My remote for my tower fan recently stopped working.  With my previous remote repair experience (see post here), I figured I could fix it.

This remote was a bit smarter with an LCD display and didn’t have a ceramic resonator.  Viewing the IR LED through my smartphone’s camera indicated there were no pulses coming from it.  With the remote disassembled and batteries removed, I tested the LED in-circuit with a multimeter in diode test mode.   Checking both polarities, neither direction indicated a voltage drop so the LED was probably faulty.

I scrounged the recycling depot for some old remotes and removed the IR LED from one and installed it temporarily in my broken one.  I needed a 3mm LED and the replacement  was a larger 5mm but it would confirm if the LED was indeed faulty.  Replacing the LED worked so I ordered some 3mm IR LED’s on Ebay from China for around $1.  These came in pretty quick and now the remote is as good as new.

BTW, this is an excellent fan.  The tower design takes up much less space than a regular fan, has multiple modes and a timer which is great for bedtime.