Woot! Finally got around to fixing the furnace/blower. It's the original furnace, but with the OWB, I really only use it for the blower and duct system. It's about 28 years old so no service parts are available even if some energetic heating and cooling company wanted to try to fix it (and I wanted to pay them!)
The fan has been sticking either on or off and required tapping of the relay to get it to go to its proper state. So I have been doing that a few times a day and seting the thermostat high in the evenings so when I turned it off for the night the house was still above 60 in the morning.
After an exhaustive search, a direct replacement relay was no longer available. After even more searching I came up with the decoder page for the part number and was able to locate a substitute relay made by the same company (Potter & Brumfield - interesting company history) that was mechanically identical with a different sealed cover. Bonus, because I didn't want to solder in leads for a different pinout.
Sure enough, the old relay had a cracked solder joint, rattled, and had a stalagmite on one of the contacts so that explained the sticking. Soldered in the new relay and we are back in business! Cost: $25 for 6 relays versus $4000 for a new furnace. Somebody deserves a present!
Anybody want to buy 4 new relays?
The fan has been sticking either on or off and required tapping of the relay to get it to go to its proper state. So I have been doing that a few times a day and seting the thermostat high in the evenings so when I turned it off for the night the house was still above 60 in the morning.
After an exhaustive search, a direct replacement relay was no longer available. After even more searching I came up with the decoder page for the part number and was able to locate a substitute relay made by the same company (Potter & Brumfield - interesting company history) that was mechanically identical with a different sealed cover. Bonus, because I didn't want to solder in leads for a different pinout.
Sure enough, the old relay had a cracked solder joint, rattled, and had a stalagmite on one of the contacts so that explained the sticking. Soldered in the new relay and we are back in business! Cost: $25 for 6 relays versus $4000 for a new furnace. Somebody deserves a present!
Anybody want to buy 4 new relays?