How are ceiling fans designed so well for so many decades that they just keep running without much noise or fall apart? It’s like there’s almost no friction.
In: Engineering
There is just one or two points of friction. And those have nicely lubricated bearing. It is basically an electric motor with blades attached. There are no gears. Just electromagnetism causing the blades to spin.
Due to their much larger sizes, ceiling fans don’t need to spin very fast to achieve good airflow. Ceiling fans might just operate between 150 to 300 rpm, where as desk fans can be in the 1000 to 2000 rpm range and have much more noise.
Lower rotational speeds causes less stress on bearings, lower vibrations and overall quieter operation.
My grandma had a wooden ceiling fan for years. It had never been changed and was so old that it would swing around wildly and make this creeky noise.
I have no idea why it was ever turned on, because it was clearly a safety issue.
Our family never changed it though, because at the time my aunt was also living in the house. She had COPD and emphysema and was basically in home hospice with my grandma. At the time our whole family pulled together to care for them-but the ceiling fan was one thing we never got around too.
Anyway, my aunt was the kindest person..but in the end she got very confused and started watching the news 24/7 and would go on these rants about Isis and stuff.
One of my last memories of her, was when she started calling the fan “the Taliban fan” because one day it was gonna swing off the ceiling and chop our heads off. Whenever I think about ceiling fans it reminds me of that. 😆
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