garage, so I don't care that it's crap. It's not quite bad enough to throw away yet.
I counted no fewer than three "stories for another time".
Looks like you have lots of material for us for the foreseeable future. :)
Three Stories, Three Phases, coincidence?
@@nerhu59 technology connections cinematic universe
He also promised to tell us about Fleming's rules and Lenses laws when we're older!
@@nerhu59 three pyramids, three guidestones in Georgia, three licks to the center of a Tootsie pop!
It's a sign!
@@nerhu59 When I see three stories, three phases, three videos. I do not see coincidence, I see providence. I see purpose. I believe it our fate to be here. It is our destiny. I believe this night holds for each and every one of us, the very meaning of our lives.
Before watching the video, I really thought the main reason for _1-2-3-OFF_ was to save the fan from inadvertently being left on.
My reasoning was that if you're in a hurry (or just inattentive) and turn the knob towards 'OFF' before rushing out of the room, you'll immediately be aware that you didn't turn it all the way if it's now on '3' (or 'max').
But if '1' were next to 'OFF', you might think the fan's slowing down means it's about to stop as you walk away, when it'll actually be wasting electricity for all the hours you're away.
You have a point.
Have you noticed that it's like that on gas stoves? I still think the reason is safety, so you don't accidentally leave it on the tiniest flame and not notice.
@@sindicta5757 Indeed 👍
I never thought that before, but thats a good point and some solid thinking!
As for gas stoves that do the same thing, it could be for safety, but now after watching the video I think it's so the flame has enough gas to ignite in the first place from being set to the "high" setting.
@@sindicta5757 gas stoves need to be ignited much like a fan's motors need to be spun
I never once asked this question before, but I was still willing to sit through a 16-minute video explaining it.
I actually HAVE wondered about this, lol.
I also have wondered about this for years!
I’ve wondered about this lol, this guy’s pretty good at making really engaging videos based on seemingly pointless shower thoughts
ive wondered since i was 5
I was not (willing to sit through this). Does he ever answer the question? 10 minutes in and I still don't know. And I guess I don't really care either so I ain't gonna finish the video.
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.
Aww
Weird
@rickylee2477 let this person have their hobbies bro.
im into high precision metrology equipment, there are more niche hobbies than electric fans.
@@rickylee2477 all of us are a little weird at least :]
Sold at Sears and made in the USA…in 1950 🇺🇸
This video made your channel even cooler than it was before. How is this possible?? 🍃
😏 I see what you did there...
Hi deviant, big fan. Get it, fan?
It's all of his fans.
I'm blown away!
Funny seeing you here
The humor of this channel is subtle and grows on you after several weeks. I like a kid telling me he’ll teach me about Fleming’s rule “when I’m older”
Was he referencing Ian?
I’ll be waiting
What the heck is Fleming's rule? Lol
Right? I'm glad I'm not the only one.
@@fatherofdragons4880 Fleming’s rule is an easy way to determine the relative orientations of electric and magnetic fields. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleming%27s_right-hand_rule
What I wanna know is why do ceiling fans have one useful setting, a useless setting, and a tornado mode that makes me wonder if my fan is gonna break off.
Like, at least put something in between useful and tornado and get rid of useless.
If the fan wobbles too much when on high it's unbalanced. Much like balancing the wheels on a car after installing tires, there's weights that can be applied to fix this.
@@user-ez9id7td4b I don't have enough fans installed to raise the ceiling **ba-dum-tiss**
I love the useless setting! It's designed to cycle the air around without a lot of air flow. My fan is on the 1 setting all winter to help circulate the hot air from the ceiling to the floor. Hot air rises so all the heat in your house just sits up at the ceiling and your floors stay cold. A ceiling fan will push that hot air down or pull that cold air up and helps keep the room more equally heated
@@WeneDog0628
I used a penny to ballace a fan's blades once. I used double sided tape with a penny to find the balance point then super glued the penny in that spot on the top of the blade where it would not be seen...
@@ShellShock794 I use that setting in the summer to pull up the cool air and spread it around to room again.
Wild, I work at an observatory and I’m trying to understand/redesign our single phase and 3 phase motors used on our dome, but had no idea what I was doing or anything about how they worked. Thankfully I had older engineers figuring out the important stuff, but I can’t believe your video about fans would be the connection I needed to figure out the part of a telescope system!
I literally could not care less about this, that being said, I watched the entire video.
I got lost about 3 minutes in. After that it was just me listening to him ramble and show some fancy diagrams. I really just don't get this stuff, and most likely never will 😅
Well i actually hate this since fans are really irritating, j mean when you turn it on and its already its highest speed your like,welp....that was it,thats the max,see?no satisfaction
Well maybe you don't, but I'm a fan.
same -_-
Welcome to Technology Connections, get used to it
Side note, I'd love to see a "Our US Electrical System is Weird- here's why" video.
