u/Zehryo

D'estate faccio praticamente la doccia fredda, rubinetto tutto a destra e via così.
Ma quando (se?) comincerà a fare di nuovo freddo, dovrò necessariamente cominciare ad utilizzare di nuovo la caldaia.

58 centesimi al metro cubo!!!!!!!!!!!!! E prima di calcolarci l'IVA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ma siamo impazziti?!

Aiuto, ho bisogno di trovare un fornitore che non mi dissangui questo inverno!!!

TL,DR: why does tightening the plastic nut (third picture) *anything more than barely* hinder the rotation of the shaft?!

Hello, newcomer here.

The Summer heat reached me too and I felt the need to get the fan out of the closet, to be able to sleep.

The fan in question has four speeds, the classic 1-to-3 plus a ½ speed (very silent, best for sleeping).
Turning it on after over half a year, I noticed the first speed was really struggling to start, while the ½ one wasn't even starting at all.
No good.

So I investigated and discovered that oils rated for sewing machines do a great job at fixing table fans.
By the way, thank you r/fans subreddit!

Ordered, received, unpacked, applied.
At first it seemed like the fan was functioning at least good enough, although still struggling a bit to start at the lowest speed.
I thought that letting it run for a longer period would give the oil time finish doing its magic.
Anyway, I decided to place it in my room for the night.

At some point during the night I woke up because I needed to pay a visit to the bathroom, but noticed a smell, namely the typical smell of overheating electrical appliances.
I sobered up pretty quickly, turned it off (too much heat around the speed dial!!) and subsequently unplugged it from the outlet.

The only thing that came to mind as the probable culprit was the green veil of (I guess that's what it was) dried-out grease (pictures 1 and 2).
Unfortunately, an old toothbrush and some IPA didn't manage to clean it off. It felt like melted plastic, rather than dry grease.
Hence I used a metal nail file (finer side) to scrape it off.
A second administration of oil and, goodness gracious, it was spinning like it was brand new!!

Until....I reassembled the whole thing, including the plastic nut meant to hold the back half of the protective cage.
I turned it on and it was struggling again. But in a different way.

It didn't make sense, the fan was spinning perfectly fine before mounting the plastics and the grills back on.
And.....I intuited it had to do with the only piece of plastic that was putting any stress on the structure.

I loosened the nut a fair bit and, behold, the fan was perfectly fine again!!

It's been cooling my legs for over 7 hours at the lowest speed, now, and it's still running smoothly and silently.
I declare it fixed.

The only thing that irks me, now, is that I can't understand why tightening that plastic nut even just a bit too much makes the engine struggle.

Anybody who knows what's going on with that part?