Pump tripping breaker, repair electrical wire?

Contentt

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May 18, 2018
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Vienna, VA
I just did a pump seal replacement to stop a leak, which worked, however the pump is now tripping the circuit breaker after it turns on. The wires that attach to the pump have a few nicks and small areas of wire exposed, they have seen better days. I'm wondering if this is causing the pump to short. Is there a way to fix these wires, cover with electrical tape, has anyone used liquid electrical tape? Other ideas on why it might be tripping the breaker?

Thanks for any suggestions.
 

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Any exposed wire should be replaced immediately. I'd not trust a patch job of any sort when water and electricity are that close together. It's simply not worth the safety risk. Once you rule that out, others may chime in with other ideas if needed.
 
It looks like the bad wires are in the pigtail from the breaker box. I agree I would have them replaced, shouldn’t be too bad of a job.
Does it kick the breaker with the back pump cover off? If the bare wires are touching the case that would make sense.

I am not sure if that’s the cause, if it’s set to 120 and wired for 240 or visa versa that will kick the breaker. I know from experience :)
Are you sure it’s wired the same as before?
 
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Sorry you're going through this. Is it a GCFI breaker? (One indicator is a TEST button.)

Is your motor properly bonded? That is, connected to a heavy bare copper bonding wire that runs to all equipment?

Breakers trip for three reasons: 1) excessive current draw 2) ground fault if breaker is GCFI 3) faulty breaker.

Excessive draw means either a short somewhere or a mechanical problem causing the motor to draw more than the breaker current, which is a lot more than usual. E.g. seals in backward, binding due to misalignment (which can happen if casing parts are badly corroded) or bad bearings.

A short can be between L1 and L2 or either one and ground. You can use a multimeter to look for such shorts in cables by disconnecting both ends. At the box end turning off the breaker should do it. Ohms should be infinite - no continuity at all - for all three pairs among the 3 wires. The motor should be infinite from both L1 and L2 to ground. (It's expected motor L1 to L2 will have low resistance.)

One other tip is that a short bad enough to trip a 20 amp breaker will often leave evidence: darkened insulation, black soot, even melted copper fragments.

GCFI faults happen because a potentially very small current (5 ma or so) leaks from anywhere in the circuit to ground. The tests above will also find most ground faults. Not all.

Bare wiring can cause any of the above. The picture makes it look like the outside moisture coating is flaking away. This doesn't necessarily cause a problem. Any bare copper definitely could. As @wgipe said, get bare wires fixed immediately and don't try running the pump until you do. The wiring looks old. Replacing it would rule out a lot of potential issues.

The only way to determine if a breaker is tripping needlessly is to use a current meter to measure what's flowing when it does. If you don't happen to have a meter, your best bet is to replace the breaker and see if the problem goes away.
 
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Quick update, it's bonded correctly and no visible burn marks anywhere. One of the wires had a huge gash about an inch away from the end, thought it was going to be an easy fix cutting that off and re-attaching to the motor. Motor ran fine for a day, but then tripped the breaker again. When the pump turns on it doesn't jump on full strength like it used to, it struggles to get going for about 2 seconds, and then trips the breaker. Still need to do some of the tests above.
 
I just did a pump seal replacement to stop a leak, which worked, however the pump is now tripping the circuit breaker after it turns on. The wires that attach to the pump have a few nicks and small areas of wire exposed, they have seen better days. I'm wondering if this is causing the pump to short. Is there a way to fix these wires, cover with electrical tape, has anyone used liquid electrical tape? Other ideas on why it might be tripping the breaker?

Thanks for any suggestions.
With that bad wiring on the pump it is best to replace that pigtail from your circuit breaker to the pump. See the link to HD as it is a easy fix.
 
Has anyone suggested checking the run capacitor which can also cause excessive amp draw? The run capacitor is in the circuit continuously and the start capacitor is in the circuit on start up and taken out of the circuit by the centrifugal switch after the motor is up to running speed.
 
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Well I've tried everything but drilling out the screw to get the capacitor out, the screw holding capacitor in is not budging. At this point I'm considering just replacing the motor, it was installed in 2014. The Pentair Challenger pump is from 2016, so just thinking about a motor swap. Is there a variable speed motor option? INYOpools has the exact same motor I have, the Century 3.0 HP Square Flange 56Y Full Rate Motor - SQ1302V1, but they didn't have a variable speed option.
 
Well I've tried everything but drilling out the screw to get the capacitor out, the screw holding capacitor in is not budging. At this point I'm considering just replacing the motor, it was installed in 2014. The Pentair Challenger pump is from 2016, so just thinking about a motor swap. Is there a variable speed motor option? INYOpools has the exact same motor I have, the Century 3.0 HP Square Flange 56Y Full Rate Motor - SQ1302V1, but they didn't have a variable speed option.
Just my 2 cents but get a VS if possible. They are a lot more energy efficient but to be the biggest advantage is how quiet they are. But its not my money your spending :)
 
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