Disassembling Air Purifier Airsoap x3 tower - electrostatic air filter

The AirSoap X3 electrostatic air filter contains high voltages in the power supply. Unless you’re trained in high voltages, don’t mess near the transformer when powered on. 5000-15000 dc volts!

The AirSoap company, Phonesoap, is friendly and responsive, but they offer NO PARTS for repair. Warranty is two years, within which they’ll fix your unit. Beyond that, help and parts will be only for filter media items. Motors and other components will need to come from eBay and China

Disassembly

Power supply

The power supply is accessible from the bottom of the unit. 4 Phillips head screws hold the bottom cover in place. There is a single circuit board with both low voltage and stepped up voltage components.

• Low voltage side includes electrolytic capacitors, which are common failure points.
• High voltage side includes the large windings of a step up transformer and a large capacitor connected to its output.

Fan and control

On top of the X3 is the fan that pulls air up through the filtering elements in the belly of the unit. Filter screen, corona wire insert, dual plate collector and carbon filter lead to the fan. Fan and on/off control are access from the TOP of the unit.

There are 8 tabs visible inside and on the edge of the black plastic lattice cover on top, two per side. A long thin flat blade screwdriver can reach each tabs. Twist screwdriver slightly to release tabs in all 8 locations one at a time while using a spacer (phone disassembly ‘picks’ work here) to prevent clips from reconnecting as you detach others. Be gentle as they break easily if moved too far. Doesn’t take much to release them.

Once inside. The fan motor and squirrel cage are mounted on an ‘x’ frame, held in place by 4 visible Phillips screws. Motor is a 12v, 3 wire, pwm motor will hall sensors. A single surface mount electrolytic capacitor is on this board, easily accessible with motor out of the plastic ‘x’ frame. You can see my replacement thru-hole capacitor in the motor circuit board picture.

Problems

If you are getting flakey light and fan motor behavior, focus on the middle tier - the filtering elements. Broken, dirty or bent corona wires. Cracked electrical connections on the edge of the collector plate housing (was my problem).

Unit can make electronic sounds, stepped up phaser noises, etc. all high voltage discharge arcing from dirt or broken parts. If middle tier is fine, test small capacitors, look for bad solder joints, burnt components.