Saturday, January 01, 2011
Elevator Repair
My hay elevator motor has been kaput for a while now, causing much inconvenience. Hay bales have to be carried into the barn and stacked by hand. With the wonderfully heavy bales I've been getting from the Postma family and Libby recently, it's just a lot of hard work. We brought in the local "farm repair man," Mr. Barnes (yes, that's his name) who examined the motor and said it was shot. A new motor is $400. Enter Quentin Peter Llop, Libby's son, who discovered two working motors in the long unused grain augers. He popped two quarters in the auger fuse box and started them right up, with me watching in total amazement. Pete dismantled one motor but didn't have the right tools with him to install it in the hay elevator. Today Matt spent several hours installing the motor, difficult to do as it had to be hoisted in the air with straps and screwed in while standing on a ladder. Matt asked me to watch the motor as he ran down to the shed to throw the switch. It started the hay conveyor track just fine, but in the wrong direction! It's going backwards! Matt is going to confer with his friend Dale Sherman, AKA The Professor, about rewiring the motor to make it go in the right direction. We want the bales to go into the barn, not out of the barn. By the way, Libby reports the four goats she took home in exchange for the hay are doing fine and eating out of her hand. In typical Libby fashion, the goats have already been hoof trimmed, clipped for birthing, wormed, shots and given nutritional supplements. Lucky goats to go home with Libby and family.
swapping motors in the air, that's a lot of work! If it's 3-phase power to the hay elevator motor, you just have to reverse any two wires, but I imagine Matt would know that. 240V single phase (or 2-phase) would require swapping the wires going to the two brushes, or swap the wires going to the field windings. Sometimes there is a wiring diagram on the motor name plate or inside the electrical wiring cover to help get it right. A motor model number would help. - Dale
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