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Tuesday, December 28, 2021

No User-Serviceable Parts Inside!

 "The things you think about determine the quality of your mind." - Marcus Aurelius

 I keep a little under-desk heater in the office.  For some reason when I turned it on again after the cold weather returned, the fan decided it was time to sound like a cement mixer.  Eventually, after a lot of moaning and groaning, it would quiet down to a certain extent.  It was the five minutes of constipated cow noise before it settled down that was annoying.  Tough to get through those five minutes.

So I decided I'd see if I could straighten out that unholy noise. I noticed this label on the back.  Fortunately my name is Mark, not User.

There's really not much to these things.  The heater element is much thinner than I had guessed.  What I found a bit weird is that the heating element is held in a plastic housing!  There is an overtemperature switch just above the heating element, so I guess if the airflow stops, the switch will shut off power so that the entire unit doesn't melt down and catch fire.

Two drops of oil into the fan bearing (center).

And she ran without a creak!  The bearing is probably a bit wallowed out, but hopefully it will survive a few more years.






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