Hi,

I bought a house 3 years ago, that was built in the 70's, and has an inoperable well on the property. We are on city water, so don't "need" the well, but I thought it would be nice to get it functional to irrigate.

I have a friend helping me, as I am an absolute novice, when it comes to this type of effort, but we have made some good diagnostic progress, through the help of the internet!

The equipment: Appears to be a 1 hp Sears pump, control center and air tank. 3-wire pump, and control center with a single capacitor and relay.

The symptoms: When I turn on the breaker to the pump, it comes on for 2-3 seconds and shuts off. It does this every 30 seconds. The pressure gauge below the air/water tank never even gets up to 10 psi. I have put air into the air tank, and it seems to be holding 40 psi.

Diagnostics: I believe we have bypassed the pressure switch to rule that out, and are focused on the control center and pump. We think it may have something to do with the start winding on the pump, as we found a resource that provided the resistance in ohms a 3-wire 1 hp pump should have. The resource says we should have 2.2-2.7 ohms on the main winding (we have 2.7), and it says it should have 9.9-12.1 ohms on the start winding (we only have 4.6).

Is this likely the cause? is 4.6 ohms of resistance not enough to kick-start the motor on?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Kind regards,
Todd

 

Welcome to the forums.

Your pump is shutting down on thermal overload. It's not starting properly.

Those resistances are only approximate. Your 4.6 ohms on the start winding vs 2.7 ohms on your run winding tells me that your start winding resistance is a little low...could possibly suggest a burned start winding.

Have you tried changing the start capacitor ?

 

Hi Pete,

Thanks for the reply. Because my control center box is so old, I'm actually willing to replace the entire control center. Not knowing necessarily what the problem is, we were concerned about doing so, if the pump were in a condition that might possibly damage a new control center. If this is not likely, than I am certainly willing to go that route.

Just so I understand though, would a new start capacitor possibly have enough juice to overcome a burned start winding, or would we just be ruling out the start capacitor as the problem?

Thanks so much!

 

Ruling the start cap out as a problem.

 

Put a clamp on amp meter on a lead and see what it's pulling. A start cap is cheap and would be worth a shot.

 

Thanks guys!

I will give that a shot and report back. Will probably be a few days.

Thanks again!