Blaze King Princess Insert fan is driving me nuts!!!

[Archer39]

I got my Princess in the beginning of the burning season and the fan has made a vibration noise since day one. I have taken off the cover for the fans and tightened up the 4 bolts that hold the fan to the mounting plate. They were all loose. The plate the fan mounts is making the noise. This helped for a month and now it is back to doing the same thing.

Has anyone else had issues with there princess's fans?

Thanks,

Zack

 

[oconnor]

I had to fuss with my fan a bit to keep it quiet as my hearth floor wasn't level. If the nuts/bolts are coming loose, I'd say something isn't balanced. I spent an hour with long tweezers pulling dog hair out of mine last night, and it is quieter and hasn't vibrated since. You might try adding lock nuts or some Locktite to the threads - just get the removable stuff.

 

[Heatsource]

Not an atypical problem- we just had one that did the same thing.


add some self adhesive gasket to the stove between the mount and the body of the stove.

or, slightly bend the bracket- or both

 

[Archer39]

i wanted to add some gasket but the way it is mounted i am not able to remove the fan or the bracket with out cutting something. A picture would be worth a thousand words here but the fan is the way of screws hold on the bracket and bracket is in the way of of the screws holding on the fan. it must have been assembled before a metal support piece of the stove was welded on.

the thing is to hot to even mess with right now.

 

[weatherguy]

Mine does the same thing, I cleaned it out real good, had some dog hairs in there and it helped for a while, I no longer have the dog that sheds and it's doing it again. I found that if I raise the cord it stopped so I passed the cord through the handle on top of a coal bucket on the hearth and it stopped. I'd like to fix it permanently but I don't quite understand what A1's saying.

 

[Archer39]

i have a dog that sheds but it has done it since day one.

 

[liquidskin]

bumping this thread.. i cant get my bk fans over half way without the dreaded rattle. i opened it up a few weeks ago and tightened the screws, but this only seems to have helped for a short time. whats the best solution?

 

[webby3650]

As was mentioned, bending the bracket a little helps most of the time. Tightening the screws does nothing beneficial, they are mounted on rubber. So tightening them only squishes the rubber bushing.

There is nothing in the way that would prevent you from removing the entire blower assembly, bracket and all.

Many of the times I've found a Princess with a rattle that happens at various rpms, it's actually the convection deck rattling. It sits on top of the stove and secures to the shroud with a few screws. Often the unit isn't level and this prevents the shroud from touching the fireplace firmly enough to prevent it from vibrating. I've had 1 that just had a bad motor, it was out of balance and would vibrate no matter what.
Have you involved the dealer? If it's done this since day 1 they should have taken a look at it for you.

 

[twd000]

wanted to resurrect this old thread to share a tip that may help others

My Princess insert also rattled since day 1, at various RPMs.

I found that the fan was clean, and screws were all tight, the rubber bushings were intact, but the entire sheet metal bracket the fans are mounted on was vibrating. If I held the fan with my hand, the vibration stopped.

I measured the gap between the bracket and the fire box: about 1 1/4". So I fished around in my tray of random leftover hardware and found a steel bolt that was 1 1/2" long (probably 3/8" diameter but that dimension isn't critical)

I simply wedged the bolt between the firebox and the bracket, so that the bracket is always in tension. I did not drill any holes, or affix the bolt in any way, simply used it as a wedge to press against the bracket, which prevents it from moving.

It's now been 3 days running at various speeds, and no rattling.

Hope this helps someone

 

[liquidskin]

wanted to resurrect this old thread to share a tip that may help others

My Princess insert also rattled since day 1, at various RPMs.

I found that the fan was clean, and screws were all tight, the rubber bushings were intact, but the entire sheet metal bracket the fans are mounted on was vibrating. If I held the fan with my hand, the vibration stopped.

