Help wiring a single phase motor

Well what do you know, I did take a picture of the wiring beforehand. Panic over!

Normally in the UK and Europe the Brown is Hot and the Blue is Neutral. Yellow with the green pinstripe is obviously Ground. Dis the cover plate you removed have a wiring diagram glued to it? Normally the power box has a wiring diagram or the motor name plate.

There are also Start Capacitors and Run Capacitors. Do you know what you have?

Ron

My guess is that if you move the live wire to the next terminal, the one that isn't next to the neutral wire, the motor will run backwards.

Reloadron said:

Normally in the UK and Europe the Brown is Hot and the Blue is Neutral. Yellow with the green pinstripe is obviously Ground. Dis the cover plate you removed have a wiring diagram glued to it? Normally the power box has a wiring diagram or the motor name plate.

There are also Start Capacitors and Run Capacitors. Do you know what you have?

Ron

Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply Ron, I have sussed it now as I had actually taken a picture of how it was wired before

Diver300 said:

My guess is that if you move the live wire to the next terminal, the one that isn't next to the neutral wire, the motor will run backwards.

Click to expand...

That's interesting, I didn't realise the motor could be reversed. I am going to use it to power my pillar drill so if it turns the wrong way I may try that! Thanks

This shows the circuit that I think you have.

The two windings are at different angles around the stator. Most small motors will have the two windings constructed identically, which makes reversing the motor easier.

In the diagram, the one labelled "main" will take more current when running forward, and the one labelled "auxiliary" will take more when running in reverse if the circuit shown is used. There are more complicated circuits that would reverse a motor will always leaving the capacitor in series with the auxiliary winding.

It is possible that the auxiliary winding could be made with thinner wire so that it should not be used all the time at full motor load, but that is unlikely. Anyhow, if you measure the two winding resistances and they are the same you can be fairly sure that you can reverse it by moving just one wire.

That (post#7) shows a typical PSC (permanent start cap) motor, these have identical windings so yes, each is capable of operating as start winding.
They generally only go up to around 1/2HP.