Patton U2-1887 18" High Velocity Fan with Cheap, Dangerous, Failing Stamped Blade
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- Опубликовано: 2 июл 2024
- This is a Patton 18" High Velocity Air Circulator Fan model U2-1887, historically an excellent, high power, good quality unit. After the Holmes buyout of Patton I believe sometime in the late 90s, the quality of these fans was dropped to a dangerously low level.
Cheaper motors were fitted into these fans and paired with the worst part -- a stamped blade. This stamped blade is more or less a cutout of rather thin sheet metal bent into the shape of a blade. This is a satisfactory design for small, relatively low power blades, but certainly not for something of this form factor. The high speed and velocity of the blades causes extreme stress on the center of the blade, which is comprised of nothing more than thin, poor quality sheet metal.
Over time, these blades experience 2 different failures. One being cracks forming in between the 3 blades surrounding the area where the blade attaches to the shaft. When these cracks get large enough, the blade will catastrophically fail and fly apart during operation.
The second failure, which appears to have already happened with this unit and was repaired at some point, is the portion where the blade attaches to the mechanism that holds it to the shaft will let go, allowing the blade to go free during operation and slam into the back of the fan, potentially damaging electrical components. As seen on this fan, it appears that the blade hit the switch box and shattered it.
I have personally seen these blades fail in these ways in multiple instances. There are no known reports of the blades catastrophically failing and causing bodily harm, however I do believe these stamped blades are extremely dangerous and should have been recalled for reasons of safety.
The better quality blades made by Patton before Holmes took over utilized a steel hub in the center with blades riveted on to this hub. This design was strong and reliable with no failures that I'm aware of. All the units made in the early 90s and older were made this way and are completely safe to use.
This particular fan is in rather rough shape, but with a replacement, properly-made blade, it's a perfectly good fan. It's going to take quite a bit of effort to restore the cosmetics of this unit, but we'll get it working and looking quite nice eventually.
In place of the dangerous blade, I have fitted a Dayton 18" fan blade which I bought for this purpose. I compared the power consumption of the motor with the old blade and the replacement one. The power draw was the same, indicating this blade is a good fit for the motor and provides similar load. 
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This was my fan. I donated it to the auction. It was used at my former place of employ in the warehouse. They were going to throw it away because the center hub was sliding on the blade. I actually put some Krazy Glue on it and that seemed to have remedied that. I used it for awhile until I saw the cracks. That's when I put it in the attic, thinking I could find a replacement blade.
The tape is on the bottom because it used to walk on the floor while it was running. It was a good fan but I agree, very dangerous indeed.
Hi Jordan! I am a fellow portable fan, air conditioner, and lighting (especially outdoor HID) collector from CT. Using my experience and deductive reasoning, a few things come to mind. I have reason to believe that the blade set which was on this fan when you purchased it was not the original blade set. The first commenter stated that he personally owned this fan and that he had difficulty with the hub sliding on the shaft; a fairly rare failure mode, at least from my experience. However, if the blade set had been replaced with a non-original one, that could explain it. I have done a fairly exhaustive media search of this fan and found many examples, however, they all had blades riveted at the hub, albeit with a similar color, pitch, and scythe-like shape. I am aware that Patton produced a number of 18" models with blue, stamped blade sets as opposed to their usual center hub sets, however, they were metallurgically superior to the blade set found on this one. What an enigma! Thanks for the content!
I work in a meat department at a grocery store. Their is a Patton fan in their and it’s on all the time and I’m always concerned that the blade is going to explode while I’m helping customers.
Good video on this Patton High velocity fan can't wait to see the cleaning and servicing video especially the motor soon bro
Thanks
Jordan, it was the beginning of the end. By that time Patton was using Raider motors which had a smaller shaft. The solution was a spacer bushing to make everything fit. That fan was really put through the wringer! I’ve seen a handful of Patton’s with that blade design- not one of their best ideas but oh well.