Ah, but that's a story for another time
*starts new TH-cam channel* still not enough to cover this topic
Great Idea.
TBH "why is Something in the US Stupid" could be a whole series!
Mantis 04 pbs ?
If you think it is weird now go back in time 50-90 years when there were pockets of DC, 25Hz and 50Hz grid in the country...Then consider the time before outlets were standardized where each room would only have a lamp or in some cases a lamp and a power receptacle that consisted of a lamp socket near the baseboard of the room with a little door to cover it when your electric fan or other device wasn't connected...
"this is an antique so i don't want to take it apart"
proceeds to stall the motor
I swear I could hear it screaming like I was watching The Brave Little Toaster xD
@@MacroAggressor OMG the brave little toaster! I can't unsee/unhear that now!! Oh jeez, whyyy, lol.
I always thought it was a safety thing, since you're more likely to shut the thing off when it's going faster.
I figured it was for kids, since they like to do things like turn knobs, and they usually like to turn them to one extreme or the other. Instead of turning it to a more dangerous high speed, they would turn it to either off or low.
I guessed the reason correctly, because my cheap fan stall a lot, I need to turn it with hand before it can turn on its own, just like old propeller plane, so I guessed it has something to do with torque and friction
Yeah id always thought "oh like stoves that makes sense" but I never actually thought about it
@@ImAlwaysHere1 what kind of logic is that dude?
@@Scumful The logic is that if a child turned the knob, it is likely they would turn the fan off or to a lower speed. The reason that might be important is that children also like to stick their fingers in fans. If the fan is off, the child would not get injured. If it is on low, the child's fingers are likely to get less damage, or possibly stop the slow moving fan blades and receive no damage. I thought the logic was pretty clear.
"These look a lot like transformers, and indeed operate a lot like transformers but they're actually decepticons"
Transformers + corona =
th-cam.com/video/lCl7I7png08/w-d-xo.html
Electric motors, more than meets the eye.
Autobots
@@Psychodegu That would have been a better line. But he still gets an E for effort
Common, Decepticons are transformers too. Don't make Megatron angry, you'd regret it!
As a physics major, "we'll talk about these laws when you get older" is hilarious.
As someone with a physics degree, I felt the same.
But also, get back to studying, you kid!
EE degree and physics minor. Glad I found work in software/firmware and don't have to worry about motors anymore.
If you’re still alive, you’re not old enough yet.
My response to this comment is left as an exercise to the reader.
I've never thought of this channel as being content for children... until he said it that way.
"... and I'm getting deeper than I need to, as always..."
That's literally why I watch your videos, keep it up!
“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.
Nerd
Omg its the r/guessthecoaster guy (how tf did i find you here of all places)
I immediately thought: "but did you have to shoot the toaster?"
Decepticons are transformers
@@MrKYT-gb8gs Finally, an educated person
good video :)
FRIENDLY JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN r/woosh
@@mr.chekan r/itswooooshwith4os
FRIENDLY JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN he’s talking about fans, his biggest fan. Fans. Huh??
Puns the punniest form of comedy
@FRIENDLY JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN I guess the joke blew over your head
This is the first time ive heard someone be smart while referring to a rotor as a “spinning thingy”
@Ken Hudson to this day we have to do something like that. I'm sure you've used a pull start lawnmower or weed whacker at some point, right? Just like the old wind up cars and biplanes, you're pulling a cord wrapped around the motor to get it spinning.
@Ken Hudson I think Charles Kettering invented the self-starter for cars and made a bundle of money. In the teens or 20s I think.
@@AndyZach Kettering made the first practical electric starter motor for cars in 1911 and Cadillac used them on their 1912 models. He was a cofounder of Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, abbreviated as DELCO (later bought by General Motors and merged with their spark plug division AC Ignitions to become ACDELCO). Kettering was a very prolific designer, and had near 200 patents in everything from electrical designs to paint to diesel engines to cruise missiles (in 1918)
.
"This here is my biggest fan"
Lies, I didn't find "ceiling fan" among your Patrons credits
He's just blowing allot of hot air.
Hey man, maybe ceiling fan lost his or her job due to COVID-19 and can't afford to support on Patreon right now. Don't judge. 😋
You know I'm surprised, because that's *exactly* the kind of thing he'd do XD
I'm sure a fan in a jet engine is larger than your average ceiling fan
This deserves top comment
I've been working in factory automation for years, mostly in the higher-end servo field, but I started out in college working with single-phase induction motors. This is the best and clearest explanation I've ever heard. And I spent the first eight minutes of the video hoping you'd say "shaded pole" and then you did. It's the little things...
