This worked really well for me. I used pliers to turn the shaft and my wife flipped the switch - it took a couple of turns but then rolled right into action
pool pump makes humming noise and does not pump
- Thread starter michmike
- Start date
This worked really well for me. I used pliers to turn the shaft and my wife flipped the switch - it took a couple of turns but then rolled right into action
Hope this thread isn't too old for a reply...
Came home today after wife notified me the pool was not working. I got home and found the breaker tripped. Reset the breaker and then turned in the pool pump. Got a buzzing noise and the pump would not start. After a few seconds, the breaker would trip again.
Went inside, poured a beer and found this forum. Went back outside, reset the breaker, took the cap off the end of the pump shaft, spun the shaft, turned on the pump and Hooray! Pump works! You guys are awesome! But wait, there's more...
The pump never pumps all the air out of the filter basket area and the system only gets to about 10psi when it is normally about 20 psi. And then eventually after about 5 minutes,mother breaker trips again. And there is a smell. Not quite a burning smell, but like something is getting hot.
Would all all this be related to a bad capacitor? I'm hesitant to replace it if there are other issues too.
EDIT: New capacitor fixed everything. $33. Awesome!
Came home today after wife notified me the pool was not working. I got home and found the breaker tripped. Reset the breaker and then turned in the pool pump. Got a buzzing noise and the pump would not start. After a few seconds, the breaker would trip again.
Went inside, poured a beer and found this forum. Went back outside, reset the breaker, took the cap off the end of the pump shaft, spun the shaft, turned on the pump and Hooray! Pump works! You guys are awesome! But wait, there's more...
The pump never pumps all the air out of the filter basket area and the system only gets to about 10psi when it is normally about 20 psi. And then eventually after about 5 minutes,mother breaker trips again. And there is a smell. Not quite a burning smell, but like something is getting hot.
Would all all this be related to a bad capacitor? I'm hesitant to replace it if there are other issues too.
EDIT: New capacitor fixed everything. $33. Awesome!
Ok so I have an AO smith B2859 It won't run unless I spin the shaft by hand to get it started. Then it runs fine. I think it is the start capacitor but it's not located under the back cover where I expected it to be. There is the one on top of the motor but that's probably the run capacitor? Could it be located inside the motor housing somewhere else? I don't want to take it all apart for nothing. Ok so I am reading this motor has a Permanent Split Capacitor. I am now thinking the capacitor on top is like a start and a run capacitor all in one?
So do I need the exact same capacitor or will another 30 uf 370 vac capacitor work? Having a hard time locating the exact same capacitor which is gentech 27L1358
Thanks for all your comments. I spun the pump shaft and hit the power switch and the pump is running like a champ. Now to find a capacitor! Thanks again.
Found mine on amazon for 14 bucks. Free shipping. Got it and it fit perfect and pump starts up great now.
Same symptom. Glad I read this and saved a $100 service call. Didn't know the capacitor was needed to start the pump. Mine is attached to the back of the pump (Max-E-Pro) rather than on top. Had a harder time finding o-ring than the capacitor locally. Probably could have gotten both cheaper online than at local pool store chain, but I was down for only 24 hours.
Thanks as always!
Thanks as always!
The members of this forum are such a wealth of knowledge and it's amazing that almost any pool related question can be answered somewhere on this site! I ran my pool all night long while aerating it to get the PH up without affecting TA (learned that from this site too), this morning I turned the pump off, to refocus the return jets to stop aeration, turned the pump on 10 minutes later, and all I heard was a very loud hum without the pump functioning. I was affraid that my pump was dead bc it is pretty old. After looking through the info on this site, I removed the starting capacitor, found a replacement for $8.99 at the pool store, reinstalled, and I'm back in business, minus a $100-$200 pool tech service call or more expensive motor replacement!!! I am grateful for the wealth of knowledge contained in this forum!
I believe I am having the same issue. Pool pump stopped running this evening, breaker was not flipped and motor seemed hotter than usual. After waiting, the pump will now turn on, but only hums, eventually turning off after 30 seconds. While its humming though, it appears some water is drawn into the basket, this makes me assuming the impeller is working properly.
Pump is a Pentair WhisperFlo - 1HP, so I think I'm dealing with only 1 capacitor for my start/run, also no contacts or switches from what I can see.
Checked the shaft, it appears to be spinning just fine after turning the pump on. Checked the impeller through the basket, nothing seems to be blocking it, since it spins freely. I then checked the capacitor with a multimeter. It picks up Ohms and then depletes, which makes me thinks its in working order, plus it does NOT have a bulge. Also a peculiar smell happens, like something is getting too hot.
