Pump dying?

[bf1967]

Must be the time for pump failures. I see a whole bunch of them posted all of a sudden.

I have a 2HP aquatools pump driven by an AO Smith motor. It ran overnight & tripped the circuit breaker. I reset it and went back out and backwashed the filter. No problem so far. Shut it off and turned the valve to rinse. The motor came on, although very slowly, and eventually the motor overload tripped.

I pulled the strainer and was able to turn the impeller by hand. I measured the resistance of the motor windings and they don't appear to be shorted, although there is a very slight burnt smell.

My next step is pull the basket assembly and make sure there's nothing stuck in the impeller. Any other ideas?

I think this pump is actually way over sized for my pool anyhow. My sand filter is 200lbs , 60 GPM, 50 psig. so I'm not sure what the correct size might be.

Thanks for any ideas.

Bob

 

[Nasty90]

Is the motor making any noise when running? What ampage is the breaker for this motor, is there anything else (extra power outlet) tied to this source?

 

[bf1967]

I actually managed to resolve my issue, I just didn't have time to post back.

The morale of the story is don't assume a mechanical problem when you might have an electrical problem. I tore the whole pump down and didn't find any problems. However, the pump was plugged into an extension cord (I know this isn't legit) which was plugged into a GFCI outlet. Even though I had 120v at the end of the extension, I hadn't noticed that the end of the plug was slightly burnt. This wasn't a problem until the pump attempted to start and the current surged. I replaced the plug and all is well. I'm just finishing up my deck and then I'll finish pulling the wire thru the conduit (which is already buried) and do away with the extension. This story illustrates the problems of using an extension cord instead of an properly wired outlet.

Thanks for your interest!

Bob

 

[Nasty90]

8)