AC motor shaft

[Marc08]

Our AC unit vibrates the whole camper. We have a Primer Ultra Light . I noticed that the shaft on the motor you could pull it in and out a little. Is this supposed to loose or tight so that it won’t move?

[Frank G]

Is the fan motor or compressor motor doing the vibrating? The fan and motor are balanced at assembly. One or more of the balance clips may have fallen off or the fan is extremely dirty or the mounts are defective. Is the fan attached tightly to the shaft, are all the blades intact?

There is no way to correct a bad compressor/motor as they are a sealed unit.

Oh, the motor shaft usually has some end play, if the fan isn't touching something it should be ok. Wahl we are talking about the motor bearings how about the side to side play, this should be tight.

[Marc08]

I believe it is the motor shaft causing the vibration. It has the fan and cage on it . The camper is a 2020 I looked at the fan it appears to be clean of any debris. I don’t know what clips you are talking about I didn’t see any . I will have to inspect it again. My local camping world service center wasn’t much help .

[LHaven]

Originally Posted by Marc08

The camper is a 2020

Ding, ding, ding... warranty issue for your dealer to solve!

(Unless, of course, you are Canadian...)

[chuckster57]

There will be 2 separate fans, one on each end of the motor shaft.

One can be inspected by taking off the cover ( on the roof) and the other can be inspected by removing the ceiling assembly and looking up at the discharge port.
Since it is a 2020, I would take it in for warranty repair.

[bobbecky]

Several years ago, while still in bed one morning , we had the A/C set to run the fan continuously, and all of a sudden a very load noise started coming from the A/C. I got up and turned off the unit. I finally made it up on the roof, pulled the A/C cover, and finally discovered the inside blower fan had broken. Temporarily, I used a small cable tie to hold the fan together so it wasn't spreading when it ran which caused it to make contact with the housing. After a couple false starts, which included mislabeled fans from the online dealer, I finally got the correct fan, and haven't had any new issues since.

[xrated]

To answer your original question.....yes, it should have a bit of end play or back and forth. When a motor starts up, the rotor has to be able to find the electrical center within the windings of the motor. I've been a Journeyman Electrician since 1980 and this is normal. If it didn't have that bit of end play, I'd be more concerned with that.

[6.2 Superduty]

Originally Posted by Marc08

I believe it is the motor shaft causing the vibration. It has the fan and cage on it . The camper is a 2020 I looked at the fan it appears to be clean of any debris. I don’t know what clips you are talking about I didn’t see any . I will have to inspect it again. My local camping world service center wasn’t much help .

Camping world service center wasn't much help. I've heard that before

[bobbecky]

When we had the vibration problem with our A/C, it was a broken blower wheel, black plastic, and there were no balancing weights on it. What happened was the outer edge of the plastic fan broke, not visible with it sitting still. Once it was turned on, the area where it was broke started spreading and would make contact with the area around the fan, and sounded like the A/C was coming apart. There are quite a few different fans like this, so it took a couple tries to get the right one, first one, the package was stolen from the mailbox at the inlaw's address, the second one, which I'm sure was the same as the first was the wrong fan, blades were shaped in the opposite direction. Finally, on the third try, got the correct fan, and it only took a few minutes to replace, had to lift the motor out to change the fan.