electric motor

Hi Mike,

How many wires leave the motor and what are their colours?

Best wishes,

Chris

The wires coming out of the motor are: black, black/white, blue, yellow, white The wires coming out of the harness connector are: white/black, blue, yellow, green, white, red

It looks like > Christ> > > Hi Ya'll.

This sounds like an unpleasantly complex motor. I'm guessing that it's a capacitor run motor with several different windings to permit different speeds, but I don't know exactly what the connections are.

Do you have a capacitor which goes with the motor? If you do, the next step is to measure the resistance between every pair of wires which leave the motor. The lowest resistance winding will usually be the main high speed winding, and the next lowest the capacitor-fed winding (which is connected in series with the capacitor). There is usually a common wire to which one end of every winding is connected.

If you don't have the capacitors, call Maytag and see if they can sell you the correct one. This at least gives you a starting point so you don't have to guess at the capacitor value.

A good book on this subject is "Electric Motors in the Home Workshop" by Jim Cox.

Best wishes,

Chris

Um, that is an open frame motor, right? Very suscetibble to being contaminated with sanding grit?

Actually he's dealing with a different animal than a standard motor. Fortunately for him (if it's a older Maytag motor) he doesn't need a start switch (which is separate on many washing machines).

Ok first off lets be sure we're talking about the same thing here. There should be a box on the back of the motor (actually it's a switch connected to the centrifugal setup inside the motor). It will have push on terminals. Depending on what machine it came out of it will have at the very least a reversing setup (Maytags use reversing of the motor to change from agitate to spin) and fancier machines will have a two speed setup. I can't recall off the top of my head what each terminal is (I usually figure it out each time with a ohm meter but that takes experience). One will be a common terminal. Then another will be forward, another reverse, etc. On two speed machines it gets more complicated in that you have to apply power to both the speed you want and the start terminal (sometimes you have to do this on single speed units as well). The fact is you need to hunt up a wiring diagram for the washing machine it came out of (there was probably one in the machine it was taken out of if you have that handy). That's the simplest way to figure these out.

I'll probably catch a lot of flack for saying it but my experience is that it's not that big a problem. I've got one on my 1" wide belt sander that's been running for 15 years now. I did have to take a bearing off one end a while back and lube it (it locked down after 14 years of use). I had one on a sander like the original poster is talking about for a long time as well but it never saw as much use as my 1" sander has (which is a LOT).

I would GUESS (but only a guess) that two of the wires are the LINE voltage wires and correspond to the black and white (hot and neutral) coming from an outlet. I would also GUESS that one of the other wires is a starter wire, i.e., when both the hot and neutral are energized and current is applied to the starter wire MOMENTARILY, the start windings are engaged and the motor spins up to "run" RPM. The remaining wire could be a reversing LINE wire, that is, if substituted for one of the original LINE wires, the motor runs the other way, or, it could be a slower speed LINE wire, that is, if substituted for one the original line wires the motor runs slower. Does the motor tag mention 2 speeds or reversibility?

I'll agree with Chris Tidy's method of of trying to determine which wires are for the high speed run windings, etc. There was an article in Home Shop Machinist about using motors of unknown origin and how to wire them up. If you want, I could probably find it and send you an email copy. I've played around with washing machine motors with mixed success. Since they're usually free, sometimes you just have to toss one and go on to another that you can figure out.

For what it's worth, the FSP in the model number means that this is a Whirlpool motor. Doesn't Whirlpool own Maytag now?

WOW! Thank you all for the info. I did not realize this was going to be a major project. Like I said, I am not an electrician and have no experience with motors. I apprecfiate all the help you are giving me. Gary, if you could email me a copy of the article tha would be great.

Just a question: are there any kind of motors out there that are simple to use and easy to wire?

You guys are great.Thanks.

Mike Rapolas W> > Hi Ya'll.

snippage

Yup, sometime in the last few decades they've gone from standard-frame motors to purpose-built ones with just enough material in them to last the life of the appliance. Stamped sheetmetal frames and wimpy windings. Not really worth the time of building a machine tool around them, they probably won't last if taken out of a dead appliance. Since they're very open frame, they won't last any time at all if exposed to sawdust or grinding dust. With older appliances, you can sometimes salvage a motor that's worth refurbing and using, I've still got some from my grandfather's stash that are worth messing with. Standard ball bearings and starting caps, too. Unless you're really hard up, don't mess with motors that don't have standard NEMA frames or mounting methods.

Stan

Thank you all for the replies.

My neighbor told me that there is a capacitor that is used to start the motor. I salvaged one from the washing machine. It has 2 red wires.

Now what my friends???

Thanks, Mike snipped-for-privacy@prolynx.com wrote:

Now get a multimeter and set it to the resistance range. Measure the resistance between each pair of your five wires. You'll probably find that one wire is a common termination to which one end of each motor winding is connected. This should be connected to the neutral wire of your electricity supply. Before you do this, identify the lowest resistance winding and the second lowest resistance winding. Connect the other end of the lowest resistance winding to the live wire of your supply. Connect the other end of the second lowest resistance winding to one wire of your capacitor, and connect the other wire of your capacitor to the live wire of your supply.

Take care. Don't operate your motor with live terminals exposed. Use proper terminal blocks and wrap them with insulating tape before your tests. Make sure your motor is unplugged before you modify the circuit. Short the terminals of your capacitor with an insulated screwdriver every time you start work on the circuit. In this configuration the capacitor should discharge itself through the windings, but I was once experimenting with a rather complex motor like the one you describe and somehow the capacitor held charge. It gave me a pretty unpleasant shock

- not an experience I'd like to repeat.

Let us know how it works out.

Best wishes,

Chris

Get an ohmmeter that will do low ohms and read the windings . Does it have a speed switch ? If it does not , it will only be a good fan motor . The winding with the higher ohms is a start winding , series the cap to it and parallel it to run winding and it will run . The switch should open the

pookie03 wrote: