I damaged my resistor being a bit "handy" with removing the larger-than-the-hole-it's-coming-out-of heater blower in my VX (all of the rivets gave way and it just fells to bits).
My original one worked. These are exposed to the fan because they get very hot and the fan keeps them cool. As long as the resistor coils aren't allowed to overheat and burn out (ie from putting it on 1 and having a seized or unplugged/broken fan or something), they will last for however long (ie they don't just die for no reason). I'm pretty sure nobody has the VX fan on setting 1, because they are shite.
The old resistor wire is soldered to the base.
There is an easy fix for these if yours is broken, get yourself two of these fuse wires - this is £1.60 from Wickes
Going off various things on the internet, the lowest setting is 2.5 ohms, and the next setting up is 1.1 ohms (full speed is 0).
I found the 15A wire matched the larger wire the best - I coiled my fuse wire around a suitable sized metal tube - I counted the amount of coils on the large one (which was ten), but went with the maximum amount I could from what I had. I then snipped it to get the ohm rating of the wire to match about 2.5.
I did the same with the other one - it has 14-15 turns, just using 15A but less turns, I managed to get this to 1.5A. I just wanted my fan to work on all speeds, the blower doesn't make much difference to the ventilation, various fan speeds aren't going to be that noticeable anyway.
Nice!
I tidied up the coils a little bit - I'm not sure if the old coils were insulated but avoid having any of the turns touch each other.
Good luck!
Edited by DavidB, 01 June 2025 - 11:05 AM.
