Ametek Vacuum Motors 115923 Failures - New Info

[ThomasVaught]

Well I owe Ametek an apology, I had several motor failures in the past and
was starting to blame it on the motors.

Well the "turkey" electrician that was hired to wire the panel to the 4 wire plug for the bench intentionally left the main switch panel as a 208 three phase deal and "thought he knew more than I did"

We found out today that he had one of the phases going to the GROUND
wire on the bench.

The motors were screaming, tearing the blades off, fireballs at the brushes, etc.

We checked each leg and sure as the world it was 208. We opened up the switch panel and found his other deception. Unfortunately he was fired a
few weeks ago or I would have given him a piece of my mind. I had to
redirect that speech to his former management.

Hopefully we will have this expensive and dangerous screw up fixed by next week.

Please confirm that any new or old benches are wired properly both inside the bench and at the panel.

Tom V.

[86rocco]

That's a relief! I've got four brand new 115923 motors still in the box, your earlier posts on the subject were making me a little nervous.

[ThomasVaught]

Ed,

All of the 8 motors I checked were with-in .2 amps of where they should have been on the amp draw test when running. Good motors.

Tom V.

[gofaster]

It's good to know that it was all "human Error" and not the fault of the Ametek motors. I have yet to have an Ametek motor fail catastrophically. Brushes and coms wear, that's all.

I changed motors in my 110 while I had it apart, but the actual problem was loose terminals (as installed by the folks at the Big Blue Bench Factory) causing a fire. I've gone the extra mile to wire my DIY bench in a manner that will eliminate the possibility of this sort of problem.

[ThomasVaught]

When the motors run on 208 on each leg, the amps on that leg, as
measured goes from about 10 amps to 20+ amps and the motor speed
skyrockets. No wonder the motors had a fireball above each brush set
and the blades were flying apart at excessive speeds.

Tom V.