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Radioman · 11-04-2008, 04:57 AM

Recently the Fantastic Fan in our Mountain Aire bathroom started to operate erratically – uncommmanded speed changes, turning on and off. Weird. I checked the connections but everything appeared fine so I called their techs. Guess what the first question was even before I told them anything specific: "Do you have a Newmar coach?"

Turns out they've been having trouble with the bathroom fan wall controls in late model Newmars. The tech told me that the silicon Newmar uses to fill the hole the wires come through behind the controller (to prevent condensation) has a certain kind of oil base that migrates to the back of the printed circuit board and contaminates it after a while causing all sorts of goofy things to happen. Sure enough, when I looked closely at it I saw some discoloration on the solder points.

As you would expect from Fantastic , they stepped right up and sent me a new PC board and fabricated a small backing plate that eliminates the need for silicon. Very easy to replace and it's working properly now.

Contact Fantastic Fan if you're having this sort of problem – they'll take care of you. A great company. BTW, they said they're working with Newmar to solve the problem at the time of manufacture.

Radioman · 11-04-2008, 04:57 AM

Recently the Fantastic Fan in our Mountain Aire bathroom started to operate erratically – uncommmanded speed changes, turning on and off. Weird. I checked the connections but everything appeared fine so I called their techs. Guess what the first question was even before I told them anything specific: "Do you have a Newmar coach?"

Turns out they've been having trouble with the bathroom fan wall controls in late model Newmars. The tech told me that the silicon Newmar uses to fill the hole the wires come through behind the controller (to prevent condensation) has a certain kind of oil base that migrates to the back of the printed circuit board and contaminates it after a while causing all sorts of goofy things to happen. Sure enough, when I looked closely at it I saw some discoloration on the solder points.

As you would expect from Fantastic , they stepped right up and sent me a new PC board and fabricated a small backing plate that eliminates the need for silicon. Very easy to replace and it's working properly now.

Contact Fantastic Fan if you're having this sort of problem – they'll take care of you. A great company. BTW, they said they're working with Newmar to solve the problem at the time of manufacture.

Dav5942 · 11-04-2008, 06:53 AM

Thanks for the heads up. We had a control board go bad in the Lav that Fantastic(great customer service!) sent us a new one(but no info on the silicon)-actually it was intermitantly bad when new. We replaced it without silicon. When we made PC boards we put a coating on the board for wet places.

soricobob · 11-04-2008, 06:57 AM

Just another case of Newmar doing it their way. I thought that the President of Total Vision rear view camera was being a bit over the top when he told me a similar story: thanks for the heads up!

Harm · 11-05-2008, 07:28 AM

Fantastic Fans has already replaced the controller in my bathroom twice but no mention of the silicon issue.
Thanks for the info, it is still working fine for now and Fantastic Fans is a fantastic company to do business with!