Stir plate wiring help

I'm building a stir plate using these instructions:



I followed them to a tee and wired everything up before drilling into the project box. Once I did so, I rewired and now nothing is working.

When I hit the switch to "on" the switch lights up, but the fan doesn't spin.

Things I've tried:

I've confirmed that the fan still works (tested it directly to the power supply).

I tried to take the potentiometer out of the loop and wired the fan directly to the power switch but the fan turns on regardless of whether the power switch is "on" or "off"

I'm in need of some ideas to figure out if there's something wrong with the potentiometer, the power switch, me, or maybe there's some kind of short happening somewhere.

Anyone have any thoughts? I'm trying to get this sucker up and going to I can carry on brewing again.

A photo would help out a lot.

this is rough, but your wiring should be something like this:

adding a switch would break ONE leg of the system only.

Hang Glider - I wired it up as per your diagram and it works, including the potentiometer. I didn't add the power switch though. If I do that, what should I change? My power switch has three prongs: Power, ACC, Ground.

Thanks for bearing with me; I have zero experience in wiring/electronics.

You don't really need to ground a power switch, especially in this case, so if you use yours, try one wire to power, one wire to ACC - (the 'accessory' you're trying to power up). Remember, you're only using one wire, you're just interrupting it on its path to the fan (see the circle in the diagram).

However, a lighted switch does confuse the issue - and that's why it's labeled power and acc - any light requires a 'hot' and a neutral, so that's one more layer of complexity in the wiring you have to do. So - if you really want that to work, the leg you're NOT breaking with the switch should have a short jumper to the "ground" on the switch, to complete the light circuit. The "power" should come from the power source, the "acc" should go to the fan, otherwise the light will stay on all the time.

Sounds like you have a switch with 3 prongs? Connect 1 prong to (+) voltage. Middle prong to the potentiometer. (-) voltage to the third prong along with the negative of the fan. When you switch it either connects your fan to positive voltage completing a circuit or to the negative terminal which does nothing.

Got it! Turns out that the wire I was running from the power switch to the potentiometer wasn't carrying the charge for one reason or another. I didn't even think that could happen. Everything's working great now, running smoothly and quietly. Thanks for the help guys.

glad it's working for you!