When repairing centrifugal and axial flow pumps, axial thrust is a concern. An understanding of the causes and the mitigating provisions of various pump designs will help repair technicians to ensure those provisions work properly.

Three of the most common three-phase motor problems we receive inquiries about are:

1. “The motor is drawing high no-load current.”
2. “The current of the three line leads is not balanced.”
3. “The motor is running hot.”

Even if you have never faced one of these issues, read on because it is almost inevitable that you will, and you will want to know what to do about it.

PCBs have been identified as a likely carcinogen for humans. If your service center is asked to pick up equipment that you suspect MAY contain PCBs, have it field tested BEFORE picking it up. Once you pick up a device that contains PCBs, the responsibility is yours.

This presentation addresses many of the most common safety hazards and situations that face service centers.

This video walks through the steps to adjust and set end play on a typical vertical hollow shaft pump motor.

One aspect of our repair industry that seems to cause a lot of confusion is the bearing arrangements of vertical motors. There is quite an assortment of thrust bearing arrangements, and we tend to try to apply the same method for adjusting end play to all of them. That is often a bad idea, so this article will take a closer look specifically at those fitted with a spherical roller thrust bearing and repair tips unique to these designs.

Unless great care is taken, pulling magnet wire from a motor stator often bends or splays the lamination’s end teeth. Bent teeth, or teeth that have been splayed outward at the ends of the core stack, will likely compromise the quality of the repair job. Therefore, we have designed and implemented the use of disc clamps to hold the stator tooth tips in place while pulling magnet wire from the slots. The clamping fixtures described in the photos have helped ensure that we avoid damaging the stator teeth during the stripping process.

Check fraud can be particularly debilitating to a business in terms of the emotional and financial impact as well as reputational damage. Read about one company's experience with this problem.

For those of us who have stumbled into the unique niche of the electromechanical repair industry, we troubleshoot and diagnose issues with AC and DC electric motors all the time. Yet, almost daily we run into everyday decision makers who simply don’t understand that every motor is not the same.

Unlike their AC counterparts, DC machines do not have rotating magnetic fields. Rather, there are fixed magnetic field axes for the field (direct axis) and armature (quadrature axis). Even though the armature is rotating, the magnetic field axis in the armature is fixed thanks to commutation, which allows the direction of current in an armature conductor to change as it passes from the region under one main field pole to the next.