The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay new 6v heater blower switch smoking

I installed my new 6v heater blower switch yesterday. it works great, however upon turning it on it started to smoke as long as I ran it. After about 10 minutes I feel the smoke was decreased by 50% or so, but I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this? Maybe some oil is applied to some of the internal parts and it just has to 'cook off'?
Also my original switch only ran on one speed out of three. Upon removal I found it is supposed to have a glass fuse, any idea what size fuse this takes?

The picture is too small to see anything. The switch gets hot by it's design so if there's any oil or other material on the coil it'll burn off. That may be the smoke you refer to. The lower you set the speed the hotter it gets because it's dumping the electricity not sent to the fan motor to the coil to be expelled as heat. Turn it on and watch closely to make sure nothing catches on fire & see if the smoking stops after a bit.

Curt - Brad Allen is the resident expert on heaters and switches. If he doesn't see your post, drop him a PM. Betcha he will know and probably have a NOS switch in-the-box that he can check.

- Lonnie

Thanks Tiny, and Lonnie. Brad and I live in Salt Lake City, and He has helped me before, I will send him a PM.

This may not be related - but check to see that you don't have any plastic wire insulation touching the metal on the switch. I had smoke under my dash and thought a switch was bad, turns out I had used one of those crimp on connectors and had bent it by accident. The plastic touched metal, melted and caused smoke.

I was unable to buy a new switch that would stand up to the current of my 6 volt heater motor. I had two new ones melt when on reduced speed. The one I have now I use as an off and on switch. I don't go past the first click and thus the resistor element is not used.

Dave46pu I did not even think about the plastic crimp connectors that I used! I have since removed the plastic sheath but my smoke is coming from inside the unit. The smoke is definitely subsiding,so hopefully it will be gone soon. I hope the unit does not burn up like truckernix did!

Man that light is bright, I mean like hot-bright! Is the knob hot? Sure the correct bulb is in that switch?

Mike

New switches are usually coated with a protective film to keep the rust gods at bay. Looking at the light in your picture, it is bright, but not sure if that's the camera or not?

Let us know what Brad has to say

I forgot to follow this back up. Brad felt a 10 or 15 amp 6V fuse is what the switch I removed would take.