Hayward burning wire

[belgique]

Hayward (AO Smith 1.5HP) is melting the black wire at the spade. Did it once and and I put new spade on it and it just did it again after about 30" of pumping. I've already ordered a new pump (based on the other thread) since this one is dying anyway...very noisy and about 8 years old in salt air environment. But I'd like to get this one running over the weekend to avoid a swamp and to be able to use the pool for some of the last days of the season.

Anything obvious to look at? Pump seems to run normally (until it melts that wire!). No more noise than usual. Thanks much! Steve

 

[Melt In The Sun]

Re: Hayward buring wire

Not really any help with the electrical, but you can prevent a swamp by just dumping in bleach then brushing (or swimming) to mix it up. The pool may get a little dirty from debris, but you can keep it algae-free pretty easily by doing that.

 

[Ohm_Boy]

If a connection is getting overly hot, localized to that connection, then the connection was not a good one, electrically speaking -not in that "Bad connection! Bad! Outside with you! scolding kind of way.

Naturally, the goal of an electrical connection is to have as close to zero ohms of resistance as possible. If an electrical connection has high resistance, there will be a voltage drop across that resistance whenever current flows through it. This results in heat, which makes the connection worse, which makes more heat...

There is a possibility that the wire had oxidized and did not make a good connection with your new crimp-on spade lug (especially if you couldn't scrape or sand the wire to a bright shiny copper surface before attaching the connector, or that the motor's internal connection to the screw post is bad, or something similar.

 

[belgique]

You guys are geniuses! Dremeled the spade, hit it with contact cleaner just to be sure, and she's running perfect and cool. It was rusted/corroded bad (salt air). That'll hold me until the new one comes and will make an excellent backup pump.

:?: Hmmm...an idea. Can this old pump be configured to work with the vacuum for those times that I would normally vac to waste?

Thanks again for the fix. Steve