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Delco Electric Motor

One of the things I salvaged from the farm was an old Delco electric motor - Model A8280CC. This is an oooold motor - it's got oil caps to oil the shaft bearings - sleeve bearings, I'm sure.

So I'm planning on aquiring a Beal Buffing System sometime in the not too distant future and I was digging around in my box of old electric motors and came on this one. 1/3 hp, 1750 rpm, just what the doctor ordered. When I wiped of the plate, there was a note stamped on it - to referse the direction of the motor, switch the red leads. Oh my! Now I'm seeing a buffing/honing system!

I took the plate off the connection point and there were four posts sitting there. Hmmm. The only current the the farm was straight 120, never anything fancy like 3-phase or anything, so I'm puzzled - where do two hot wires go, that can be reversed? Google the model number, nothing.

So I hauled it down to a local electric motor repair shop and asked them if they could tell me how to wire it up. The fellow poked around for a minute, wiped some crud off the interior, and showed me the two red wires in there that were to be switched. He said to just put the common and power leads across the two top posts, didn't matter which way.

I hooked up a power cord and slowly inserted the plug - sizzle crack! The circuit breaker did it's job. Ok, maybe it does make a difference which way it's wired - switched the wires, plugged it in, no sizzle crack, but the circuit breaker opened.

I have another motor, 3/4 horse power farm duty motor I could use, but I don't think it can be reversed. I'm going to take the Delco back and see how much they'd charge to work on it. See if they have a reversible motor for less money. I could tear the Delco down, but I wouldn't know what to look for.

JW

Reply to
John Weeks
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That reminds me of one I wired up for my daughter a while ago, it was a small blower for a portable forge.

The motor had two red and two black wires but I can't now remember the details. It worked fine.

Don't try this but I think one of the blacks was connected to one of the reds and the power connected across the other red-black pair. Can't be sure, I could be wrong, and I'm not likely to be across to her forge for a few days. Might just as easily have been the two reds parallel with the two blacks and the power connected across the two pairs. What you have got is a single phase motor with separate stator and armature windings.

Reply to
Stuart

I think you will find that one each red wire is currently connected to one each black wire, and so reversing the red wires reverses the relative phase of hte starting motor.

typically, there is a run winding and a start winding. the start winding is switched through a centrifugal switch.

There are diagrams on line for many motors - have you tried looking? have you used an ohmmeter to see what is what with those posts? It sounds like you connected the power across the start switch, which would not be a good thing

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Reply to
Bill Noble

On Sat, 1 Nov 2008 17:18:22 -0600, Bill Noble wrote (in message ):

Depending on your circumstances, the motor condition, and how friendly your repair shop is, it might be cheaper to get a new motor than fix the old one, in this day and age. YMMV tom koehler

Reply to
tom koehler

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