The motor itself still seems decent, it's the blade that's the real fatality here.
wow bro i can't wait to see you work on this fan fixed the pitch of the Dayton blade and give the motor some oil fully restore it i enjoyed the video
(Edit, wrote this before you saw the motor tag, woops!) RE Motor type: I the early-late 2000s, Holmes used Raider motors in many of their fans. Vent holes are/were cut out quite similarly to McMillans. They are almost always black and have no oil ports from my experience. Wondering if that's what is in this one.
The Raider motors generally seem decent. The ones used in the window fans seem to hold on for a while.
I think it would be kind of neat to see what happens if you were to put those blades on a larger motor just to see how long they last. Definitely for something to do outside of course.
Holmes really cheaped out by phasing out the riveted blade design. I wonder if Holmes still produces fans under that name or did it end up in the hands of a even cheaper manufacturers
The Patton name is still around, though I'm unsure of who owns it at this point.
Holmes still uses rivet bade fans more on their hing velocity fans
The center that holds the blades on the shaft is called a bore
That’s scary that the blade can blow up you definitely don’t want to be around for that it seems like a very powerful fan also that would be kinda cool to see the blade blow up outside for a experiment
You know, we used to have a Patton fan which was similar at our other house in the screened in porch; This was before I really started working on fans, but I liked fans, so I used to pay attention to them when nobody else did. The fan was running one day and got knocked over by someone sliding the sliding door onto the cord, and the blades broke off. I wonder if it was having a similar failure as this one, as I never really thought about it but simply tipping over really shouldn't have broken a metal blade.
It quite possibly was.
The piece in the middle is the hub.
Believe it or not, the latest Patton 18 inch fan is actually an improvement over a lot of the earlier made in China versions. I have several vintage Patton fans going all the way back to the 50s, but I do have 2 Chinese versions, one from 2009 and one from 2021. The 2009 version is terrible flimsy garbage, and the blades hardly had any pitch from the factory. It was also extremely loud. The 2021 version is a major improvement. It moves more air, feels much more solid, has more speed difference, and the motor shaft is a bigger diameter. The one I got is very well balanced.
I have noticed that some of the cheaper high velocity fans seem to be getting a little better over the last few years compared to the 2010s. There's quite a few models available with ball bearings now too.
I like it
This is absolutely abismal! I don’t understand how Holmes can sell something like this if it is them who made this and not the original manufacturer. Why these are not recalled is beyond me. Granted it is decent but with how bad the blades are designed on this model it is for-sure a safety hazard. Hopefully one day these will get recalled if someone gets hurt by one because of the design flaws.
the part that connects to the motor on the fan blade is called a hub.
i used to have a 2004 homles made patton, so that fan you have pre holmes
It is made post-Holmes buyout with the materials Holmes notoriously uses.
It seems to be quieter with the Dayton blade set as opposed to the original blade set while still moving the same amount of air and now being safe to use.
These blades move the air much differently than the original ones, but overall the performance is similar.
@@JordanU The aerodynamics of the Dayton blade appear to be similar to the original blade hence causing similar performance with the shape of the blades causing a difference in air movement.
I think you know that already though
Great video they really did cheap out on the blade if they made a better blade it would be a cool fan
True
Jordan, is that something that could be fixed with JB Weld or something that could bond the parts together?😊
No, this cannot be salvaged safely.
That seems dangerous that there was a crack in the blade.
I totally agree, those cheap stamped metal blades should have been recalled. I have no clue why there was never a recall, but there should have been. I used to have one of those myself that I was always afraid to run it because the extreme force being put on the stamped blade. I ended up swapping the blade for a properly riveted one it was a great performer.
Yeah I could agree with him it looks a lot cooler I thought of trying to find one of those with an issue because I have a patent I think it's a U2 20 if I'm correct it has the more rectangular blades the one you showed after the patent with the blue blades I have that one but the motor has a bad bearing but other than that that things are beast runs fine otherwise but I would have to agree that fan looks a lot cooler kind of want to find one that way I can do the same thing to it kind of reminds me of a high velocity fan that my school used to have
Thanks for letting me know.
Junk, never gonna get one
OK