capacitor blew

[lorano]

Hi Guy's

got a question that popped up in conversation between myself and a work college.The 2 of us repced a seized compressor on a small integral sandwhich fridge and upon start up the compressor capacitior started smoking then blew up?!We double checked the wiring even though it was like for like but put it down to a faulty capacitor.Any of you guys experienced this and were we right to think that the cap was at fault?Cheers

[Brian_UK]

I assume that the capacitor was also renewed.

[lorano]

The capacitor came with the new compressor,pre-wired in a box attacted to the compressor,all we had to do was connect the wiring back up as it was in the old compressor,all connections the same.

[monkey spanners]

Start cap or run cap?

The start relay should take the start cap out of circuit long before it gets hot enough to smoke.

Could be faulty compressor, capacitor, relay, voltage, or wirning.

You can check the relay it switching out the start cap ok by monitoring the current through the wire to the cap, it should pull current during starting then drop to 0 amps when the comp is running, assuming its a csr or csir compressor. psc would have current at all times on cap and no relay.

[al]

Have had this happen with ACC compressors, cake fridge, turned it on, went to van, smoke everywhere, faulty start relay.

alec

[cadwaladr]

whenever a comp fails i always want to know why it failed,then i change comp with goggles on!

[Royal241]

miss-wired relay from factory, happened to me b4, always check wiring before applying power, someone could've had a bad day

[Tesla]

Hi lorano
asides from above, three things come to mind - a tight compressor, poor connections or voltage drop? As a rule I always replace all the start gear on any compressor failure as I know you did but some don't. Did it go ok after replacing the cap?