Help Wiring magnetic starter

[shouse]

Hey everyone, I bought a magnetic starter off ebay I'm trying to hook up. THere's a couple pieces broken and it's adding a couple variables that are confusing this more. I have some (not much) electrical background, but this new to me. Could use some help determining what I've done wrong or what I need to do. If there's something you still need to know, just ask.

The issue I'm having is that when I press down the start button, it makes contact and the coil engages. As soon as I let up on the button, it disengages. I read somewhere that describes a momentary pushbutton switch. I'm definitely confused on the portion of the wiring where it leaves the push button switch and goes to the contact relay before going to the magnetic coil. There's a '2' and '3' stamped right on the contact relay, so I just wired it up per the diagram. Makes sense, but still not working.

**In the pictures I bypassed the OL reset switch, but I've tried it both ways.

 

[RPH]

Which diagram did you wire to? If simple start / stop circuit then diagram A is correct. Check your wiring on the contact #2, that allows the coil to hold itself in with power once start is pushed. Most likely your problem involves that area.

 

[shouse]

Which diagram did you wire to? If simple start / stop circuit then diagram A is correct. Check your wiring on the contact #2, that allows the coil to hold itself in with power once start is pushed. Most likely your problem involves that area.

Yea, followed Figure A and 1. You can see in the pictures that the two middle terminals on the button controls are jumpered together and #2 starts there (Green wire)and goes to the contact relay in the box that also is labeled as '2' (Green wire). I believe the top set of contacts on that relay are NO, and the bottom two (what i'm connected to) are NC.

Maybe I have it backwards, despite how it's labeled, and I should be connected to the top contacts that they NO?? Sorry for the wiring mess, didn't want to spend the time to clean it up until it actually works. I know it makes it harder to trace.

There's also a button on the relay contact. Does that have to enabled?

 

[Norcal]

It would be helpful to lose the NM cable "Romex®" & use 16 or 14 AWG stranded wire, for the control wiring, 12 AWG solid wire is a bit much for the control station and auxiliary contacts, and having 3 separate colors for the control station will make it easier to sort out.

That Cutler-Hammer Citation starter while it is my favorite starter, is obsolete and has been for about 20 years, buying parts can be costly. Just a FYI.

 

[shouse]

I moved the wiring from the NC contacts (#2 and 3) shown in the pictures to the NO. This is the aux contact C320kA1 shown in the 'auxillary contacts' section. I left #2 to NO contact, #3 to other NO contact. New wire from NO contact w/ #3 attached to Magnetic coil. Same results occurred. I looked over the wiring again and feel 99% sure everything is hooked up correctly now.

I experimented w/ adding a heater coil to T3 and bridging L2 w/ L3. Nothing changed either. I also removed the reset button from the equation and that did nothing as well.

 

[shouse]

It would be helpful to lose the NM cable "Romex®" & use 16 or 14 AWG stranded wire, for the control wiring, 12 AWG solid wire is a bit much for the control station and auxiliary contacts, and having 3 separate colors for the control station will make it easier to sort out.

That Cutler-Hammer Citation starter while it is my favorite starter, is obsolete and has been for about 20 years, buying parts can be costly. Just a FYI.

I'll get the wiring cleaned up so it's more clear. Are you saying it's possible that there's simply something broken? If so, what would be likely? Might be the reason it ended up on ebay.

 

[RPH]

2 should go to the no contacts and need to be hot. When the start button is pushed current goes to contractor coil. Once contactor closes the no contacts hold the coil hot. Install stop button to break the circuit before the 2 contact. Pushing stop drops power to the circuit, stop needs to be nc style.

 

[shouse]

2 should go to the no contacts and need to be hot. When the start button is pushed current goes to contractor coil. Once contactor closes the no contacts hold the coil hot. Install stop button to break the circuit before the 2 contact. Pushing stop drops power to the circuit, stop needs to be nc style.

Ok, from what I'm reading there, that's what I did in the pictures above originally. Is it possible the NC relay is faulty?

 

[mg283680]

It can't be what you wired originally, since the starter lost power when you let up on the start button. Not sure what you mean by NC relay. A starter is a big relay, not a group of relays.

The NC pushbutton switch is to break the circuit when you want to stop whatever is running, which shouldn't be a compressor.

