Roof Vent Fan Direction - Fiberglass RV
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Old 07-31-2021, 10:23 AM   #1
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Roof Vent Fan Direction

The roof vent fan in my 89 Scamp is sucking air in, not blowing out. Does anyone here know if I can change the direction of the fan? I tried swapping the wires, but to no avail.
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Old 07-31-2021, 01:04 PM   #2
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There should be a switch. If not, you may be able to turn the fan blade over.
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Old 07-31-2021, 01:25 PM   #3
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The only switch is the on switch that is located on the side of the cabinet. It has two speeds to choose and both go the wrong direction. Are you referring to another switch somewhere? Also the motor on this fan is brushless, so just swapping wires doesn't work either.
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Old 07-31-2021, 01:30 PM   #4
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So far the only thing I've found is to replace that entire unit, but that doesn't guarantee that it will blow out. Your idea of a DPDT switch is good and I'll look into that. Do you have a place where you shop for those? I can do a search too. Just checking.
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Old 07-31-2021, 01:43 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynn Eberhardt View Post
There should be a switch. If not, you may be able to turn the fan blade over.
Turning over just the fan blade will not reverse the air direction, just lower the efficiency of the device, assuming that is is currently turning in the direction the manufacturer designed. If you can't reverse the direction of the motor, you need to rotate enough of the unit that the motor is flipped 180° to reverse the air direction.
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Old 07-31-2021, 01:53 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynn Eberhardt View Post
There should be a switch. ....
Quote:
Originally Posted by maxman View Post
The only switch is the on switch that is located on the side of the cabinet...
MAX.. people are guessing that you have the Fantastic Fan brand because Scamp used that for a long time and it was probably the original fan in your camper. But it had no switch on the cabinet - all controls were on the fan housing in the ceiling. So it would be a big help if you would identify the fan you do have, and / or post some photos. Otherwise we are in the dark here.

Also be more specific and descriptive of the wires you swapped. I'll bet they were not the wires at the motor. I'll also wager that if you switch the wires at the fan motor then the fan will reverse direction.
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Old 07-31-2021, 02:50 PM   #7
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OK. I went out to take some pictures of this and realized that I had swapped the wrong two wires. I had swapped out the red and blue wires. Just now I saw that the blue and black wires were the ones that go into the fan motor. Once I swapped those, the fan now blows out. That did create a little different issue though. Now, the low speed setting on the switch does not work. The high speed is working. I also included a picture of a device where the wires go through before going to the fan motor. I have no idea what that is for.
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IMG_20210731_140502_2.jpg   IMG_20210731_141132_2.jpg  

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Old 07-31-2021, 02:53 PM   #8
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The device is a wire wound resistor, which is probably put in series with one of the motor leads to produce the low speed.
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Old 07-31-2021, 02:57 PM   #9
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OK. That makes sense. Would I be able to get the low setting back if I wired the black wire where the red one is now on that resistor? But, I can live with just the high speed if it's better to leave well enough alone...
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Old 07-31-2021, 04:19 PM   #10
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Very helpful photos.. only leaves out the switch (front and back).

Also if you can check the voltage and polarity with a meter at the blue wire (on the resister where the two connectors are next to each other) and the black wire at the fan. Not sure if that is insulated or not... so try the black wire at the fan, or remove the wire nut on the black wire long enough to make the measurement. By the way this might be well be a home made two speed modification.
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Old 07-31-2021, 04:42 PM   #11
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Here are pics of the switch front and back. I don't have a meter, but I'm pretty sure the black wire is hot from the battery.
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Old 07-31-2021, 05:00 PM   #12
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Gordon,

My brother will be at my place tomorrow to get the voltage and polarity figured out. I will send you an update once I have that.

Thanks for all your help so far!
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Old 07-31-2021, 05:01 PM   #13
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Before doing anything let a few people review this post.

I am going to make a guess that this diagram describes how your fan is wired. The positive and negatives on the left might be reversed but that should not matter. The squiggly line - bottom center - is the symbol for a resistor.

If this schematic diagram is correct then you can change the fan to exhaust and also keep the two speed function by doing this… Return the wires that you switched to the original config. Cut the blue and black wires between the fan motor and the resister (near the clip). Connect black to blue and blue to black using crimp butt connectors.
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Old 07-31-2021, 05:19 PM   #14
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Yup. I'll give it a rest for now. Again, thanks for your insights!
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Old 08-01-2021, 12:04 AM   #15
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Again

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lynn Eberhardt View Post
There should be a switch. If not, you may be able to turn the fan blade over.
Turning the blade over will only make it work less efficiently.
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Old 08-01-2021, 06:16 AM   #16
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I hesitate to muddy the water here but you could modify the fan to use a PWM variable speed control for dead stop to the max. speed of the fan and any point in between. In fact I think you could find a PWM variable speed controller that would also reverse the fan.
See
and
https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/...n-mod-10-bucks
and other online links..

Since you have a switch on the cabinet which has wiring to the fan I would add the speed controller in the cabinet next to the switch instead of at the fan as shown in the above links. Strip out the resistor and wire straight to the fan motor using the two wires from the switch's output for the pos and neg power. These would be relocated from the switch to the PWM speed controller's output. Then wire the speed controller to the switch and to power.

It would be a sweet mod.. you could then turn the fan on and off and adjust the speed and maybe spin direction all from the switch and controller at the cabinet.
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