I had an old (60's, 70s?) fan which used to stall relatively frequently. Eventually, I realized dust had gotten into places it shouldn't have an increased the required starting torque. It had no issues after a deep clean
Ok.
Ok.
Ok.
Ok.
Ok.
"I am oversimplifying" - We all remember what happened when you weren't oversimplifying: RCA's CED :D
OMG, I remember! They were the last youtube videos I watched the night before my cardiac arrest. Made for some interesting dreams while I was in a coma.
@@jakeaurod that is unfortunate
@@jakeaurod First off, I'm glad you came out of that coma; hope you are doing alright. But, I have to ask: how crazy are CED dreams?
Help me find this video. I've watched this th-cam.com/video/PnpX8d8zRIA/w-d-xo.html. It was okay.
@@ancientflounder It's hard to explain, especially due to amnesia, which means my limited memory of watching the videos is divorced from any time cues. In other words, I remember watching it fuzzily, but upon waking I couldn't remember if it was hours, days, weeks, or months earlier. (It was 3 days) But what I do remember is like an alternate timeline where CED was a success, among other timelines I dreamed about. Then I woke and a short while later the Pandemic started, making me wonder if I died in one reality and woke up in another, as if I was choosing a reality from different programs on a videodisc. Even now, I feel kinda like I'm in the film Existenz, where at the end the guy is like, "Hey, tell me the truth. Are we still in the game?"
"This here is my biggest fan" - I bet you thought that one would go _right over our heads_
It is a ceiling fan, so it had better.
It does make a nice Whooosh.
Nice pun in reply to the pun. Well returned play.
Actually, I was blown away
@@Christopher-N I like how you put a positive spin on that.
"'Nearly all' is subjective, please don't write letters" is the most internet thing ever
I'm loving content creators setting boundaries with fans
🤣🤣
In this case, he set boundaries about fans 🤗
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 🙏🏻
This is the third channel I know of that actively does that. I personally don't need the captions and rarely if ever use them, but I do appreciate them for those who do. I always think significantly higher of channels that do, it's a small but extremely helpful thing for a lot of people
I agree sometimes I like watching g his stuff while listening to music. Plus he writes scripts and uses a teleprompter which I'm sure makes it a bit easier for him to do this.
This guy’s rhythms, tone, and terminology makes this the highest quality education I’ve ever seen in terms of helping true novices understand complex topics.
Tim Wallis nope I’m just wondering how motors work now
In some older videos, he used to fake information
@@mystcat3 ? where? Examples?
Me, looking at my fan: Why the hell are you so complicated?
Fan: Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Lol that one gave me a good chuckle
Me during the day: NO DON’T STICK YOUR FINGERS IN THE FAN
Me at night: Ha Ha fingers no Brrrrr
Me looking at my fan:
No one, literally no one:
My echo coming back:
@@HenryNWhite-zp5zp The “No one:” instantly makes the joke less funnier ngl
I would like this comment, but it’s already at 669.
Stalling is still a thing on PC fans. When you bypass auto fan controls on modern motherboards (to allow fan stop) you need to measure manually how much duty cycle you need to start the fan again reliably. I have 3 exact fans models but each on of them starts at different %, so I end up taking the highest value. The reason for this is to activate the fans quietly when you need them, scale them to the desired temperature.
"But that's a story for another time"
Indeed,
Ask a question,
Get answer,
Answer raises three more questions,
EACH answer raises three more questions, some times overlapping.
"These look a lot like transformers and act a lot like transformers but they're actually Decepticons."
This man is after my heart.
Did your heart not know that decepticons are transformers also?
@@JonO387 My pet looks and acts a lot like an animal, but he is actually a dog.
Is it the all spark?
How could you not give him your heart? Big friendly cuddly tech geek. Awwww :)
@JonO387 🤯
I live in the UK and I have never seen a fan with high next to off, this is a completely alien concept to me! Great video as usual :)
Same as me in Australia, we just have 3 buttons for different speeds on our fans. But I do have a very cheap fan which sometimes doesn't start on low speed at all, it just stalls or takes about 45 seconds to get up to speed.
same, i live in germany, never saw that before. i have a fan with a button that you press to turn it on and a button to change speed, or those clicky buttons idk how to describe
but even on fans with turn-knobs its just Off-Low-Mid-High. is this just in the US?
Same in Sweden. I have a desk fan with a rotary power switch which is in the order 0 to 3, with 0 being of and 3 being high, never seen a fan with high after off.
I’m in Singapore, and there are no fans with high next to off that I have seen.(idk, maybe because former crown colony?) They are all just 0, 1, 2, 3 buttons
Also in the UK, I imagine its due to being 240v vs 120v probably maybe gives it more starting torque even on low setting.
