vacuum pump help

I've not looked up your motor, but suggest this:

Be sure that your motor is not supposed to be driven from 3 phase power. Giving single phase power to such a device is a recipe for nothing good and maybe a ruined motor. That plug may well be intended for a 3 phase connection. (The "single phase mtr" you quote suggests otherwise, but a 1/4 horsepower motor should not need an unusual plug just to get single phase 115 VAC.)

If you become convinced it is really a single phase motor, see if there is a "starter capacitor" on the motor. This device, when present, is often concealed in a little hump that breaks the more rounded outline of the motor housing. It may have gone bad with age. One symptom of its failure is failure to start rotating along with some buzzing and excess heating. (However, such motors generally have an overload cutout switch that will click in an out during the stall.)

thank you very much for the replys! im goign to go open up what i think may be the capacitor casing. how can i tell if the capacitor is any good? the only electrical meter i have is for measuring resistence. im thinking the plug may be weird because of the motors age??? thanks again

If you can temporarily unload the motor, (so it need not drive anything), power it up, give its shaft a good spin by hand or wound rope to get it started, then, if it runs fast without overheating, the chances are very good that just replacing that starting cap will solve any problem at the motor. It could be that it is stalling due to congealed lubricant or something in the mechanism. It would not hurt to get that rotating as freely as you can.

i took out what i think is the capacitor. it has two wires going into it and one other place where a wire can be connected. the back of it (opposite the wires) is open and there is a metal disk that has a screw righ tin the middle (variable?). like i said i have no idea what im talking about lol. im not seeing any units of capacitence or anything really. it does say pat 2585704 & others. also says klixon and mee26rx-368 each terminal is numberd 1-3 thanks for your help! id hate to see an expensive pump (that i got for $20 :) ) go to waste!

I could not find that patent # at

The middle screw is probably for mounting. There should be some kind of marking for the capacitance. (Or maybe not that long ago.) If you take the part to an appliance repair place, and tell them it is for an old 1/4 HP motor, they may be able to find another starter cap that would work.

But before replacing it, (unless you want to just go ahead and spend money), I would try the free-running hand-start experiment. If the motor will not run under those conditions, it needs more help than a new cap.

Woops, wrong search function. That patent appears to have been issued in 1952 for a thermostat device. I'm guessing it is the motor's thermal cutout for when the starting or main winding overheats.

The only real use of this info is that it dates the motor. That starting cap is very likely dried out a half century later. I would replace it without further ado.

thank you everyone so much! i got it running and ive never been happier! the problem was actualy not electrical. the piece that coverd the rotary end of the motor (i think thats right lol) was on way way way to tight (i didnt do it) after taking the whole thing apart and cleaning it its running fine. however, a graphite blade is broken and so the pump does not actualy pump any air :( its such a simple piece does anyone know where i could find a new one? thanks once again! oh and btw thanks for all the warnings about working with something i dont know anything about lol. i actualy did know that you can discharge a capacitor by setting a screw driver across the terminals but i hoped there was a safer way! havnt done that since i made my first tesla coil!

The motor might have a bad start capacitor. However, you have not said what type of motor is on the pump. The motor could be a universal type or an inductive type. The universal type has brushes and a commutator ring. That would be the type with a capacitor for startup.

Please attempt to describe (or better yet, if you've got the gear to do so, snap a good clear picture of it, jpeg it down to a reasonable size and put it online someplace, then post a pointer to it here) the plug a bit better than "weird"?

Two vertical blades? One vertical, one horizontal? Both horizontal? Three blades in a roughly circular pattern? Two round pins? Four blades in a circle? Two *LARGE* blades plus a largish round pin? One blade vertical, the other blade an "L" shape, plus a round pin? Something else?

Knowing *EXACTLY* what the plug looks like *CAN* (unfortunately, not "will") give a good idea of what kind of juice it wants, but describing it as "weird" is just about as useful as a screen door on a submarine in terms of figuring out what it expects to be fed.

And as a bit of advice: If you need to ask "How can I tell if a capacitor is any good?", then quite frankly (and with apologies in advance for what's probably going to sound like a slam or a putdown, but isn't intended to be one) you aren't qualified to consider opening the beast up, and you should make no attempt to do so unless you don't care that you'll probably screw something up (possibly including yourself... Electricity's "bite" is MUCH worse than its "bark") beyond repair.

You've already gone FAR beyond what I'd recommend for anyone with what your level of expertise seems to be by dinking around trying to run it from an wires jury-rigged to an incompatible socket. Hell, to lay it all out there for everyone to see, you've already gone further than *I* would have, and I'm far from being a beginner at the electricity and electronics game. If you're lucky, you didn't damage it. If you're not, you may well have "smoke-tested" it, and it's never going to run no matter what you do. The very fact that you need to ask "how do I..." says that you're tinkering with something you don't have the proper knowledge to be messing around with without standing a very good chance of trashing it.

