Dye house splashes out on motor repair

By Steve Ormondroyd, Workshop Manager

The electric motor, top left, from which water is pouring, was located in a pit under a machine in a dye house and hadn’t run for years. 

The customer wanted to start using the machine again, so the motor was switched on and ran for around half an hour. The emergency stop button was only pressed when someone reported water splashing out of the terminal box.

It turns out the motor had been flooded at some stage and nobody had noticed. How the windings didn’t blow amazes me.

When tested, the windings were in excellent condition, passing all our electrical tests with flying colours as if it had come out of the factory yesterday.

We also balanced the rotor, fitted new bearings and gave the motor a final test run before giving it a fresh coat of paint and returning it to the customer.

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