[toozie21]

I got an old Clarke BT1001A drill press off of someone who said it just stop working (and they replaced it without trying to fix it). When I turn it on, the motor turns about one revolution (very slowly) and then trips the the GFI in my garage. I've read it could be the starter cap, but I thought I should check everything else out first.

I am not a motor guy, but I figured I would give it a shot. The bearings seem to be fine as it turns OK. When I took the motor out of the housing, one of the wires either came off, or was already off (could have been the problem). Sadly, as I tried to maneuver it the rest of the way out of the casing, the other two wires came off (they are not very tight on the terminal posts), so that is where I am stuck.

Two of the wires go to the capacitor, the third goes to the coil around the motor. On the PCB, I will need to hook those into either the line or neutral (on the power cord), or the terminal post that leads to the motor itself.

I can't find any wiring diagrams for Clarke, but I figure that this is probably a pretty standard configuration. Is someone able to point me to somewhere on how best to re-wire this?

Any advice is greatly appreciated (since even once I get it rewired, that might not actually fix the original problem)!

 

[Brian T.]

There's a shop in the city, 3 hrs west of me, which repairs and rewinds all sorts of industrial motors.
Can you find such a place near you?
Plan B (the B = Best one). Buy a new motor. You get the reliability and
far better materials and design than even 20 years ago.

 

[GeorgeC]

We have an introduction section where you can give a few words about yourself.

A picture(s) would help. That would provide a visual aid for someone trying to visualize your problem.

George

 

[Trav]

Can you post some pictures of the board, terminals, and wire. If you can, I would be happy to try to help. It very well may be just a $5 capacitor.

 

[Steve Neul]

Before I would take in the motor for repair I would plug it into an outlet that wasn't on a GFCI to see if the GFCI was the problem. I've worked in many peoples houses where the breaker wouldn't allow even a very small compressor to be used.

 

[toozie21]

Thank you for the feedback everyone. You are right, some pics would speak a 1000 words, I will get some up as soon as I get home tonight. I have a feeling that it is something simple (the cap went bad, or the wiring got loose).

A new motor would be simple and quicker, but at this point, I thought it might be a good lesson to see if I could get it working without going that route (yet).

Trying a non-GFI outlet is a good idea, I think all the ones in my garage are on one (and they haven't given me issues with table saws or circular saws, but there is a first for everything), but I can bring the motor in the house and try it there if need be.

 

[Dave Paine]

It could the capacitor, it could also be the centrifugal switch.

Pictures will certainly help other folks.

Also take a look at this thread.

http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f12/repair-your-bandsaw-other-motor-crash-course-46405/

 

[toozie21]

OK, I took some pics this evening, so lets see if this helps some.

Here is the motor:

On the inside you can see three wires, the red and white go to the cap, the green goes to the coil:

Here are the terminal posts that those wires connect to:

And here is the flipside of that board from the previous picture (someone previously marked the two posts as 'W' and 'B' for line and neutral from the power cord (the 'W' goes to the post on the bottom of the previous picture, the 'B' goes to the post on the left of the previous picture):

So now you know about as much as me on this particular motor. The motor turns freely, but makes a squeaking noise when going in one direction. It seems to me that everything is touching where it should and nothing lifts up while the motor turns.

Does this help shed some light on this for anyone?

 

[Steve Neul]

If there is room you might put a dental mirror down in the motor and see if that broken off blade connection is tied to the nut below it. Chances are you can just wire to the nut with a eyelet connector instead.

 

[toozie21]

Which broken off blade are you talking about? I didn't think anything was broken off. There are three blades on the inside of the motor for the three wires coming from the cap and coil; and then there are 2 blades on the flip-side of the board that is for line and neutral from the AC cord (the ground gets attached to a screw on the casing).

 

[Steve Neul]

I'm sorry, the picture came across on my computer looking like the one on the left was broken. On another computer I see I was mistaken.

 

[toozie21]

No problem, thank you for looking at it though.

 

[TomC]

You should have a hot wire that goes to the capacitor. From that wire you will have a wire that goes to the run windings. On the other capacitor lug a wire goes to the start windings and one wire that is common with both the start and run winding that will connect to the neutral.
Tom

 

[cabinetman]

Here's my suggestion. While the members that are offering suggestions are meaning well, the motor may very well be OK, and it could be a simple fix. But, trying out those suggestions if incorrect, may cause some damage to the motor, or possibly create a hazardous situation for yourself.

If you take the motor to a motor repair shop, they have the test equipment and experience to check out the whole motor and not create further problems. So, it boils down to spending a few bucks and possibly put the motor back into service by those that do this every day. Of course you may be told that there isn't a cheap fix, or the motor is toast and not worth spending any further money than necessary, and just replace it.

I've bought electric motors at flea markets, and there are usually many available sized and have frames to make installation easy. For 110V, power up to 1HP are common. I've scored for $25 or less on several occasions. The markets I visit are at drive-in theaters, and have electrical outlets at the concession stand to try out electrical stuff, like motors and tools.

.