As I said, this isn't intended as a slam or putdown - It's simple statement of fact. The need to ask "how do I..." about such a basic concept as determining whether a capacitor is good or bad is almost always an indicator of someone who is "in way over his head". Don't despair, though... Stupidity might be forever, but simple ignorance such as you're displaying can be easily cured with a dose of edgyookayshun :)

Here's your first dose: Set up your meter for high ohms - 20K or thereabouts should be fine. Once you've gotten to the leads of the capacitor, use a screwdriver with a well-imsulated handle to short the leads of the capacitor together. Get yourself mentally prepared for a miniature lightning bolt to go off when the screwdriver makes contact. Eyeball the capacitor - Does it have a polarity marking? (Usually a plus or a minus sign, possibly a line of them, situated near one of the leads) If so, observe polarity - red/plus to plus, black/minus to either minus or the other lead from the capacitor - and touch the probes to the capacitor lead. If the cap isn't totally dead, you should see almost zero ohms at first, then rising to a higher value.

If you see that, leave the probes in place for a few seconds, then remove them, switch your meter to read volts (20 will probably be overkill, but if you've got a higher range, start there, and work down until you get a reading) and touch the probes to the capacitor leads again. You should see an initial high value that slowly drops to zero.

If either of these tests doesn't do what I told you would happen, then the cap is probably toast, and you'll need a new one. If they both work as described, put the lid back on. It's at least acting as a capacitor should, regardless of whether age has sent it "off value" or not, and it probably isn't the source of your problem.

Yeah, I've seen that syndrome many times. I consider it for exactly what it's worth: The babblings of fools more interested in hearing the sound of their own imaginary "authority" on a topic they themselves don't know enough about to be saying "shit" about if they were standing there with a mouthful of it. The "politically correct" climate today is really conducive to "Oh, don't listen to that jerk saying you don't know enough!"

Never mind that the querant has posed a question about a fundamental task that even the rankest qualified beginner knows either can't be done safely, or can't be done at all using the proposed methods.

As I made a point of distinguishing, there's two classes of people: There's "stupid" (AKA "Just plain dumb"), and there's "ignorant" (AKA "Unknowing"). Stupid is incurable. You don't know, you can't know, you won't know, you make no effort to know - You're stupid, with every negative connotation the word can be loaded down with, and you deserve to die in agony from the results of a stupid deed. Ignorance is cured with incredible ease. You don't know, but you acknowledge that you don't, and seek assistance. You gain knowledge. You're no longer ignorant. Cured! Holy of holies, I'm cured! :)

OP on this one struck me as ignorant, and was handled accordingly. Sounds like he might have actually learned something, too :)

Don, I am glad you said all that because I often get bagged for saying things like "You do not know enough to do what you want" when I am trying to save the OP from killing himself or others.

A motor capacitor would be non-polar; they run on AC, you know. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

A klixon is a thermal cutout switch. That's your motor overheating protection.

But, according to your other post, you got it going. Congrats!

For the vane, try googling for vacuum pump parts, vane pumps, that sort of thing. You might have to make one, but from the vane pumps I've seen, that wouldn't be very hard.

Good Luck! Rich

Uh, actually, it's the other way around. The universal type doesn't need a capacitor - the induction type does.

Cheers! Rich

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Your right...sorry !!! You know, I just had an air compressor apart about two months ago. The centrifugal switch near the commutator was bad.

The other compressor I had apart more recently was the one on my Ford A/C. All together, I spent about $120 to fix my A/C. A dealer wanted over $1000 for the work. The break down was $80 for a clutchless rebuilt compressor $30 for 6 cans of r-134a. Tools were an A/C manifold and a vacuum pump. Various sockets and 2 hours. It'll freeze your t*ts off now!

The failure analysis was the gasket that sealed the compressor failed and the oil (but not the freon) left the system. Because there are valves on the compressor is why I still had freon. The now un-lubricated compressor seized and some aluminum particles were in the expansion valve filter. The old compressor can be repaired and is amazingly simple.

I'm ready for summer!

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Look up nema receptacles and plugs on the net or go to an electrical supply house and see if they have a chart showing the many many different types of electrical cord outlets and plugs. There are special plugs for 120 volts that will not fit a normal household 120 volt outlet.

It could also be a locking type plug...most applications where you are using a vacuum pump...you dont want anyone accidentally pulling the plug on the machine because you lose vacuum.

nema plug and receptacle confiqurations