I can't sleep without a fan blowing full blast at my face! I'm glad the high setting is right next to off because I never use the medium and low settings. Fun fact: in South Korea, a lot of people are superstitious about fans and somehow think that fans blowing at night is dangerous because they think the fans steal your breath, lol.
As an electrical engineer, I feel like you did a really good job of simplifying and explaining it for a layman 😄
As a layman, I feel like I did a really good job of pretending to understand these concepts
Shut up
@@andreipaul968 what?
Lol
@A.J. Ello Uh huh. You donæt understand how relevance works, or?
This is the kind of OnlyFans content I'm interested in.
This comment made my day. Thank you
But he went on a few tangents on electric vehicles. This video was not only fans. :(
The naked truth it is.
How about listening to this while doing physical exercise with the Hub on another tab?
underrated comment
As a guy which English is not the main language, I congratulate the readiness to release subtitles to your videos. It really helps maintaining a basic understanding of the sentences being said thus helping non native speakers to keep up with the content. TY
His captions are really good, too. Not that auto-generated garbage.
The jokes in this episode are the peak of nerd humor. We will never surpass “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” “This is my biggest fan.” And “these are not transformers, they’re decepticons”
Decepticons ARE transformers though
nerd humor, it's what's for dinner
@@kazooduck I'm not your biggest fan
@@WFly101 large amounts of deception energy coming from this one
Decepticons are transformers though. I think he's a decepticon, with all the deception in that line
you said “this is my biggest fan” like you have a collection of many different sized fans but you are especially proud of this one
It could also be his only fan and he would still be right
I wouldn't doubt that he does
I was in the navy, we called your civilian 1:17 "stall condition" pole slippage. but we still refer to the normal operation of electric motors as "making it go all spinny" 1:33
I work at a hardware store. The repair man there even says 'go all spinny'
Similar to the “place on rock or something.”
Navy guys always trying to get some pole slip action.
Interesting, I always wondered why high speed is the first setting. It all makes sense, I know how hot a stalled motor can get.
real; a stalled motor killed my last fan
I am awestruck by how much antique stuff he keeps. Fans, toasters, jukeboxes, even cars.
Now here is someone how loves the way "things were in the good old days" but is modern enough to recognize and appreciate progress
@@JohnLA1980 I once read that back during the Revolutionary War, the French asked American boatbuilders why they made them so that the boats would fall apart after a few years. "So we can build more boats!" was the answer. I have no idea how "true" this story is.
Interesting trivia: Electric fans were the first common household electrical appliance. Light bulbs were, of course, first, but this was the first common use of a motor.
There is a bit of overlap with vacuum cleaner and washing machine, but in general due to the cost, electric fans were available earlier, around 1900-1909. The vacuum cleaners were available from around 1908 in mass. And washing machines from around 1915. There were available earlier (as early as 1904), but really only started being used widely around 1925-1928. All due to the cost of course. Same for hairdriers, they only kicked off around 1920.
More interesting trivia Michael. One of the very first electrical appliances was an electric vibrator. This was used in doctor's offices to bring women to orgasm. Years ago women had a lot of sexual hangups and sexual frustration, doctors diagnosed this as hysteria so the women would come in and the doctor would masturbate her, obviously, this took considerable time on the doctor's part so the vibrator was developed. As they use to say "truth is stranger than ficton."
Dildos were up there too. They were made before electric shavers.
@@Norm475 Well, we all know new ideas are always turned to sex early on. The internet is for porn, after all.
Imagine people surprise when some areas went from 25 cycles to 60
"but they're actually decepticons." caught me off guard and had me laughing.
Gave me a good ol chuckle
Me too
Yeah that caught me off guard and made me snort laugh.
Why
My favorite part is that decepticons *are* transformers
Deceptions and autobots are both factions of the transformers race
I've been curious about this forever. I understand why old some dysfunctional fans I've had to deal with wouldn't get started until I physically spun the blades myself to get it started. Very interesting.
I want a fan that can have a volume knob, to have "infinite" levels of speed, like a volume knob, it gives you more precision.
It's called a Variac.
I want a fan that goes up to 11.
i want a van
@@hercules5813 Why don’t you just make ten the top setting, and make that a little stronger?
I think I once saw an exhaust fan over a spa bath that worked like that, this was years ago.
I'm glad to see Technology Connections isn't too big to dedicate an entire video to it's fans.
Get out, but first here is a high five
glad* its*
That Deceptacon joke got me completely off-guard, that'll teach me to drink water while watching TH-cam.
It didn't even make sense since Decepticons are still Transformers
I'm always impressed by his ability to throw out gags like that without missing a beat. That's some Leslie Neilsen level deadpan.
How many times did he have to record this line to not smile?
@@pompshuffle562 if the Decepticons are fighting the Transformers, then who fights the Autobots?!
