My Clarke compressor has packed up 1/2 way through a rustproofing job

Its one of these and has been giving sterling service for a couple of years.



Here is the full spec

On top of the motor is some kind of overload protection, its got a 16A switch/breaker on it.
This tripped out a couple of time yesterday, I let it cool, and carried on. The there was a plume of smoke from that box, and the compressor was no more.

Do I need a new motor, or can that bit be repaired separately ?
Or is it a sign of a bigger problem
I'm not using a motor starter, should I be ? Its just plumbed into a 16A feed from the house at the moment.

Thanks All

What did the instructions say?
And what have Machine Mart advised you to do?

For the relatively reasonable cost of a motor I would just replace it.

It occurs to me that you should check that the compressor hasn't started to sieze overloading the motor.

Cheers Nick - just had the guard off, and the motor and pump seem to turn freely.

I took that box on top of the motor apart, and the little breaker switch is melted and burned up - proper job.

Short-circuiting that switch, and it springs back into life

I guess I'll just replace the switch/breaker and see how it goes.

It's nice when it turns out simple, proves I can't be trusted though!

In case it helps anyone else:
I recently had my Clarke portable compressor suddenly stop working; no evident-smoke (thankfully) but the motor wouldn`t turn the compressor, `producing just a quiet 'hum' and a slight twitch of the shaft (as if trying to work).

I worked my way through all the obvious (likely) faults; siezure, pressure switch, thermal circuit-breaker, fuse etc., but to no avail.....then I thought it might be the failure of the 10 microfarad motor-run capacitor. I swapped it for a known good cap. with a similar rating (from a water pump I had about the workshop) and the compressor sprang into life!
Knowing-now the cause, I ordered the correct rated motor capacitor from Maplin (£6.24) and now the compressor is fully functional.

I wonder how many such electrical items are needlessly 'binned', because of such easy to fix minor faults.