Next steps are to hand-spin and attempt to start the pump (will try tomorrow). So my questions are:
1.) Since the shaft is spinning properly, does this also mean the impeller is working? The odd smell concerns me something is getting burned out.
2.) Despite the successful capacitor test, would replacing it be my next step in troubleshooting? All roads (besides the test) lead to a capacitor.
Any help is appreciated! Thank you.
Pump is a Pentair WhisperFlo - 1HP, so I think I'm dealing with only 1 capacitor for my start/run, also no contacts or switches from what I can see.
Checked the shaft, it appears to be spinning just fine after turning the pump on. Checked the impeller through the basket, nothing seems to be blocking it, since it spins freely. I then checked the capacitor with a multimeter. It picks up Ohms and then depletes, which makes me thinks its in working order, plus it does NOT have a bulge. Also a peculiar smell happens, like something is getting too hot.
Next steps are to hand-spin and attempt to start the pump (will try tomorrow). So my questions are:
1.) Since the shaft is spinning properly, does this also mean the impeller is working? The odd smell concerns me something is getting burned out.
2.) Despite the successful capacitor test, would replacing it be my next step in troubleshooting? All roads (besides the test) lead to a capacitor.
Any help is appreciated! Thank you.
when your pump turns off it most likely means it's due to internal thermal protection (hence the smell), don't abuse it. 'Hand start' is very dangerous hack; please don't do it- just read few messages back what happens to the hand. Your capacitor test only proved that it has some capacitance left but didn't reveal how much or what current it is able to sustain so there's good chance its replacement will solve your problem. BTW if your pump is 2 speed the 'capacitor' would have 2 independent ones with one common shared contact, 3 in total. You need to buy the matching one so bring it with you to the store. Please be careful and discharge the capacitor with some piece of metal across the contacts as it might keep some residual charge- not enough to kill but you'll feel it when you put it in your pocket .
.Thanks for the reply.
I'll change the capacitor out tomorrow and see if it fixes it. If so, I'm getting it's receiving enough charge to power the motor to spin but not enough to fully engage? Odd behavior!
I'll change the capacitor out tomorrow and see if it fixes it. If so, I'm getting it's receiving enough charge to power the motor to spin but not enough to fully engage? Odd behavior!
good idea.
Not really- these motors have 2 (3 for 2 speed) sets of windings with one directly connected to power and one of the others- through the capacitor. The whole idea is that the pair creates 'turning' magnetic field. When shaft starts spinning it also creates opposite voltage in the windings so the 'running voltage' on each is much less than 115V.
If capacitor lost its capacitance or can't sustain high enough current to turn the motor due to internal contact defect the second winding won't be getting power and the magnetic field won't be 'turning' so the shaft won't be moving anywhere. As a result the compensating voltage is not generated and primary winding finds itself under full voltage which creates all that heat. If you don't turn it off in time or have internal thermal protection you'll 'burn' the winding eventually: it's insulation would give up creating short.
This is very similar to if you would prevent the shaft from turning by some other means- everyone knows and intuitively feels it's not a good idea for prolonged time. Bad capacitor leads to the same overload situation except it's not obvious.
Not really- these motors have 2 (3 for 2 speed) sets of windings with one directly connected to power and one of the others- through the capacitor. The whole idea is that the pair creates 'turning' magnetic field. When shaft starts spinning it also creates opposite voltage in the windings so the 'running voltage' on each is much less than 115V.
If capacitor lost its capacitance or can't sustain high enough current to turn the motor due to internal contact defect the second winding won't be getting power and the magnetic field won't be 'turning' so the shaft won't be moving anywhere. As a result the compensating voltage is not generated and primary winding finds itself under full voltage which creates all that heat. If you don't turn it off in time or have internal thermal protection you'll 'burn' the winding eventually: it's insulation would give up creating short.
This is very similar to if you would prevent the shaft from turning by some other means- everyone knows and intuitively feels it's not a good idea for prolonged time. Bad capacitor leads to the same overload situation except it's not obvious.
But the shaft is turning when the pump is on, is it just not getting enough power to fully cooperate?
EDIT** After thinking on this, I think your explanation finally clicked. Thanks again! Have the part ordered since I couldn't track one down locally. In the process of manually stirring up my chlorine until it arrives and hopefully fixes the issue.
when you say 'shaft is turning' - do you mean at full speed? If that's the case then pump shouldn't be heating up as windings are supposed to be under proper reduced voltage from the magnetic field of the spinning rotor. If it turns but doesn't produce enough power to move water and self consumes it converting to heat then capacitor is the simplest / cheapest thing to try. Is it 2 speed or single speed? If it was 2 speed you could try the other speed as it would have its own capacitor and that one might still be good. Sounds like it's single speed though.