@@MetallicMutalisk Check out the closed captions at the end of the video:
"I've been informed Decepticons are still Transformers."
"I apologize for making that joke with zero real knowledge of the Transformers franchise, but hey."
I honestly love when you go off on a tangent! I also love the older "hand chopper" fans!
"This here is my biggest fan"
_sad viewer noises_
I cackled
I chukled
i nutted
I chortled
I yawned.
"We are talking about Flemming's rules and Lenz's Law when you are older"
He's technically correct !
Because time passes
The best *kind* of correct!
@SHAHMI ISKANDAR BIN SHAMSUL - he'll talk about it in the future. in the future you will be older.
@@Archgeek0 Awwww. I wanted to say that.
"They look a lot like transformers and indeed operate like transformers, but they're actually Decepticons"
This is why I love your channel, incredibly interesting and intelligent information, all shown with a degree of humor and charm.
God you almost had me in tears laughing at that one. I saw it coming but I didn't think it actually be the joke you go for.
I work for a motor/VFD manufacturer and I appreciate the first part of the video. Well explained even if you say you oversimplified it
When I was a child playing around with Lego motors, my dad often warned me against stalling the motors lest they burn out. I never quite understood how that would work - until around the 13:00 mark in this video!
Much love, as always
Thank you, I didn't really care to watch the whole thing for the few seconds of why
Thanks for answering the question within the first two minutes and providing the details afterwards. I wish there we more creators like you.
I wish I could upvote this twice.
Hell yes
True
my fan goes from off, low, medium, high
sorry ladies i'm already single
Yuh I got 0, 1, 2, 3
@Briny what the hell kinda fan do you have bruh
@@MysteryNotes A fan with 26 buttons/switches
Half my fans go: High - Off - Low, the other half Off - Low - Medium - High.
my fan has 정지, 미풍, 약풍, 강풍
I had wondered about this ever since I first saw an induction motor in physics class at high school and when I asked about how they wouldn't start I was just given a nothing answer, I had completely forgotten about it. As I learned more I had just assumed that they would use a capacitor to create a phase delay, and then never really thought about it again. I never knew about shade poles, such an ingenious if not MacGyver-esque solution. Great video man!
Lol Electrical Engineer here. He's not even joking when he says he's simplifying things
When i started to learn electronics i was like, cool, this so logical and easy to understand. At a certain point i gave up and went back to believing it's essentially all magic, infused with lots of maths and some occult quantum stuff sprinkled on top. It's better that way.
i think he screwed up the "breaker box in your home" saying to use two 110 vac for 220 vac and you only get 208 vac .isn't all US homes usually 220-240 coming into box? being two separate 110 vac hot's? I had a 220 compressor and no 220 outlet.but had a 220 line changed to two separate 110 outlets for my washer and gas dryer. they took out the 220 breaker and installed two 110 [20 amp] breakers. I ALSO use these outlets for running high amp stuff outside with a ground fault extension cord. but I made a 220 adapter using those two hots for my compressor. it worked fine. until it did not. IT stalled and melted the motor. expensive mistake. MY biggest stupidity was ,those two hots ,were still going back to two separate breakers and i think only one tripped. so stupid . learned it from a youtube video. stupid.
@Jestivius Jovial_Emperor so what is normally coming into a US. residential home, like for stove and dryer ? would i need a new line from the pole for 240? Now I'm really confused.
I’m a electrical motor technician, I couldn’t agree with you more lol he never even dipped into electrical theory.
immrnoidall you missed the line about it coming in as three phase. Because the phases are 120 degrees apart, the ac voltage between two of them is 208.
"We'll talk about Lenz law when you're older"
Me, an electrician: "awwwhhhhh"
We're a few minutes older, is it time to talk about that yet?
@@tempest_dawn We must wait for our next connection to technology.
I'm not an electrician and as a fellow 5 year old in a much older body, can you explain what it is. I don wanna waaaaaiiit.
I look forward to learning about both the female reproduction system and Lenz law when I get older....... maybe I can find out where all my kids came from!
@@Tinfoilpain according to my EMF class: nothing in nature wants to change, so it tries not to by counteracting change. Basically inertia but for everything in physics instead of just acceleration.
"But they're actually decepticons."
Said with a straight face XD
Sad thing is decepticons are transformers.
I died.
I was like "did the viewer CATCH THAT?" That was genius! Artful!
"This here is my biggest fan" 🤣🤣 Love the puns man!
6:09 “something like a fan which could be running for DAYS at a time...”
Laughs nervously at the fan in my room that I turned on and forgot about years ago.
1000+ days is still "days."
Also, don't turn that fan off unless you want to buy a new one. A fan that's been running for that long will very often die if you turn it off and try to restart it. As we said of hard drives in I.T., "it's like patients in an old folks' home, you put them down to sleep and some just don't wake up."
