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Blower motor fix?

1K views 7 replies 5 participants last post by  brewchief 
#1 ·
My wife has a laser engraving cabinet and attached to it we have a Delta blower to suck out the fumes/smoke etcetera. The cabinet sits in the upstairs work area of our house and the blower is behind the wall in the attic space.
My problem is the other day she went to turn it on to do some work and the motor just made a humming sound. I crawled into the attic to check it out and found that with the power off the fan/motor free spin smoothly, but when the power is turned on the motor will not spin the fan. It almost feels like it is stuck between two magnetic polarities (id that makes sense). It will take off and work just fine if I stick the screw drive in and give the fan a little push start.
The area of the attic that the motor sits in is uninsulated to the roof and can get pretty damn hot in there during the day, wouldn't surprise me if it reaches 110 on a hot day if not more.
Any suggestions on what to do? The blower is only about three years old and we bought it new. Thanks
 
#2 ·
Start capacitor has failed. Pull out the old one and go to a motor shop or good hardware store and get a new one.
 
#4 ·
I am going to go with the capacitor idea. The blower is plugged into a switched plug that we turn the power on and off to. I took the cover off at the switch last night and what I found actually kinda scared me. What I think is the capacitator (Cylindrical shaped thing with wires attached to it. About 2.5 inches long and about an inch in diameter.) was melted and looked like it kinda did or wanted to catch on fire. Now I just need to call around my area and see where I can find the replacement part.
Anyone know of a place in the Woodland/Davis/Sacramento area? I purchased it from Sacramento Machinery about 3 Years ago, I am going to call and ask them later this morning.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Direct drive blower or belt drive? Most blowers are not capacitor start motors, therefore the start cap and start switch are not your issue as they probably do NOT exist inside that motor. Most common failure for blower motors is the bushings/sleeve bearings, which means replace the motor 99% of the time. Yes I do this for a living so I may actually know:flipoff2:


Oil your new motor once or twice a year if possible, some of the new craptacular motors aren't able to be oiled.

Edit: Just read your last message, that would be your run capacitor. Try that first.
 
#6 ·





Here are some pics of the old capacitor that burned up and pics of the new one and the two side by side. The new one seems to be working fine, but it is larger than the one that it replaced. I took it to a shop that works on electric motors and this is what they gave me. The one they had that was more similar in size would not get the blower spinning. He gave me this one and told me the only difference was size everything else about it is the same. However, as you can see on the side of the new one and the old the VAC number is different.
What do you think? Will I be fine just mounting this to the outside of the little black box? My biggest worry us that this goes inside my house and I do not want to start an electrical fire.
Thanks!
 
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