Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

[Used_Cars]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

There are ONLY two wires connected to the switch so it cannot be wired wrong. The whole connections of the motor and switch are in series.
You have bad contact problem between your AC plug and the outlet.

The outlet tests good with a standard household light bulb plugged in (a home-made "trouble light". It's also brand-new. I've used a household vacuum cleaner in that outlet within the week. It's one of the most-used outlets in the whole house. I converted a simple switch (for the lights in the garage) to a switch + outlet because an outlet in that location was necessary for lots and lots of things, and I've been using it for lots of things since I installed it.

Another thing I think I noticed but didn't mention is that the wire that connects the brush to the terminal that clips to the motor housing was discolored somewhat. You might see it in the photographs. One is dark and normal colored,the other is a lighter, dustier, more pale color than the other.
Could the one of the brushes (the whole assembly, brush, braided wire and terminal clip) be defecting in some way, and cause this? Maybe it opens under load so only one brush is doing all the work? Will the motor still spin if one brush is open? Is there a way to test a brush for continuity?

I don't know what kind of metal is in the brush. What if I do a continuity test from brush, through the braided wire, to the terminal and it's open? What if there is resistance? How else would you test a brush?

[budm]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

There are ONLY two wires connected to the switch so it cannot be wired wrong. The whole connections of the motor and switch are in series.
You have bad contact problem between your AC plug and the outlet.

[goontron]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

Looks like the plug is the issue, not the socket...

[Used_Cars]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

The shop vac works. The AC outlet does not.
show us what the cord prongs look like now.

Travelling today. I'll get that posted later on this evening when I get back.

[Used_Cars]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

I've seen a lot of "outlet fire" post-mortems and always wondered how the fire could have happened. A short should have triggered the circuit breaker so that couldn't be it. However if there was effectively a 900 watt heater pointed at the plastic of the outlet and plug... that would explain everything.

The wiring in this house is completely f*****. Before we moved in, there was a house fire and this is the area of the house that burned. Afterwards, some kind of professional "flipping" company did the repairs and they did horrible terrible things with everything, such as painting over charred wood, and other things with the wiring too terrible to even mention. So defective wiring is on the list for possible suspects in every outlet in the entire house.

[Used_Cars]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

That's weird, did it run as energetically as before it zapped the outlet? When it starts spinning it should pass some power back and not fry like that, or was that outlet there in bad shape to begin with?

Yes. At first I thought it was going to "go", and then it died, looked over my shoulder and saw the outlet.

It's a brand-new switch/outlet. I replaced it less than a year ago because I wanted an outlet near the door that connects the house to the garage. I haven't tested the outlet yet to see if it's hot or not. I don't think a circuit breaker flipped, but it might have. Have not checked that yet either.

That to me looks like bad contact on the Line side socket of the AC outlet.
BTW, is it the same out you used when the vacuum stopped working?

I don't know if by "bad contact" you mean the outlet is defective in some way, or something is wrong with the way the motor is wired.

No, it's not the same outlet I used when the vacuum quit working.

I haven't disassembled the motor again, yet, because I wanted to wait to see if taking pics of the wiring as it is right now might be useful, to see if I did something wrong or whatever.

There is one odd thing I noticed when reassembling it, and that is how the switch on the vacuum flips a toggle switch. There's a plastic "slide" which, on the outside of the vacuum housing allows your thumb to slide it left to right, and behind the plastic slide it mechanically pushes a standard toggle switch one way or the other. I noticed that the interface between the orange plastic slide and the toggle switch was odd in that the plastic slide did not seem to fully "flip" the toggle switch. It traveled about 3/4 of it's arc, but did not "click" all the way over, so (it appears) the toggle switch goes from a solid "OFF" (with a click), to 3/4 of the way towards "ON", but the toggle wouldn't go all the way to the point that it actually clicked.

I noticed this when the vacuum housing was still separated, and figured that when the other half was fastened the slide would actuate the toggle 100%, like it needed additional support in order to make that toggle go all the way to the point that it actually clicked.

Even if the toggle doesn't travel all the way over to the "ON" (click) position, I don't see how that causes this problem. But I wanted to through out the possibility that it's the cause of the problem, i.e. maybe the toggle switch is bad.

I can take a pic of this also, if useful.

Thanks for all the help.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

I've seen a lot of "outlet fire" post-mortems and always wondered how the fire could have happened. A short should have triggered the circuit breaker so that couldn't be it. However if there was effectively a 900 watt heater pointed at the plastic of the outlet and plug... that would explain everything.

[Sparkey55]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

I carefully reassembled the motor per your diagram, making sure to keep the thermal protection on the black, switched, "L" side of the motor. Plugged it in, turned and turned it on. It ran for about 3 seconds and then this happened:

The shop vac works. The AC outlet does not.
show us what the cord prongs look like now.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

PSA: If you plug in something and it feels "loose" or the plug easily pushes in or pulls out, that outlet is in poor condition - WORN OUT - and should be REPLACED. If you can't replace it, you must derate it significantly - if it's nominally 15A, do not even think about attempt to power 13A, 10A, or even 5A through it, it will overheat and can cause a fire. If it's weak, best to stay below 1 or 2 amps tops, and you'll still be frustrated with it losing contact... REPLACE IT!

[petehall347]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

need to fit gcfi or something . that shouldn't happen these days ...