That's a really long time!
i am high class cause i turn mine off every 4 years to clean it;)
@@Bacteriophagebs And 1000 days is 8.64e+7 seconds, which is still "seconds" but that's not how we communicate timeframes, sir.
Wtf that fan is probably the dustiest dirtiest garbage ass fan
14:26 “This here is my biggest fan”
Aww... what about your viewers?
150 likes no replies?
Also I hope he doesn't change..
@@zlette doesn't change how
Question: Why is "high" the first setting on a fan?
Video: *17 minutes long*
It's interesting how such simple questions have such complex answers.
Well he's gotta explain a lot of electrical engineering stuff for the final answer to make sense.
@@user-ez9id7td4b thank you, you saved my remaining 12 minutes.
@@user-ez9id7td4b would change to "highest current needed" instead, but nice summary 👍
@@user-ez9id7td4b thank you
When I was working at an apartment complex, I was staggered by the number of motor driven devices that were just left by the dumpster. If your fan is not wanting to start on its own, take the motor apart, give it a good dusting, and lubricate the bearings. I still have those fans that I use decades later.
TC: "Ever wonder why it goes Off-High-Medium-Low?"
Me: Looks over at fan
Fan: 0-1-2
Capacitor start motor fan gang!
Imagine having to set your fan high first only to set it low later.
This post was made by electronically controlled brushless fan gang.
-3
@@Asu01 I have a pretty cheap fan laying around, its bearings are a bit sticky, so i have to set it to high just set it back to low. It just won't start by its own in the low setting :P
Electronically drive brushless motors are one of my favorite devices, my precious ♥️ xD
My initial thought : "This must be anothet weird US thing". After reading the comments : "Yep"
I have never seen ANY device with speed/power settings that has a high setting next to off.
Yup, can't relate to this.
230V land here, can't say I've seen this either. Table/floor standing fans usually have push button controls, and ceiling fans aren't really a thing at all.
@@AaronSmart.online italian here, can confirm
I live in Europe and every gas stove I saw had Off, then High, then Low on the knobs. Probably similar reason - easier to light the flame when there's a lot of gas coming out.
@@AaronSmart.online Ceiling fans are a definite must in the tropics and sub tropics ( so most of the EU, aside from those places around the Med, are out), and all of them I have met start off as high, medium and low. mostly because they tend to have bearing issues with time, and the bearings ( or bushings, depending on how old the fan is and who made it) will tend to become sticky with time, but so long as the fan is able to start turning they will run. Thus you start on high, to get the best chance of the bearing getting it's hydrodynamic film built up and thus reducing wear, as a slow moving bearing or bushing is going to have very high loss,, simply because of metal on metal contact.
In general the fans only start to give issues when older, and often I cure it with a new capacitor, as most ceiling fans I meet are not shaded pole types, but split phase. Bearings getting stiff it is possible to lubricate them, but often the housings are pressed together, making it hard to get to them for a good repair, and the modern trend is to use that horrid CCA wire as well.
The ones on my ceilings are around 20 years old, and still work well. The smaller fans almost all are split capacitor, though the old GE fan is rather odd, in that it achieved phase rotation by having variable reluctance in the pole pieces, using thinner sections of the poles to provide a saturating magnetic field. As the field saturates it appears to shift, allowing the fan to start as the field is moving, and not just varying with time, just like the shaded pole does, but without the need for the copper shorting coils to bring about the field saturation in the motor. higher starting torque simply because there is no circulating current in the pole pieces, so more energy available to induce a rotor current, plus the rotor is skewed, so there is a bias as to start direction built in.
Yes 230VAC country, currently ( amazingly) 233.2 VAC , though it can go up to 247VAC at times, but after they replaced the 90 year old transformer across the park (it started leaking from the base valve, so went for repair instead of just a new valve) the newer one ( still around 30 years old, they are refurbished because of the cost of new ones) is set more closely to 230VAC instead of the old one being 240VAC. I lived in a place with the original 130 year old 250VAC supplies, and there cooking was great, but appliance and lamp life was not, though your lamps were extra bright. That will never change, as they would have to replace over 50 transformers at once, so keep the taps on the low side instead to meet spec for high voltage.
Fan designer: "We must put High first for safety"
Also fan designer: *Makes a spinny finger-muncher*
Back in the day where if you stuck your finger into spinning blades and lost a finger, that's Darwin telling you it's your fault. Their motto: "Safety third!"
The safety of their warranty department.
My grandparents had one of those heavy, metal fans with barely any grill. They look worse than they are. The edge around the circumference is always protected, and if your hand approaches the blades from the front, it will most likely be pushed back due to the angle of the blades. It's only a problem if you come at it from behind, where the leading edge will hit you first. I wouldn't let a toddler near one, but for older children and adults, it's fine. You'd really have to _want_ to injure yourself with them.
