CHANCS Slow Speed Electric Motor TYC-50 110V 15-18RPM CW Micro Motor Turntable Gear for Electric FireplaceBox ffor Electric Fireplace

SHORT VERSION: I was pleasantly surprised to find this CHANCS motor available at a very reasonable price. It arrived next day and with the minor inconvenience of needing to splice on a couple of inches onto the wire leads, it's an identical part-swap, easy peasy.ALL THE BORING DETAILS: Our home has an electric fireplace that was here when we bought the house 6 months ago. I didnt think we would use it much but it works well as a room heater, allowing us to keep the main house thermostat on a more economical setting.Since the cold snap started here 2 months ago, we've been using it daily. Suddenly it started making a loud grinding noise. As I'm a well-experienced handy man, I thought the "squirrel cage" fan that blows the heated air into the room was starting to fail.Usually, it's not an actual part that wore out; The fan has bearings that chatter when the long life lubricant originally applied to them dries out. Taking the fan apart, cleaning it with an approved solvent, applying fresh lubricant restores the fan to like-new performance.When I put the fireplace back together & turned it on, I discovered that while the heater fan was much stronger at blowing hot air into the room, the loud grinding noise was still loud & clear.Turns out that the flame emulator uses what looks to be a rotisserie rod with half-inch mirrors that relect the light from a couple of chandelier bulbs as a small gear reduction motor rotates the mirrors at about 15RPM. The reflected light hits the back of the shadow box screen, giving the dynamic flame appearance when viewed from the front of the fireplace.I had made a "right church, wrong pew" mistake: The grinding noise was due to lubricant failure but not in the fan- the culprit was the mirror flame rod motor; Hardened grease caused the plastic gear array inside the motor to start snapping the teeth off which resulted in the grinding noise.ENDING REFRAIN: This CHANCS motor is the perfect fix option available at a very reasonable price. It's an identical part-swap, easy peasy.

Works as described

The motor performance and speeds were just like original we replaced. It was for an electric heater with a fireplace replica on the front. It worked just fine, we used it all winter. It still working.

This electric motor effects rotary movement of an attached "axle" at a rate ("RPM") that is roughly within the range (20 - 24 RPM) of the one it replaced (which rotated at approx. 22 RPM). It is actuated via a pair of stranded wire that is suitable to conduct standard 110VAC house current (U.S.). I am using it in an "electric fireplace" unit, which combines the function of an electric space heater with a visually pleasing representation of "burning logs" in a firebox (all enclosed within a relatively attractive wood cabinet which simulates a "hearth"). The motor turns a horizontally-mounted axle, which might also be described as a "pivot", "rod" or "bar", (behind and below this box), which has reflective strips attached to it at such intervals so that the light reflected off of them (which is produced by two clear bulbs approx the size of C9 Christmas lights), projected thru a pre-cut screen also behind the box, gives the appearance (viewed from the front of the unit) of "flames" rising from the "logs". It performs quite well - even though this motor was not specifically manufactured for this application (I believe its original purpose is to replace similar motors used to rotate the turntables in certain models of microwave ovens).As such, it has a couple of minor drawbacks: 1) The old motor it replaced turned only in a clockwise direction (viewed from the pivot side of the motor), which uniformly produced rotation of the axle - and the strips attached to it - so that the light reflected thru the filtering screen produced the perception of the resulting "flame" pattern as being in an "upward" direction - which is what one would expect of flames from an actual log in a fireplace. In fact, the old motor was clearly labeled "CW". It proved, however, to be quite difficult to locate a "CW"-only motor in the Internet market, so I ended up settling for this one - which itself is clearly labeled (and advertised as such) "CW/CCW" - that is, alternately rotating in both the clockwise and counter-clockwise directions (ostensibly with each successive activation of the power switch). This is considered ideal for microwave turntable operation, but even so, it is not so much of a problem for the simulated fireplace. Even though the alternating actuation of "CW" and "CCW" directions is not uniform (i.e. successive power-on operations of the fireplace unit many times might produce either "CW" or "CCW" rotation), if it ever starts rotating "CCW", I just flip the "on-off" switch until the "CW" rotation is produced. This might take two or three cycles of the power switch, but it has not failed to eventually produce the desired results. It is of course purely psychological, but seeing the "flame" pattern moving in a "downward" direction just doesn't cut it for "ambiance" :-) .Also, 2) I was able to tell, thanks to the dimensions of the motor pivot illustrated in the advertised specs (thanks for that!), that the pivot would likely be a little too "thick" in its circumference to accommodate the wire spring which acts as the coupler to the axle. Indeed this proved to be the case, as the coupler's rigid wire coil was a little too narrow in diameter to slip around the motor pivot. I was able to adapt this by stretching the spring out a bit (with two hefty pairs of needle-nose pliers and not a little effort). This points to a lack of variety and diversity in available dimensions in the parts of these motors out on the market, and not to any defect in the product itself.Overall, I am very pleased with the performance of the product. I have run it quite a bit this winter and had no issues.

Two plus years in service; keeps on giving.

This flame display motor is perfect for Heat Surge M5 fireplace. This motor controls the appearances of flame that lights up. It is a C/CW motor with several shaft holes that line up perfectly with the rotating flame barrel and pin. 15-18 RPM is what the factory calls for and it looks great when in use. You can splice the wires together or cut the existing motor wires off near the motor and splice the original motor wires to the new motor so it plugs into the original connector. If the flames go backwards shut it off and quickly start it again and the flames will go the correct way (upwards). Easy to install the motor once fireplace is disassembled to put it in.

bought this without even checking the actual size of my electric fireplace motor. Installed it and it worked great. The attachment holes are off from my other, but it was easy to drill and put the screw where it would fit properly

Installed with no problem and it fixed the problem.