Can washing machine start capacitor test good - and still be bad?

Home Guy · 2014-03-03T21:28:49+00:00

About a year ago the motor in my kenmore washing machine was acting up - buzzing but not turning. I suspected the start capacitor and picked up a used one for $10 at a local repair shop. These are black, about the size of a D-cell battery. The original was 270 - 324 mfd, 110 vac. Model 3348058. The one I got as a replacement was 189 - 227 mfd, 357021. Even though I had a capacitance meter at work, I just went out and picked up the used cap, installed it and bingo - the washing machine works. That was a year ago. So more recently, over the past week or two, the motor was acting up again. It would buzz, I'd bump the machine, and it would start. But yesterday even bumping / rocking the machine didn't work. So I took the capacitor out and measured the original and this replacement. The original measured 298 mdf (micro-farad) and the replacement was 211. Both numbers pretty much exactly what they should be according to their labels. So maybe the problem wasn't / isin't the capacitor - but a centrifugal contact in the motor? Do these motors have such contacts (start winding) ? Or can hand-held digital capacitance meters perform correct measurements on these big caps? I'm cross-posting this to alt.hvac, because my question about this washing machine motor capacitor and how well or accurately a capacitance meter can measure them if they're bad might also apply to compressor or fan motors. As far as I can tell, there is just this one capacitor connected to this motor, so I don't think there are separate start and run capacitors.

Mar 03, 2014 20 Replies

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micky 12 years ago

No, I was thinking of a washer. You didn't say before that it was direct drive.

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Can washing machine start capacitor test good - and still be bad?

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