Motor Death

[Tweasl]

To all,

I'm cutting away with my Shopmaster 2000 last night and my breaker blows. Long story short I lost the cheap Chinese motor used for the mill. I guess 8 years was all it could take. I want to upgrade to USA motors and go to 1.5 HP. What does everyone think about this and where should I get the motors?

Thanks Larry

[Al_The_Man]

Originally Posted by Tweasl Long story short I lost the cheap Chinese motor used for the mill. I guess 8 years was all it could take. I want to upgrade to USA motors and go to 1.5 HP. What does everyone think about this and where should I get the motors?

In my experience, you were lucky to get that, Leeson, Baldor are good motors,
It may be an opportunity to go to a VFD and get variable speed!.
Or DC with a suitable SCR control.
The latter can be had at the Surplus center site.
Al.

[fastlanecafe]

Tweasl,
Don't panic and spend money too fast. When I got my used quadra lift I had a similar experience. I called Shoptask and described the symptoms and it turned out to be just a failed capacitor which I replaced for 12.00. Since then my machine has been running fine. Even if you are considering going to a VFD drive on the mill, its worth it to see if the motor is still OK just to keep it as a spare for the lathe.

[sharpshooter90]

Read back through some recent posts- I recall one in which the guy was converting to VFD drives and offered to give away his original motors. You might get a new one just for the freight cost.

[digitalmdj]

I took the motors to a friends we were going to sell them at the car swap meet this month. I checked he lives on the other side of the country and it might cost more than their worth to ship. The motors have never run. I am now set up to use these.

[dahui]

Without seeing your motor, I'd say the most frequent cause of "death" is a blown capacitor. It should be pretty obvious if you take of the covers on the caps. Don't electrocute yourself.

If the motor itself is burned up (and/or you are looking for an excuse) I'd go with Baldor. However this brings up the whole upgrade question. If you use your ST a lot I'd strongly consider a VFD. You'll wonder how you ever got along without it.

For me there isn't much point on spending a bunch of money on a 110 single phase motor.

[dahui]

I love it when I post and the thread dies. Are you guys telling me something? Was this issue resolved? Curiosity is killing me.

[digitalmdj]

Most of the time is lack of money to solve a problem that stalls talks like this.

[fastlanecafe]

Dahui,
I think people turn to forums like this when they need help- once the problem is solved they just sort of fade away with no further comment.

[Tweasl]

Hello all,

First I checked the resistance of the motors start and run windings. This was fine within reason of the spec.I checked these to ground also with no shorts. I checked all capacitors for correct uF and found both start capacitors to be failed as surmised by the forum. I replaced both start capacitors with new 400uF 125 volt capacitors. These subsequently failed on BOTH motors. The only difference between these capacitors and the original Shoptask ones is that they are only 125 v capacitors. I don't remember my AC motor theory so any further help here would be appreciated. I'm thinking I might need 250 volt capacitors?, a higher uF range or maybe some how the power to my machine has changed.


Thanks Larry

[Al_The_Man]

You need to make sure they are AC motor rated, there are two types which are rated AC start and AC run.
AC run are the better of the two, if you have a choice.
BTW a resistance check of a winding only tells you if it has continuity, it does not detect a shorted turn.
Al.

[Tweasl]

Al,

Are you saying these windings could be shorted to each other and if so won't go to ground in this condition. I can see this as happening and I'm not sure you can check this other than a resistance check within spec. I did check these to ground and they were good. I'll double check the capacitor thing, but i bought these from Grainger in their motor section, so i assumed they were for AC motors.

Thanks Larry