carnegie03
Active member
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2010
- Messages
- 27
For any electricians out there, looking for some help before heading to the motor shop-
I have a very old Robbins & Myers motor for a 'propellair' fan. Short story is it was hanging from the rafters in my first house's garage, wired with a lamp wire to a very shady breaker box. Old man job, but if you flipped the right combination of wall switches it ran fine. I kept it and 3 states later decide to reinstall. It runs fine now too, nice and smooth, but with the following specs/ symptoms (full disclosure, my wiring job might be equally shady):
Single phase 110V
1/20 horsepower
Amps per phase 1.65
New 20 amp switch
Disclosure: my ground wire is not connected to the motor or the plug end.
Plug in to garage gfci outlet with new switch in on position- runs fine
Switch to off or plug in with switch off- trips gfci/ breaker
Pulled everything apart, switched my leads to get motor spinning correct direction and checked resistance of components:
Motor leads give me some big readings- 25 and 9 ohms depending on which of the 4 I tested inside motor- these 4 leads become 2 leaving motor; i left the pairs as i found them (start and run circuits?) and guessed as to nuetral vs. hot (probably guessed wrong, wires in motor were same color, not labelled). Switch itself had .1 ohms. Cord had 0L.
Once all wired back up, when switch is off I get .6 ohms, when switch is on 6.6ohms; all while unplugged.
So, anyone out there see something I did wrong, or is the motor too old to play nicely with sensitivity of gfci? I did try on non-gfci outlet, same issue. Note: when I originally found the fan, there was no switch, just a hard-wired plug.
Thanks to anyone who actually made it to the end of this post!
I have a very old Robbins & Myers motor for a 'propellair' fan. Short story is it was hanging from the rafters in my first house's garage, wired with a lamp wire to a very shady breaker box. Old man job, but if you flipped the right combination of wall switches it ran fine. I kept it and 3 states later decide to reinstall. It runs fine now too, nice and smooth, but with the following specs/ symptoms (full disclosure, my wiring job might be equally shady):
Single phase 110V
1/20 horsepower
Amps per phase 1.65
New 20 amp switch
Disclosure: my ground wire is not connected to the motor or the plug end.
Plug in to garage gfci outlet with new switch in on position- runs fine
Switch to off or plug in with switch off- trips gfci/ breaker
Pulled everything apart, switched my leads to get motor spinning correct direction and checked resistance of components:
Motor leads give me some big readings- 25 and 9 ohms depending on which of the 4 I tested inside motor- these 4 leads become 2 leaving motor; i left the pairs as i found them (start and run circuits?) and guessed as to nuetral vs. hot (probably guessed wrong, wires in motor were same color, not labelled). Switch itself had .1 ohms. Cord had 0L.
Once all wired back up, when switch is off I get .6 ohms, when switch is on 6.6ohms; all while unplugged.
So, anyone out there see something I did wrong, or is the motor too old to play nicely with sensitivity of gfci? I did try on non-gfci outlet, same issue. Note: when I originally found the fan, there was no switch, just a hard-wired plug.
Thanks to anyone who actually made it to the end of this post!