I measured the gap between the bracket and the fire box: about 1 1/4". So I fished around in my tray of random leftover hardware and found a steel bolt that was 1 1/2" long (probably 3/8" diameter but that dimension isn't critical)

I simply wedged the bolt between the firebox and the bracket, so that the bracket is always in tension. I did not drill any holes, or affix the bolt in any way, simply used it as a wedge to press against the bracket, which prevents it from moving.

It's now been 3 days running at various speeds, and no rattling.

Hope this helps someone

Picture is worth a thousand words!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[twd000]

 

[liquidskin]

View attachment 216216

Awesome, thank you. Keep us posted if the rattle returns. I've been trying to silence the princess for years.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mr. Freeze]

The majority of your fan noise is from the shrouds being mounted direct to the motor. The rattling sounds are caused by the mounting plate vibrating against the stoves shroud. Here is how to solve both issues:

Remove the fan's mounting plate from your stove, then remove the fan & motor off of the mounting plate. Label the fan blades "top" & "bottom" then remove the fan clips and carefully remove the fan blades themselves from their shafts (use a heat gun before carefully pulling them off with pliers) Remove the two fan shrouds, then cut off and save all (8) threaded ferrels from the motors brackets.

Disassemble the motor and replace the two sealed bearings that slip over each shaft. They are available online from Amazon as R4AZ bearings for 1/4" shafts, 3/4" diameter and 9/32" wide. (This usually isn't the major source of noise but they're only about $2 each and it's worth doing anyway while you have it apart.)

Then, go to Home Depot and buy (8) #8-32 x 3/4" truss head machine screws and a minimum of (32) #9 metal roofing screws. Pull the rubberized washers off of the roofing screws then slip two over each machine screw, put the machine screw through the shrouds hole then put two more washers on the screw so you'll have two rubberized washers on either side of the shroud. Use the ferrels you cut off and saved as nuts for on the backside of the motor brackets. Before reinstalling your fan into the stove, put adhesive-backed, flat braided rope gasket material between the stove's surround and your fan's mounting plate.

You should now have a perfectly acceptable noise level coming from your Blaze King wood stove. To limit how often your fan runs, buy a Digiten WTC-100 from Amazon and dangle the sensor about 18" above the top of your stove. Set it to come on at 95 degrees F and turn off at 90 degrees F. The fan will self regulate from then on. I like to put a plugin switch between the fan cord and the Digiten unit so I can manually turn it off while refueling the stove. Amazon has a glow switch 3 prong version made by Oviitech. Hope this all helps!

 

[twd000]

Any other Princess Insert owners rarely or never use the fan? I unplugged it to clean a couple years ago and never plugged it back in . I keep my stove room 70-74 degrees and I let the furnace run on the second floor as needed to maintain 67 upstairs

Am I wasting a lot of BTUs by not running the fan? The hottest spot on the brick fireplace surround is about 140F right now

 

[moresnow]

Any other Princess Insert owners rarely or never use the fan? I unplugged it to clean a couple years ago and never plugged it back in . I keep my stove room 70-74 degrees and I let the furnace run on the second floor as needed to maintain 67 upstairs

Am I wasting a lot of BTUs by not running the fan? The hottest spot on the brick fireplace surround is about 140F right now

Plug it back in and find out. Even using the slower half of the fan speed I bet you will like it. Only you can find out!

 

[stoveliker]

I hope @BKVP has seen this thread; learning about diy solutions to common problems are gold to ensure future customer satisfaction...

 

[begreen]

Old thread that picked up some current tips.

 

[BKVP]

I hope @BKVP has seen this thread; learning about diy solutions to common problems are gold to ensure future customer satisfaction...

It looks like these were related to the squirrel cage design used in the PI1010A. We haven't made the unit since mid 2019.

The PI29 now uses an axial fan. It does create the same amount of airflow, less in fact, but we haven't had any reported noise issues.

We have ALWAYS stated owners can call their dealers or our offices for support.

Thanks for pointing out this thread...