Capacitor

mixman

mixman

Livin' the life.
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Feb 28, 2007
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My spare air conditioner (a Krusin' Kool unit in a suitcase) is having issue. The "squirrel cage" fan isn't running. I've got my suspicions it's the start/run capacitor, which is this:

Capacitor.jpg


I'm not the best when it comes to capacitors. I've gone to RE Michels and they have no idea. So I'm on my own. Does anybody know anything about capacitors, and if so, would one of these work?

eBay item 320944622633

or

eBay item 180928561580
 
U have to watch the UF's on a Cap . u want to stay as close as possbile to the original. The one in the pic is a 8 uf . If u flick the blower wheel will it start and move on its own ? Usually a cap thats bad either swells or as blows out the top ( usually ) and by manually starting the fan it will run. USUALLY . there are exceptions to everything. Any 8 uf cap will work. U just may have to make ur own mounting .

Rob
 
Thanks, guys. Bruce, I'll order from Newark right now. I'm not all that thrilled about ordering from Asia on something like this. Mounting is not an issue as the capacitor is held in with a wire tie (hey, it's an air conditioner in a suitcase, what would you expect? :-)

Rob, the fan won't run at all. It gets hot as heck though. I swapped the fan out with my other unit and the problem didn't follow the fan. For $7, this is an easy thing to try.

Thanks again.
 
I hope it's not the TRIAC Kurt. The start capacitor is a good inexpensive place to start.
Bill
 
I figured it was a good place to start. I put an multi-meter on this one and all I got was a big goose egg, so with luck this will do the trick.

At least this is my spare unit and not my primary. The primary crapped out in the Bahamas but I got it repaired in Florida. It just needed a new water pump and a bit of R22.
 
Crap. I forgot about Granger. But I bet not this one. It isn't all that easy to find.
 
Any 8 uf with the same or higher voltage will work. If you want to check your old cap use your meter on the highest resistance range you have and watch the display when you connect the lead. It should go to a low value then increase to near open. You can switch the leads and it should repeat the low to high movement. This doesn't give you any data on quality but since most cap failures are short or open it will detect both of these conditions. Shorted goes to low value and stays there, open never go to a low value and just stays high value.
 
What Mike said. The motor would get very hot is it was stalled because of a bad starting capacitor. Cheap enough to replace and see.
 
Thanks everyone, especially Bruce. The new caps came via Newark today. I installed one and the fan started fine. I'll keep the other on the boat as a spare.
 
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