@@ironcito1101 well, pc fans are pretty much like that (because they're supposed to only be used internally, so without any finger-risk) but I've been able to cut myself 2 or 3 times while working on them when turned on :) (I couldn't shut them off because they were servers, and I didn't make any hardware change anyway)
@@ironcito1101 Oh cool, I'm also a heavy metal fan!
You missed your chance to title this video "Explaining the 3 tiers of my Only Fans"
Great topic! I'm always mindful of any electric motor in this regard. When an electric motor stalls its always bad news. For example my 6 year old son occasionally drives his power wheel into an immovable object while continuing to hold down the accelerator and you can bet on me shouting "let of that pedal! Your going to burn that motor up!". I also have to deal with this in my profession working in a grain elevator. We have plenty of very large 3 phase motors that drive our conveyor belts. Most if not all of our big motors use a soft start and are linked to a PLC (Programmable logic controller) which will abort startup in the event that not enough rotation is detected within a specified time frame in order to prevent motor damage. Some of our motors pull over 100 amps on initial startup! Even with all that protection we still occasionally burn up motors.
I want to believe that Fisher-Price has some sort of anti-stall in place to prevent accidents in scenarios like that, but yeah, you can’t be sure
@@yoymate6316 for the sake of safety, I hope they have that
For the sake of it being pretty funny, I like to imagine that they dont
I bought a cheap used quad bike with a weird "semiautomatic" gearbox that doesn't give you a manual clutch (it's centrifugal) and won't shift into neutral if there's even a hint of power applied. It also has a sticky throttle (I'm waiting on the replacement).
If you get it stuck against something it stalls in a condition where you can neither put it back in neutral nor slow the engine down to idle and you're just sitting there with the clutch slowly burning until you turn it off entirely. Did I mention the electric starter doesn't always work and it doesn't have a starting pedal?
Ah, that starting current.
It's funny how many places this shows up.
For instance, computers.
Many motherboards designed for server use (and several designed for home use, especially these days - though ironically this could be becoming redundant due to changes in technology) have a bios setting that causes phased power-up of the hard drives.
Why is that? Because the hard drive motor spins up when it powers on and this draws considerable current.
Which is fine when your computer has 1 hard drive, but can overload your power supply if you have 10 hard drives all powering on at once.
But, since the steady state current draw of a hard drive isn't that substantial, it's easy to circumvent this just by ensuring that each hard drive powers on at a slightly different point in time...
Of course, with the increase in use of solid state hard drives this becomes less relevant.
You could also ask why it's only considered for hard drives, when a modern computer can have a half dozen or so cooling fans...
Ah well. XD
@Ryan Schaffer where do you get your information from? I've worked in countless plants. Most motor just use a contactor. I personally work on VFDs (variable frequency drives) At a good plant only 10% of motors use VFDs or Soft starters. Please don't make stuff up.
"This looks a lot like transformers but are indeed decepticons"
I had to pause the video to laugh
I guffawed
And I had to stop to write an angry " um well actually!" Comment about decepticons still being transformers.
In old reel to reel tape recorders the motors WERE literary transformers. 2 in 1.
I just laughed while watching. But you do you.
"They look a lot like Transformers, but they're actually Decepticons."
Well done XD
Lol 😁😂
Decepticons are transformers!!!! AHHHHHHHHH
"They look a lot like Transformers but are actually Go-Bots" would have made more sense.
Watch this
@@jamesdlin7 Pretty sure he's playing on the word "Deceptive"
Finally beginning to grasp what happens in my cheap fans when they don't properly start turning anymore. Thanks!
14:27 Always nice when a popular TH-camr still is of the people enough to put in video of their biggest fan.
"Fans: it's what's for dinner!"
Mmm... dusty.
😂😂😂😂 they do collect dust
Can someone explain me this joke? I’m not a native speaker.
Old 90s joke.
BEEF, ITS WHATS FOR DINNER
@@AttilaTheHun333333 "Beef. It's What's for Dinner" is an American advertising slogan and campaign aimed to promote the benefits of incorporating beef into a healthy diet. . It's just a silly reference.
@@Lethgar_Smith thanks for the explanation. I'm not an american. That's why i don't understand the reference
and here I thought that the reason was because Hi is the only setting that’s worth a damn many times.
Nice G-Shock
The stand fans I bought after moving into my current house are stupidly powerful and we only ever run them on low. In addition, they have a separate on/off switch from the speed switch (the controls are digital, and they have remotes) and will power on in the same mode they were in when turned off--unless you unplug them, in which case they start on "high."
