Need help with motor

[Eric Meier]

I was taking apart my dust collector, and found that one of the bearings on it had seized up. So after cleaning it up, I went to put everything back together, and got stuck.:o

Apparently I wasn't paying too much attention when I was taking it apart, but I came across a piece that I was unfamiliar with. (See the attachments.) The piece I'm referring to is this springy metal piece that is mounted on the shaft with a set screw. I have no idea what height to mount it at -- let alone which way is up and which is down.:confused:

The motor is 1HP, on a Woodtek dust collector UFO-90. I couldn't locate any sort of manual for it online.

Any help?

[Mike Henderson]

That's your centrifugal switch. I expect that if you put it in one way, there'll be contacts that match up to conduct electricity. Try it both ways and see which way makes sense.

From the pictures, it looks to me that the black end goes on first.

Mike

[Eric Meier]

Mike,

Thanks for that insight. I've included a picture of how I think it should mount to the motor shaft.

I tried it like in the picture, but after about 10 seconds of running, it trips the circuit breaker. Something obviously isn't working right. I looked at the switch while it was running, and it did appear to sink/shift downward due to the centrifugal force. But I'm still not 100% sure that it was contacting anything.

I don't understand: how can these two pieces of metal be continually be rubbing each other and not cause a large amount of wear?

[Mike Henderson]

I don't know the motor, but my guess is that when the centrifugal switch cuts out (disconnects the starter circuit) the contact is broken so the things aren't rubbing together all the time. If your circuit breaker tripped, maybe the centrifugal switch is not disconnecting properly. Check how it's installed.

Mike

[Jim Rimmer]

Surely there's a motor expert on here that can help but here's my 2 cents. The round shiny spots in your last pic look like contacts. From the pics in your first post there seems to be matching contacts in the motor. The spring mechanism looks like it would push those contacts down to the mates in the motor, maybe. Could you have it in backwards?

Remember, you're getting this advice from a guy that just burned up the motor on his TS so take it for what it's worth. :confused:

[Michael Wildt]

This might help. Read the last section.

http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/elec-mtr/elec-mtr.html

or

http://www.thewoodcellar.com/centrifugal_switch_info.htm

Michael

[Eric Meier]

Alright, I think I've got it fixed. I was able to run the motor for about 2-3 minutes without it generating any smoke or tripping the circuit breaker.

It turns out that when trying to find the correct height to mount the centrifugal switch, I inadvertently bent the thin metal contact piece on the motor's side, so that the switch was always in the closed position.

After I bent it back, I was able to play with it and see how the connections actually work. It turns out that the two gold-colored connectors visible in the first photo were NOT the contact points, but it was rather a thin springy piece of metal that closes a circuit when it is pressed down by the switch. (Which centrifugal force causes the switch to lift up on once the motor spins at enough RPMs.)

I think the problem was that the switch was unable to turn off the starting windings because the connector plate was bent and couldn't operate properly. I hope *knock on wood* that everything will be fixed, and I can now resume collecting dust and wood chips with my restored dust collector. :D