Galaxy 2150 12" Oscillating Desk Fan | Initial Checkout

Here is a Galaxy 2150, perhaps the most iconic oscillation fan ever made. Curiously enough, these are still a dime a dozen in this region. We have absolutely no box fans to speak of left, but these are still everywhere, and it's not too uncommon to find one at a thrift store or an estate sale, which is where this one came from. It's got that garage or basement type grime on there. It doesn't look to be too high hours. That's probably only one or two years of dust. This looks like a more recent plug, but the wire looks very old. It's extremely thin. It's like that old style wire that was used on the GE box fans that always frayed where it goes into the cabinet. That's kind of what it reminds me of. Let's see if we can look in there. Yeah, it doesn't look too bad. It definitely seemed worse. It doesn't look too bad at all. Oscillation knob is still there. Seems to want to work. It's definitely got some traces of becoming a little bit brittle, probably from moisture exposure wherever this was stored, and it looks like it's kind of worn down around where it passes through the housing. That's kind of weird. I don't think I've ever seen that like that before. Interesting. Neck looks to be in good shape. I don't see any cracks. There's the informations. The base has the two wall mount holes. I don't know if I'd really trust that little piece of plastic to hold that much weight, and these don't really tilt back far enough to make any sense for wall mount. Well, this is not wanting to move. That's one of the only things that seems to go bad on these units is this this tilt mechanism. Sometimes it either stops locking in place, you know, like the clicks stop working, or sometimes it just freezes like it has here, and it looks like somebody might have tried to force this at some point upon closer inspection. There is some some damage there, so we might have to do a little repair there, but that's fine. This was pretty much free. I picked this up at a local estate sale with a large assortment of other things, a bunch of other fans, some vintage Christmas stuff, etc., and the whole lot only cost $27, so this was a dollar at most. I mean, this was practically free. No complaints to be had. It still has some of the original clips. Only two of them, but they're still there. This one's actually in pretty good shape still. It's still very clear. Let's plug it up and see if it works. It probably does. These are generally pretty reliable, and we're filming in the garage today. I know the lighting in here is not quite as good, but I can't get to the studio right now because of all the Christmas stuff I pulled out from under the stairwell, so we have to film in here, or we can't film at all. The switch seems to be broken. That's an unusual failure. This whole thing seems like it's warped up a little bit. Everything misaligned here. I don't know if something might have hit the bottom of it and caused it to warp upwards. I don't really see how that could happen because you would notice unless maybe somebody tried to wall mount it and used a screw that was too deep. Is that a possibility? No, I don't think so. There's nothing directly under the hole. Well, I don't know. We'll have to take this apart and see what's wrong with the switch. Every fan I've tested from that estate has been busted thus far, so I guess this shouldn't be too much of a surprise. But again, the fans were practically free because some of the Christmas stuff was very old and very valuable, so I'm not in the upset. Quite frankly, if I asked, she probably would have given me it for $10, but I don't like to rip people off. All right, so the oscillation here is definitely very stiff. The whole thing is stiff, but it's better with the oscillation disengaged. Let's see if we can put this back to the center. Yeah, it's barely wanting to oscillate. Wow. Okay, it's just about stalled out on low. Medium, I can't get to make contact. Oh, there it goes. Looks like medium has enough power to overcome the friction, and high certainly does. It's working properly on high. Well, you can hear how dirty it is. It shouldn't have that higher frequency wishing sound to it. See if I can get this to line up straight. There we go. Yeah, this is very dirty. The guard, at least, is pretty clogged. It's amazing how little dust will significantly cut down on the performance. This is not even a quarter as strong as it should be. It's slightly out of balance, but it's an Elastco product after all. That's 0.37 the amps, 44 the watts, power factor one on the nose, so the capacitor is still perfectly good. It's amazing the capacitors are lasting as long as they are in these things. I think I've only come across one or two that had a failing cap, and it's very rare that the bearings lock up either. These really were pretty invincible fans. I've never had a switch go bad on one of these. This is an unusual case, and the number of these that's still around speaks volumes to the quality. 0.3 the amps, 36 the watts, power factor one on the nose, and on low, 0.25 the amps, 29 the watts, power factor one on the nose, so it all checks out electrically. It's got some various mechanical issues that hopefully are easy to rectify. I don't know, the switch could be a challenge. Everything else should not be an issue, but I think this might clean up pretty nice. The guard doesn't have all of its luster anymore, but it should clean up fairly well. I don't see too much rusting or pitting. It's just kind of tarnished, and the base likely will clean up well also. A lot of times you have a coating of dust like this, and the coating of dirt is old. It seems to almost preserve the finish over the years, so we might find that some melamine foams will bring this back to pretty much like new condition. Hopefully the switch can be brought back to like new condition as well.