DIY Refrigerator Condenser Fan Upgrade

If you're interested in modifying the condenser fan of a refrigerator compressor, you might want to check out this article. The condenser fan from a discarded refrigerator is a shaded-pole motor enclosed in an aluminum shell, and the base bracket uses springs, which should help reduce the effect of compressor vibrations on the fan. This can help minimize noise caused by vibrations. The condenser fan looks like this:

The plastic fan blades look like this:

You can prepare a 10-inch woofer magnet to use as a base, like in the picture below:

But if you do it this way, the airflow will be reversed. You can only have it blow in the direction shown in the picture below:

The rotation direction of a shaded-pole motor is determined by the main pole turning toward the shading pole. So, to reverse the rotation, you'll need to disassemble the motor, remove the stator iron core and coil, and reassemble them in reverse. You can take it apart and flip the stator coil to change the rotation direction.

First, you need to remove the fan blades.

Then you can take out the four mounting screws.

Once the cover is off, you'll need to flip the coil. There's a groove clip for the wires, so you'll have to reconnect the wires from the back of the stator coil.

The rotor looks like this:

You can also spray paint the magnet part if you like, and then you can put it back together and test it.

After finishing, it will look like the picture above. The whole unit uses about 18 watts, and since the fan blades are made of plastic, even if they hit someone, it won't hurt. If you're still worried, you can later find some suitable material and add a cover to it.

Done.