[budm]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

That to me looks like bad contact on the Line side socket of the AC outlet.
BTW, is it the same out you used when the vacuum stopped working?

[eccerr0r]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

That's weird, did it run as energetically as before it zapped the outlet? When it starts spinning it should pass some power back and not fry like that, or was that outlet there in bad shape to begin with?

[Used_Cars]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

To Used Cars: How is it coming together with the shop vac yet?

BYW, based on this measurement you provided: https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...2&d=1521157574
N1 to Not_ N1 did not show open circuit so that means the Thermal protection did not go open circuit.
Once you put it all together to check to see if it shows open circuit or not between the AC plug's blades then we can go from there. Be careful on those brushes when putting them back together.

I carefully reassembled the motor per your diagram, making sure to keep the thermal protection on the black, switched, "L" side of the motor. Plugged it in, turned and turned it on. It ran for about 3 seconds and then this happened:

[Sparkey55]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

To Used Cars: How is it coming together with the shop vac yet?

[budm]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

BYW, based on this measurement you provided: https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...2&d=1521157574
N1 to Not_ N1 did not show open circuit so that means the Thermal protection did not go open circuit.
Once you put it all together to check to see if it shows open circuit or not between the AC plug's blades then we can go from there. Be careful on those brushes when putting them back together.

[Sparkey55]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

Okay.

So the more I am forced to type out what I think I know, the more I actually KNOW what's going on. I've looked at this and thought about it enough to (think I) know that the only real question I have is which side of the circuit the thermal cut-off needs to be on (thanks, redwire).

Does it go on the white, common, "always felt" side, or the black, switched side? Does it matter?

Since I never tried to run the motor after it cut-off, I have no reason to believe that the components in the motor aren't 100% functional. The fact that the thermal cut-off side of the windings read short should be enough to show it's still good. It's never cut-off before. Seems unlikely to me that the one time it pops is also the time that kills it, but damages it in such a way that, when cool, it reads a short.

I intend to just put it back together and see what happens, but the one thing that holds me back is which wire goes to which side of the motor. As soon as I know that, I can start reassembling it and see if it still works.

FYI, I'd like to endorse this "Ridgid" brand vacuum. It has loyally served me for years of hard, professional use, vacuuming up the worst-of-the-worst, such as drywall dust and thin-set powder (used for tile installation, and is as small as drywall dust and much more abrasive). And also water, as I use it to take up spills, pump smaller amounts of water, etc... It also makes a decent blower for yard work, if you can get used to being tethered by a cord. And it's not nearly as loud as some brands I've used, "Genie" being the worst.

Like was stated earlier, a non-resetable thermal fuse, one that is designed to burn open circuit can not be reused. IF what you said in your original post is true about it shutting off then the thermal fuse is history. But IF you had the shop-vac connected to a circuit breaker type of power strip it is possible that the resetable circuit breaker on the power strip stopped the vac instead of blowing the fuse.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

Yes ideally the thermal cutoff is at the hot end of the chain - black/small blade/... side along with the main power switch and any other fuses. However thermal cutoffs were usually designed to be one-time and need to be replaced when tripped.

Shop vacs are neat. I only have a small 1.5HP "shop vac" branded one that I used to ...

... vacuum out a yellow jacket nest...

It started raining once when I had it set up to vacuum out the nest and it survived. Dodged a bullet there? Not sure.

[Used_Cars]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

Wiring.

Oh. I posted the previous post before looking at your modified pic. I'll follow that diagram and post results. Thanks for the artwork.

[Used_Cars]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

Wiring.
Once you have it all together, if there is no open circuit then you should see low resistance reading between the two blades of the AC plug when power switch is closed.

Okay.

So the more I am forced to type out what I think I know, the more I actually KNOW what's going on. I've looked at this and thought about it enough to (think I) know that the only real question I have is which side of the circuit the thermal cut-off needs to be on (thanks, redwire).

Does it go on the white, common, "always felt" side, or the black, switched side? Does it matter?

Since I never tried to run the motor after it cut-off, I have no reason to believe that the components in the motor aren't 100% functional. The fact that the thermal cut-off side of the windings read short should be enough to show it's still good. It's never cut-off before. Seems unlikely to me that the one time it pops is also the time that kills it, but damages it in such a way that, when cool, it reads a short.

I intend to just put it back together and see what happens, but the one thing that holds me back is which wire goes to which side of the motor. As soon as I know that, I can start reassembling it and see if it still works.

FYI, I'd like to endorse this "Ridgid" brand vacuum. It has loyally served me for years of hard, professional use, vacuuming up the worst-of-the-worst, such as drywall dust and thin-set powder (used for tile installation, and is as small as drywall dust and much more abrasive). And also water, as I use it to take up spills, pump smaller amounts of water, etc... It also makes a decent blower for yard work, if you can get used to being tethered by a cord. And it's not nearly as loud as some brands I've used, "Genie" being the worst.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Help With Reassembling Basic 110 VAC Motor

Weird, the windings look deceptive in the pictures, thought that one was left hand wound and the other right hand wound. The connection diagram would imply both need to be wound the same way -- hence the curiosity on how it was wired before removal and a mere guess at how it was supposed to be connected.

As long as you don't shunt power and have everything in series, you should be OK though hooking it up wrong would not allow the motor to spin. If you were to just hook up power across one field and hook the brushes to the second stator (incorrect), then you could fry something...