Air Conditioning - AC Capacitor Problem?

I have a Whirlpool window AC, 12,000 BTU, two years old. Last week it just quit, wouldn't restart. I took off the front panel and discovered the lead wire into the capacitor had burned out at the insertion clip. I replaced the lead wire, complete with new clip, and re-attached to the capacitor. The unit now will BARELY run on fan only. If I try the cooling unit, I get no action, only a faint hum. I'm no expert but I figure this means the capacitor is toast and needs to be replaced. Is this conclusion likely correct? A new capacitor runs about $70. Also I'm curious as to why the lead wire would burn out if the capacitor went flooey. Any advice would be welcome.

$70 bucks for a cap! Take that dude to your local HVAC supply house or motor store. They are usually around $10 bucks.

Connection was probably loose is why it burnt up.

Caps are a lot cheaper than 70 bucks. Check down at your local a/c supply house. They probably have them on the shelf for under 20 bucks. It almost sounds like you have issues with the 120 volt feed to the a/c unit. Replace the cap first and see if that helps.

Thanks for the advice. I'm new at this capacitor business and have a question: can I purchase a generic capacitor that's the equivalent of the Whirlpool capacitor, and, if so, does the generic need to be the exact equivalent or just close enough? Thanks.

Just be sure and get the same #### for volts and MFD
A capacitor is a capacitor.

ED ;)

I had a brand new (4 days old) that must have had a resistive connection to the terminal at the compressor capacitor. In those few days it overheated the wire, blistered the insulation back about 3 inches, cooked the terminal on the capacitor and then finally burned off right at the crimp. All it took was a new capacitor and a new terminal on the wire but it looked like it was 50 years old.

Ken

RobertIII,

If your capacitor has three terminals it will be a split capacitor which is two different capacitors in one housing.
If this is what you have make sure the connections didn't get mixed up.
"Herm" gets connected to terminal S on the the compressor and "fan" goes to the fan motor.
Just did a 12k the other day and it's capacitor happened to be 15/40 mfd @370 volts. Yours is probably different.