A while back I fired up my compressor for the first ime in six months: I was away for the winter. All seemed normal for a few minutes and then - CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG! Sounded like the compressor had turned into an overworked blacksmith's shop. Between the WTF and the scramble toward the breaker box the breaker popped leaving the shop in a rather stunned silence. Ok, time to polish up the magnetic switch. Flush out the dead spiders and the moss and the leaf mold and file the contacts; contacts that should have been in the trash barrel long ago but pension economics dictate otherwise. . That 'little chore out of the way I hit the breaker - same show.
Ok, time to check out the caps. Damn - they all check out OK.
Now I get 'creative'.
I get a neighbour over to close the breaker (it is inside the shop and the compressor is outside) while I watch the action at the magnetic switch. "Close the breaker , count to ten and open it" says I. While waiting for my sight to return I make a mental note to never do that again! I do remember seeing a blazing spider being ejected from the switch enclosure before being blinded by the spectaculat light show. Big sigh: Something is terribly wrong and it is probably going to be very expensive!
So - yesterday I drop into my local friendly neighbourhood motor re-builders.
"Boss around?" I ask of the rather young lad wrestling with a nest of wires coming out of a compressor motor on a stand in their shop. "Nope, Can I help you?"
Now you gotta understand that I have little faith in the 'new generation' knowing anything 'real'.
I proceed to explain the symptoms - not expecting anything more than - 'bring it in and we will have a look at it'. In fact this was the first thing he said. I replied that "The damn thing is on an island. It is very heavy (5HP. 240V motor - hand gestures indicating dimensions) and the last thing I want to do is break all that rust and bring it to town."
"Ah" says he. "In that case your best bet is to get at the starter winding switch and file the contacts clean." He then proceeds to climb out from under his job and give me a (rather unnecessary) familiarization lesson in the switches involved. "Clean up the contacts." he says. "I just had a machine in here with the exact problem you have and that was the cause."
So, with the usual optomistic approach I went at it today. Dead easy to get at the contacts (indicated OK with a ohm meter - go figure) and lo and behold they were in terrible shape. Ten minutes with some 400 grit emery, twenty minutes to put the whole thing back together and - hit the breaker! HOT DAMN!! It works!
So, for anyone who comes up with a similar problem, check out those start switch contacts.
AND - The moral? Have faith. There are the odd few youngsters out there with the dedication and the smarts to carry on the tradition of actually fixing things!
Yours very sincerely. Ken.