Lathe motor won't start sometimes

[johnmh]

I have a wood lathe/disk sander with a 1/2 HP motor (likely 70 years old). About half the time when I flip the switch, either forward or reverse, all I get is a hum - I can then spin the pulley by hand, and it runs fine. I assume this is a capacitor issue, but there is no visible capacitor attached to the outside of the motor.

Any suggestions?

Also - I have another motor, much newer. It's 3/4 hp, 3450 rmp. The old one is 1725 rpm. Assuming I make appropriate adjustment to the pulley sizes, would this be an appropriate replacement?

 

[Retired]

Hi,

Try YouTube; here's an example;

Quickest way with your 3/4hp motor is to try it with pulley size adjustment. I rebuilt both my Lorch Schmidt engineering lathe and Graduate woodturning lathe but greatly modified them to run from a single VFD; I installed identical 1.5hp inverter rated 3 phase motors but arranged switching only allowing one lathe at a time to be used.

Please don't play around with mains electricity unless you are competent otherwise it will be highly dangerous and could prove lethal.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[johnmh]

Perfect - Thanks!