If you look at fiure A, and figure I above, you see the NO switch has lines coming off it labelled 3 and 2, which correspond the 3 and 2 in figure I. That's the holding contact that keeps the starter on when the stat button is not pressed. The NC stop button is there in A as well.

The 3rd connection on the right of A appears to be 1, which you'll see below the coil in I. That completes the control circuit...

 

[shouse]

Sorry, shouldn't have used the term relay.

Re-wired it w/ colors. I'm using romex b/c I didnt want to run conduit for this run. it's the same way I had it wired earlier today. Same results that I originally posted. I BELIEVE I'm wiring up as instructed here and to match the diagram in both A and I. I don't see a problem, but it doens't work. I still have the RESET switch eliminated from the equation. I posted the picture of the aux contact i'm wired up to (shown in fig A) as NO contact, which should be what I want.

#1 starts from the fuse (hot wire) and goes to STOP switch. #3 starts from START switch and goes to NO contact. #2 starts on the jumpered NC/NO switch (hot wire) and goes to other side of NO contact (opposite of #3). New wire is hooked in parallel to #3 wire on the NO contact and travels to the magnetic coil.

 

[Norcal]

That auxiliary contact needs to be mounted to the side of the starter, that is at least part of the problem, I did not trace any wiring though.

 

[matt_i]

I hate to say this but from 20 years of industrial maintenance, cumong man, neaten this up, get rid of the NM solid wire! It looks like a hack job. Doing good quality work means neatness in the panel, as my Dad always taught me, this is what separates the men from the boys.

The basic problem with your circuit is that it won't "seal" the relay contact. As above, the aux contact can't magically actuate itself, its pulled closed as the coil snaps the contacts shut.

This is your most basic seal circuit...sometimes described as "3 wire".

 

[OccupantRJ]

As Norcal said, the aux contact needs to be mounted to the starter in the proper location so it is mechanically activated when the main contactor engages. It cannot activate itself. That is what the pushbutton on the side of it does when mounted.

 

[LS6 Tommy]

Norcal is correct. Install the aux switch. Matt nailed it with his wiring diagram. You can't use green wire as a conductor. It's for grounding only. Please use a proper connector in the knockout on your start/stop station. It's a shock or fire waiting to happen. Make sure you size the overload heaters for the unit you're controlling.


Tommy

 

[shouse]

As Norcal said, the aux contact needs to be mounted to the starter in the proper location so it is mechanically activated when the main contactor engages. It cannot activate itself. That is what the pushbutton on the side of it does when mounted.

Bargh!. I understand. When the magnetic start activates and pushes in, it also pushes the button on the contact as well. This wasn't mounted originally b/c it's mounting points are broken. This falls back to what I said in the first post about having some broken pieces and adding too many unknown variables to the equation.

Lastly about the wiring. I am using romex b/c I am not running conduit. I'm not going to run bare wire from the control station to the starter. I appreciate everyone's concerns, This was merely a 'test' run to get everything setup, what would be the point of cleaning up the box only to rip it all out and redo it b/c I wired it wrong. The green ground was used to help differentiate one wire from the other in the debug process. I can use the bus on the lower right corner to act as an interface b/t the control station and the starter wiring. I'll do that so I can at least isolate all the romex to just the lower right hand corner and go color-coded multi-strand from there. I'm going to take my little boy **** and get to work. :/
Thank you all for the help on this one.

 

[OccupantRJ]

Look to see if the aux contactor can be mounted to the other side of the contactor properly, regarding the broken pieces.

 

[Norcal]

If my memory serves me correct the auxiliary contact is the same for most Citation starters, will have to check that out & if that is the case it may be cheaper to buy a NEMA size 0 or 1 starter off eBay & rob it from that.

 

[shouse]

If my memory serves me correct the auxiliary contact is the same for most Citation starters, will have to check that out & if that is the case it may be cheaper to buy a NEMA size 0 or 1 starter off eBay & rob it from that.

Saw one on ebay (size 0) that both the aux contact and even the aux buttons that mount on top of the starter (also broken on mine, that's why i have the external buttons), but he was asking a little much. I ended up ordering a lot of 3 new aux switches (same model number) for $20 shipped. Including the external button control i had to buy, i'm up to about $105 for this thing. IDK if that's still considered a decent price for a size NEMA 3, but I only need a NEMA 1 I believe.

Definitely learned an important lesson about not purchasing something on ebay until i have the capability of testing it before the 30days expires.