# New member, I'm having some issues with my Stanley compressor



## Morris (Oct 11, 2014)

Hello. I inherited a Stanley compressor from my deceased father in law. It's recently stopped working. I know it did work, as I tested it. Then I tried again a short time later and there was some frizzing noises and now the plug has burn marks similar to if there was arcing going on. 

I took off the plastic cover and unfortunately unplugged some wires that came out of two white cylinders. I wasnt thinking and didnt get an accurate location for them all. I plugged them in and cleaned things up as it was covered in sawdust/grease and whatever else. The white tubes have writing on them but its barely legible. 

It still won't run/turn on so I thought I'd join a forum to see if I could fix it before taking it to a small engine mechanic. I've included some pics to help visualize it and I hope make it easier for anyone. 

I originally thought the wires inside the plug corroded creating a bad ground. My first thoughts were clean things up, then replace the plug cable. Nothing looks fried under the covers on it just on the prongs.


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## Morris (Oct 11, 2014)

The pic of the green and black wire, the black wire plugs onto the open prong in the pic above it. 

Any help would be appreciated, I didn't change the power wire, so for all I know the pink/black wires are where they are supposed to be and it just needs to be grounded. I plugged it in tonight before this post with the wires reconnected where I think they should be and nothing turned on.

One final pic of the compressor.


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## Scup (Oct 11, 2014)

Not sure exactly what you got there, but the electrical convention is: Black is the hot lead, white is the low lead, and green is frame ground. 

My guess as to what your problem is, and it is only a guess since I am not really sure what I am looking at in the pictures of that round cylinder in which has an empty terminal, as it might be a starting capacitor. Understand that compressors present quite a starting load for an electrical motor so while a manufacturer could use a type of motor that could run a light load without a starting capacitor, a decent machine would probably have a starting capacitor. Once the motor starts to get up to speed, then it switches over to the second cylinder (running capacitor) for more efficient operation. While again I am not sure of this because it is not even clear to me that you have two cylinders in there but I will take you word for it, but if you accidentally pulled, crossed wired, erred, or disconnected the leads off of the external starting/run capacitor, you should hear the motor hum like it is trying to start, but it is sort of like asking a weight lifter to bench press 500 pounds after he has been in a accident and had 90% of his arm tissue damaged. This could burn out your motor as well, but the label states "thermally protected" so hopefully you should be fine.

So a few questions:

Did it hum or want to start?
Did it get warm?
If it did either of the above immediately shut it down, and look up on the manufacturers web site the model and see if you can find an exploded parts diagram and what you have there. What I am trying to say is do not guess at the wiring especially when you could look up and find out exactly what you have. Sometimes both start and run capacitors could be in the same can so do not let that bother you. You might even be able to find the exact wiring, if not for your model, then for a similar model. I am really surprise that some heating/cooling guy did not chime in as these guys usually know this stuff cold as they work not only with single speed compressors but multiple speed compressors all the time. 

One thing is for sure in a worse case situation, we could walk you through the wiring if you could come up with a typical schematic of a compressor similar to yours. Try Harbor Freight Tools or Sears as they sometimes have downloads for the power tools they sell for which they can include wiring diagrams.
Good Luck!


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## Morris (Oct 11, 2014)

First try it started. Second try it sounded like a bad ground and fizzed. Arc marks are on the prongs. 

I took those wires off the capacitors and tried to reinstall them. 
Third try, nothing. No pops or fizzes. I didn't feel for heat, I didn't think of that. 
The capacitors have schematics printed on them but they are hard to see.


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## Scup (Oct 11, 2014)

Any luck in finding a drawing?

There could be at least two things wrong!

The wiring could be wrong for which a drawing could go a long way in solving that problem.

There could also be, in addition, component damage especially if you tried to start a compressor with incorrect wiring. It would seem logical to me to stop everything until someone who knows your compressor chimes in, or until you do some research and find a drawing of your wiring. That should be step one. Once you have the wiring correct, then that problem can be put to rest and perhaps the compressor just might run fine. If not, then you have to trouble shoot from that point.


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## Morris (Oct 11, 2014)

Yea, I think so too. Thanks for responding.


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