Speedaire 4.5 gallon compressor keeps tripping...

by Adam
(Guelph ,Ontario)

My Speedaire 4.5 gallon compressor keeps tripping or going out on thermo overloads even unloaded. Trips 20 amp breaker. Any suggestions?

Thanks





Bill answers...

Hey Adam. Nice to hear from you. Two of my children were born in the Guelph Hospital, as we used to live in Erin. I know Guelph well. A beautiful place to live.

In any case...I do tend to digress, don't I? :-)

I'm afraid (at least as far as I'm concerned) that your motor may be pooched.

Though you don't say how long it takes to go off on thermal overload, that it does at all tells me that the motor is trying to go, but for some reason it can't, and in the process is heating up until it clicks off.

If it weren't that, I'd guess that it was your pressure switch, but based on the motor heat issue, I'm going to have to go with a motor problem.

You should be able to take the motor off, if you are comfortable doing so, and just take it to a local electric motor shop in town to test it for you. That might be the best bet.

Or, take the compressor to a local repair shop, explain the problem, and they'll either confirm or change my diagnosis.

Cheers,

Bill





Comments for
Speedaire 4.5 gallon compressor keeps tripping...

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Feb 01, 2010
 Bad start switch
by: Anonymous

Our Speedaire one-lunger running on 120 volts did the same thing. We switched it to 240 Volts. The breaker stayed in but the motor overload switch tripped. We eventually tracked it down to a failed start switch in the motor. It had burnt contacts that had stuck together so the start winding would not de-energize. This overloaded the 15 amp breaker. Our Acklands-Grainger rep did not have a start switch listed but we found one after sending a picture of it to a motor supplier - cost: $70, half the price of a new motor :(
Jul 11, 2009
 Try this solution
by: Darrel

I don't think it's the motor. I had a similar problem, until I used a seperate 20 amp circuit for the compressor.



Hi Darrel, thanks for this.

If the motor draws more amps than the circuit can carry, the breaker will pop. Sometimes the sign of a failing motor is that it's drawing more amps than it used to.

I note that he was using a 20 amp breaker already, and it was popping, or the motor was going off on thermal overload (getting too hot) and that's normally an issue of overload, caused by motor failing or something it's attached to adding too much load to the motor.

Thanks again for your comment. I appreciate it.

Bill

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