Pump is actually a Pentair Superflo Single Speed.
I have never seen the shaft moving at full speed so I'm not sure moving slower or not but it is turning rapidly.
When operating, the sound it makes doesn't sound as hearty as it usually sounds, plus I can see a little bit of water being pulled into the basket (pump basket chamber is half full due to prime), this should tell me the impeller is spinning/working right? Only a little water comes through and it never builds up pressure, then shuts off.
I should add that when turning on the pump after its gone cold, the 'burning' smell doesn't seem to be present and after a couple of times of kicking off, the pump will eventually go silent when turning on. You then have to wait 15 minutes or so before it will actually turn on.
I really can't see this pump/motor being bad, this is only my second year with it. Nothing with my voltage has ever been messed with, and has been working perfectly for past 2 seasons, but maybe I hit an outlier.
I have never seen the shaft moving at full speed so I'm not sure moving slower or not but it is turning rapidly.
When operating, the sound it makes doesn't sound as hearty as it usually sounds, plus I can see a little bit of water being pulled into the basket (pump basket chamber is half full due to prime), this should tell me the impeller is spinning/working right? Only a little water comes through and it never builds up pressure, then shuts off.
I should add that when turning on the pump after its gone cold, the 'burning' smell doesn't seem to be present and after a couple of times of kicking off, the pump will eventually go silent when turning on. You then have to wait 15 minutes or so before it will actually turn on.
I really can't see this pump/motor being bad, this is only my second year with it. Nothing with my voltage has ever been messed with, and has been working perfectly for past 2 seasons, but maybe I hit an outlier.
Pump is fixed! Capacitor came today and solved the problem. I do have a question about the testing process, I am thinking I have a bad multimeter, here's why:
I received the new capacitor and tested it before installing. Set meter to Ohms and received NO voltage from the new capacitor. I then touched the two meter contacts together, the voltage went up and then back down to 0. With a properly functioning meter, when the meters contacts are touched together, this should stay at a sustained level correct?
All in all, I'm happy the problem is fixed. And to possibly know I have a fried multimeter.
I received the new capacitor and tested it before installing. Set meter to Ohms and received NO voltage from the new capacitor. I then touched the two meter contacts together, the voltage went up and then back down to 0. With a properly functioning meter, when the meters contacts are touched together, this should stay at a sustained level correct?
All in all, I'm happy the problem is fixed. And to possibly know I have a fried multimeter.
your multimeter is most likely fine. It is called multimeter because it has multiple modes to measure multiple values. The minimum set are Voltage, Current & Resistance. You need to read up what is applicable when in order to use it in the correct fashion and not to damage it.
Capacitance check is usually not one of the multimeter modes and what ppl do is to use it in Resistance mode to get some very rough estimate about capacitor's health: good capacitor should have infinite resistance, it also should cause multimeter to show some 'resistance' when first connected to it but then 'resistance' should go to infinity in a second or so and remain there. If you reverse multimeter probes relatively to capacitor and connect again you should see it go through the same process- some resistance then infinity.
Multimeter actually measures current flowing through the circuit. It has small internal battery it uses to apply its voltage to the measured circuit and measures resultant current flowing through it according to Ohm's law: I = Ubat / R circuit. Its scale is marked directly in the resistance units but since I & R are reciprocal the scale is highly non- linear, has '0' on the right side of the head and values increasing from right to left. So right end of the scale in this mode corresponds to the max flowing current or 0 resistance and infinity- to the left end of the scale when current is not flowing. This is how analog multimeters work and it sounds like you have one of them.
Capacitance check is usually not one of the multimeter modes and what ppl do is to use it in Resistance mode to get some very rough estimate about capacitor's health: good capacitor should have infinite resistance, it also should cause multimeter to show some 'resistance' when first connected to it but then 'resistance' should go to infinity in a second or so and remain there. If you reverse multimeter probes relatively to capacitor and connect again you should see it go through the same process- some resistance then infinity.
Multimeter actually measures current flowing through the circuit. It has small internal battery it uses to apply its voltage to the measured circuit and measures resultant current flowing through it according to Ohm's law: I = Ubat / R circuit. Its scale is marked directly in the resistance units but since I & R are reciprocal the scale is highly non- linear, has '0' on the right side of the head and values increasing from right to left. So right end of the scale in this mode corresponds to the max flowing current or 0 resistance and infinity- to the left end of the scale when current is not flowing. This is how analog multimeters work and it sounds like you have one of them.
The multimeter needs to be able to test “Capacitance” in the range specified on the capacitor to properly check a capacitor.