Vent: Found a fix for that weird door operator hum on older Otis units

Had a 90s Otis Gen2 making that low hum even when idle, driving tenants nuts. Bypassed the usual checks and just added a 0.1 uF ceramic capacitor across the motor leads as a snubber, noise gone in 30 seconds. Anyone else tried this on the old solid-state boards?

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3 Comments

the_beth3mo ago

Wait, @margaretrivera thought it was a ghost? That's hilarious and actually tracks.

7

caseys305mo ago

Driving tenants nuts" is right... I'm surprised they didn't start a petition before you found the capacitor. Classic fix for a noise that makes everyone think the building's haunted.

4

margaretrivera5mo ago

You're right about the haunted building thing. I was the one calling maintenance every other day, convinced it was a ghost in the walls (I watch too many scary movies). Finding out it was just a bad capacitor felt like solving a mystery, a really annoying one.

2