Pump Emergency!!!

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jblizzle

jblizzle

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May 19, 2010
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Tucson, AZ
Well, my luck ran out.

Happened to look at the pool this morning before leaving for my last day of work before a 10 day out of town vacation and noticed more stuff floating that usual.

Checked the pad and found the timer not working and pump would not turn on. Figured out that the round fuse on 1 leg of the power had blown. Had a spare and when I turned the pump on saw sparks shooting out the back :shock:

Realized I had an old motor from my last house that would fit and hopefully would be able to limp through vacation, but could not remember why I had replaced it at the last house. Burnt motor was a 2.2 SFHP AO Smith and my "spare" is a 2.5 SFHP Super II ... having learned here that I should be OK with the oversized pump on the smaller impeller, I thought this could work. Proceeded to take the bad motor off the pump and found a melted area in the rear that looks like it used to be the knob to select 120/140 (see pic ... assuming this motor is DEAD).
[attachment=0:1fvsewi0]burnt.JPG[/attachment:1fvsewi0]
Put the Harward motor on (with same seals as I did not care if it leaked for a few weeks) wired it up, wife brought some more fuses home, screwed them in, threw the switch ... a little humming and another blown fuse. Pulled the 2 capacitors and both test OK {starter registered 38 MFD and label says 36-43 MFD; large one registered 23 MFD and I think the label says 25 MFD}. Put them back in, last new fuse, throw the switch, humming and the motor was turning (not full speed, but was starting to prime) ... pop the fuse again after only a few seconds. :x

The old fuse never blew, but the new ones did. Old is Type S, SL 15 amp, the new ones also had a D on them.

The motor spins freely by hand.

Questions:
Do you agree the Caps seem good?
Do you think we just had the wrong fuse and that is why they blew?
Or is there an internal problem with the Hayward motor (bad insulation?) that is resulting in the blown fuses?

Any chance on me getting this pump running tonight ... no time left? Or am I just going to have to order a new pump, let the pool sit for 1-2 weeks until we get back and can install the new one?

Or course I was planning to be VERY busy at work today, and now I have already lost half the day messing with the pool ... ah vacations are so relaxing :)
 

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It could be the starter switch sticking.

Another possibility that occurs to me, are you still using the same wire that was wired to the old pump? The heat could have meted the insulation some way back, leading to a possible short inside the flexible conduit.
 
Yes it is the same wire, insulation near the motor did not look too bad, but I can pull it out of the conduit and check it tonight.

What does the starter switch look like and how do I tell if it is sticking?

Which I could remember why I pulled the motor from the last house. Can't remember if it was just loud or if it had stopped working (and I never investigated why).
 
The mechanism hooked to the springs trips the switch. The switch is the plastic part with the copper strip on it. You should be able to press the mechanism down and open the switch and when you let it go it close the switch.
 
Well, I was planning on replacing the pump anyways with a smaller 2-speed, but did not anticipate this rush. Was hoping to replumb the pad and solar and get good pressure numbers for Mark to help me definitively decide on a pump before ordering. At this point it looks like I will have to order the pump we had discussed and hope my new solar does not have a lot more head loss than the old one (although I hope to improve the pad plumbing as well ... so it may be a wash)

I think the burnt motor is toast ... not worth me fixing if I am just going to replace it.
I will see if I find anything wrong with the switch on my "backup" motor or in the load wires tonight.

When I was trying the 2nd motor the second time. I cycled it on for about a second a few times before I noticed a spark near the shaft at the back and that is when the fuse blew ... could that have been something with the switch?

If nothing pans out pretty fast tonight, I will just have to hope the pool is not too messy by the time I get back and can replace the pump.

One other note, I could not get a reading on the large cap on the burnt motor ... so I think that means it was bad ... would that have contributed to the overheating? I also got weird readings on the start cap on the burnt motor, but until today the motor seemed to be starting and running without issue, just would get hot.

Thanks all.
 
Melt In The Sun said:
Well, worst case scenario is a little cleanup when you get back...not worth stressing about and ruining your vacation.
Click to expand...

That is basically what I have decided. No time to fix it so just worry about it when I get home. Plan to order a pump and valves for the pad replumb which will hopefully be waiting for me when I get home.
:cheers:

Still curious if the "big capacitor" went bad on the first motor and that was causing the heat problem in the first place.
 

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Yeah. We got the chlorine taken care of ... just wont be filtering for the week. Should not go green but might be pretty dirty.

Posted with Tapatalk ... sorry if I sound short ... hate typing on phone :)
 
Without a cover in hot weather a pool can go three or occasionally four days without chlorine additions. Ten days is out of the question. With a cover the odds are much better, though even then 10 days is pushing it.
 
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