I had similar issues a couple of years ago!

I just got the info off the capacitors and got some off Ebay. When you change them, remove them and short them across a filament light bulb, quite impressive how much power they store!

Jim

Agree with emgee. You may have been a tad unlucky that they 'only' lasted 6 years. The poor things lead a hard-life though and it's not unusual for motor capacitors to fail.

As JimmyB noted capacitors store charge; fully charged they pack quite a wallop. Best to short them out before dismantling. They're not outrageously dangerous but an expected shock isn't a good way to find you have a dodgy ticker. As they're scrap, I'd use an old screwdriver or a length of insulted wire to render them safe rather than Jimmy's much better bulb method.

Slightly odd that two machines have failed at about the same time. Do you have anything nearby, like a welder, that might be spiking your supply? Otherwise many things put spikes on the mains, not least lightning.

Dave

The capacitor on the 1/2 HP motor of my saw bench,which I built some 50 years ago, had to be replaced once,perhaps 20 odd years ago. I have no idea how old the motor was when I bought it,but it was far from new,so the capacitor would have done a fair amount of work by the time I replaced it and it did not have an easy time since.

Perhaps I was just lucky,or perhaps these units are not made as well as they were,like so many other things.

I might add that the motor in question was never intended for woodwork since it was not TEFC,but despite heavy use,it,s still going strong. Must be at least 60 years old by now.

Get a 460 V rated name brand capacitor from a proper distributor, CPC / Farnell et al, rather than going for E-Bay bargains. Objectively the price differential isn't great, maybe £5, so its not worth the risk and hassle of being penny wise and possibly pound foolish.

Early failure of capacitors on Far East import motors is often due to them being primarily designed for American market use on 110 volts. Actual safe voltage rating of such devices tends to be around 300 volts so they don't immediately go pop if accidentally connected to the 220 V high load connection found in American house power installations alongside the 110 V provided for ordinary loads. As such they will survive for some time under our higher voltages but eventually succumb.

My view of the "good old stuff" thing is that back in the day design / operating characteristics weren't as well understood and the production process was less well controlled. Hence the design was conservative by modern standards and the quality scatter rather greater. So a decent range between good ones and bad ones coming out of the factory. All the bad ones died years ago so only the good ones have survived giving a skewed view of quality.

Bit like antiques. Only the good stuff got kept, cheap things that Mr & Mrs Ordinary Folk had for everyday use fell apart and was binned or burnt.

Getting back to motors true consumer priced consumer quality tools and other large motor using devices are a relatively recent phenomena. Certainly within my lifetime (will be 64 come July). Hence the fraction of a penny per unit price trimming process only useful with mass production along with the all to often associated quality reduction is also fairly recent. Back in the day proper motors were generally industrial related items where decent reliable lifetime was more important than absolute minimal first cost. Which did spread over to consumer items for a while. Pulled one over the very nice square cased Hoover motors out of Mums first washing machine when that died with an unfixable leak. No doubts about that being industrial quality. Similarly there are couple of two speed, solenoid change, gearbox equipped motors out of slightly later decent quality washers under the bench. Been too good to bin for maybe 40 years by now. Maybe the open case and one or two other details aren't full industrial quality but no obvious corners cut.

Clive.