Electric motor tripping

I know very little about motors so someone will hopefully be able to help me. The motor on my linisher keeps tripping the trippy thing in my electric box. If I turn it on it will trip immediately, if I start the motor turning by hand then turn it on it will run for 30 seconds then trip. Any simple fixes? (other than the obvious)

I think that to give an answer that has any value to you we would need to know a teeny weeny bit more about the 'trippy thing'!

Full specification, part numbers, date of birth, that sort of thing.

Ian P

It sounds as though the motor is taking too much current. I would disconnect it from the load , slacken/remove any V belts. Try to spin the motor shaft by hand. It should be smooth in rotation, if it feels rough your bearings need to be oiled/replaced.. Try running the motor, if it still trips out then its the motor, if it runs OK, your linisher bearing/belt tension needs to adjusted. Of course that actual trip might have gone faulty and is tripping at too low a current. It would be good to run the motor of another circuit to check this out or measure the motor current.

If the motor has got holes in its case it is likely that dust has bunged up the works and it needs a strip down and clean. If you get this far then the state of the copper windings can be inspected as it is possible that if the windings have got hot enough the varnish insulation might have been damaged causing a short circuit turn and further overheating. The smell of the innards will tell you this immediately you open the casing.

Frank

As Ian says, it depends if the trippy thing is the MCB (resettable fuse) or RCD (earth leakage trip). You need to see which it is and what the numbers on the trippy thing are. The faults that cause those different trips could be quite different in nature and the ground fault in particular could be a shock hazard.

Murray

Exactly these symptoms, occurred with my linisher and not having much of a clue about motors it baffled me for a while. I then carried out a partial dismantling to try and identify any obvious fault and found that a certain amount of metallic dust had accumulated in and around the motor. Five minutes with the hoover and it was working OK and still is.

Mick

For a Linisher you really need a sealed motor to keep the CR*P out(don't know-yours may be sealed). Follow Ian and Frank, a motor takes a large current when starting, so the trippy thing might not be rated high enough.

Ian S C