Clearly they don't need to start on high to avoid stall, as the commutator takes care of that, but it's still the default start mode because, as he said in the video, "this is just how it is and we're all used to it by now so why bother changing it?"
@@Bacteriophagebs the difference between efficiency of electrical output and also the electric motor has made it such that modern fans operate a lot better than ones in the past. odds are, it is kept as a mechanic to minimalise the probability of it not producing enough torque and eventually heating up the internal components, only to then melt the fuse and force it to be repaired.
@@alessudot As I tried to say and phrased very poorly, I suspect that the electronic controls in the fan automatically apply max current on startup, like with power tools or the ceiling fan switches he discusses in the video. I said "commutator," but meant "commutator controller."
1:44 that 641.337 cup is satisfyingly geeky, and I love it!
I always assumed it was for the same reason as on a gas cooker: There you want clarity between on/off and no gas leaking into your house when you thought you turned all the way off; plus the big burst catches more easily when turning on... So I assumed to have electricity running without the relief of turning would be similarly bad.
Me too
That's an astute observation! 😁
I like your oversimplifications. They allow those of us who just want to know why to learn why without needing an advanced degree to understand all the subtle nuances of the explanation.
But it's actually erroneous.
@@Fetherko I'm not Nikola Tesla or Thomas Edison - or even this guy - but his explanation jibes with my own knowledge of and experience with electric motors. Enough so that I'm content to accept his explanation, as far as it went. But of course if you'd care to explain what's erroneous about his ELI 5 description of the principles at work, then by all means, enlighten me....
One benefit to having high first that isn't related to reliability of starting is that it helps the fan get to your desired speed faster. I keep my bedroom ceiling fan on low most of the time to keep a marginal amount of air flow. And when I turn it on after it's stopped, it takes a while to actually start doing anything helpful. It starts moving, but it takes way too long for my 21st century attention span to appreciate. If it turned on high for a couple seconds, like the switches you showed off, or required me to set it to high before going to medium and then low, then it would reach the speed I want faster than waiting for the weak low start force to get it up and running
"This here is my biggest fan"
Can't tell if that was another pun or a statement
Both.
Yes
Both both is good
most assuredly
I came into the comments specifically to see if someone said anything about that.
I have a master's degree in physics. I took one semester course in electric circuits. And yet, most of the information in this video is news to me.
In particular, i never learned anything at all about 3-phase power in school.
The amount of knowledge that humans have amassed is huge.
Looked at this like “this does not need to be 17 minutes”
I am very happy 17 minutes later
I've watched this video many times when bored.
@@dalek82 why though?
Well said.
Same here. I knew the basic answer, which could take about 5 minutes to explain, but still ended up watching the whole video.
@@Slepepe comfortable familiar interesting sound.
"Yes, I'm oversimplifying it."
I understood 3 words of what he said.
The terrifying part is there are 4 words in that sentence
Yes I’m it
I watched this video long ago and it all makes sense. Just recently I remembered I have a box fan from the 1970s that has the settings OFF, HIGH, LOW, OFF. It's worked great over the years with just minor oiling. It's motor seems rather large. Just wanted to offer that counterexample.
“Some sort of magnet that we’ve figured out to make go all spinny”
Literally everything
I like this guy.
He seems like a real person, by that i mean he isn't hiding his personality behind a facade
Well done mate, keep doing it as is👍😉
I watched this video yesterday, and today I managed to make my effed up floor fan work by yanking it to max before using the sensible medium speed. It used to be weak, but after that it works perfectly! The breeze on my bottom is lovely. I'm jot even kidding, this video helped me in a very hands on way. Thanks!
I have a fridge fan that stoped turning last week. I replaced with a new one, but still didn't knew why the old one stopped working. Now your video is giving me a clue.
Totally missed the opportunity to say "they're fan-tastic" at the beginning.
RKG Austin he _blew_ his chance
check the description!
@@RennieAsh That sucks….
But he did introduce us to his biggest fan!
@@RennieAsh brilliant
I love that you're stuck at home in quarantine and just looking around the house and saying "oh yeah i can make a video about how that works". More productive than I've been
"They look like transformers-"
-He's goign to make a decepticon joke isnt he
"They're actually decepticons"
-Knew it
This is why I watch Tech-Cons
:)
i was more expecting use of the "more than meets the eye" phrase. which would be just as fitting in actuality and context, but i digress.
Back when Radioshack actually did electronics, one of my certification
tests on transformers threw in a question about Decepticons.
Best joke of the video
You sure they're not Autobots?
This Is Crazy
th-cam.com/video/2_4rSYd6xOs/w-d-xo.html
Nice concept and episode -- it got me to take a double-take on some our 3 still in use Westinghouse fans (more than 100 years old) - and THEY start at low. They are a nice complement to our 99 year old house....and push massive amounts of air!