Shop vac get a new lease on life!

carpenterbee (46)in #carpentry • 7 years ago

my apologies to my followers for not posting the last few days. I was elbow deep restoring my shop vac back to life. Here is how it went.

I removed it's head and very carefully started opening it up.

I then started to systematically test all connection points of the cord by jumping the male end of the plug and putting the probes at the other end to test for continuity. BEEP! its good.
I next tested the motor by testing the continuity on it. No Beep. So the problem is in the motor.

the third picture above is the area that the winding connects to the lead and between them is a very CHEEP! fuse that is supposed to sit locked in that housing in the picture.

The fuse consisted of two pieces of "V" shaped metal that each lead was plugged into and a aluminum wire between them. Not as one piece unit but the two "V" clips were putting pressure against the wire. see next photo.

Next I used a 15amp blade automotive fuse to fix the connection then tested it. BEEP! got continuity back

I then connected all the wires back up and tested the continuity at the male plug end to test the connection from motor out to the plug. it beeped. but the photo shows the test equipment turned off ( I snapped the pic before turning it on :P)

After that it seems every thing will work now. I re-assembled the shop vac and gave it a try, and Bob's your uncle!

ITS ALIVE! ITS ALIVE! lol not sure if anyone will get that movie reference but it is working great again.

Thank you all for reading this post! Thank you all that follow me! I promise it's back to the shop build now.

In closing

All the consumer products that we purchase each week or month ends up in our landfills eventually. It is not that hard to find someone that will take it for free and tinker with it, learn something from taking it apart, or taking it apart and recycling its base components to keep it out of our land fills.

I have plans to build a plastics shredder for things like this. Recycling the plastics saves wildlife and the environment. Can be turned into other plastic items that can be used. Metals go to my son who is teaching himself the black smithing trade and I have to admit even though he knows little he does a dang good job of it.

So next time your about to throw an appliance in the trash, see if someone wants it. Or give it to your kids to take apart maybe they learn something from the experience.