Air Conditioning - Replace dual AC Capacitor with 2 single cap's

Re: Replace dual AC Capacitor with 2 single cap's

Greetings,

I have a GE dual (fan and compressor)
capacitor # 97F5360 from a 2-ton Carrier 'round one'
circa 1984. It has evidently failed. The Condensing Unit is
getting lo-voltage current, but neither the fan nor the
compressor will even click.

The specs on the cap. are 25/5 mfd, 440v. Evidently
it is not practical to find a replacement part.

I'm told that it should be practical to wire 2 cap's
to replace the 'dual': a 25 mfd for the compressor,
and a 5 mfd for the fan.

The 3 terminals on the old 'dual' were wired as follows:

Terminal Post Color(size)
________ ____ ______________
Fan 1 brown(skinny)
Common 1 black(skinny)
Common 2 yellow(fat)
Common 3 yellow(skinny) and brown(skinny)
Common 4 yellow(fat)
Compressor(HERM) 1 blue(skinny)
Compressor(HERM) 2 blue(skinny)

(Apologies for the mutant formatting of the tables in this post.
I have tried, Tried, and TRIED to get doityourself.com's
html software to honor spaces, and have failed. Please to view
as "plain text".)

A "Fine, Fine Feller" advised as follows:

"All you need to do is take the wire off F and put it on the
smaller cap then take the wire of H and put it on the larger
cap. Put the remaining wires from C on the open terminal on
either cap and run a jumper from that terminal to the other
empty terminal and its done."

There are 4 wires on the 4 posts of the old Common, and only
4 posts per terminal, so it's not practical to wire all 4 +
a jumper to the Common of either of the new cap's. So
perhaps I just wire, say, 2 to each new Common and add the
jumper. Could look like:

Cap. Terminal Post Color(size)
____ ________ ____ ______________
5mfd Fan 1 brown(skinny)
5mfd Common 1 black(skinny)
5mfd Common 2 yellow(fat)
5mfd Common 3 jumper(fat)

25mfd Common 1 yellow(skinny) and brown(skinny)
25mfd Common 2 yellow(fat)
25mfd Common 3 jumper(fat)
25mfd Compressor(HERM) 1 blue(skinny)
25mfd Compressor(HERM) 2 blue(skinny)

I have found a source for the new cap's. It looks like I
have room to mount them in the unit.

Does this look 100% practical? Any/all advise, etc much
appreciated.

Thanks,
Puddin'

That cap should not be hard to find. I stock them, as well as probably 20 others, on my service truck. If you can't find one, follow the wires on the existing cap to find out where they go & post back in the same thread. Sounds like you have way more wires than you need.

That cap should not be hard to find. I stock them, as well as probably 20 others, on my service truck. If you can't find one, follow the wires on the existing cap to find out where they go & post back in the same thread. Sounds like you have way more wires than you need.

Its a GE oval 25/5 mfd 440v cap. Grainger carries beau coup GE
cap's, but not this one. I dunno why.

There's a distributor here in St. Louis that likely has 'em, but
they won't sell to a Nasty, Ol' DIYer like po' me.

Methinks I need to do a nice, simple replacement, using stuff that comes
as close to the original spec as I can get.

Thanks,
Puddin'

Call local electric motor repair shops or HVAC supply houses.

Oh this is a real crap shoot I would go with Grady all the way on this, get the correct capacitor, call a few AC repair places and work a deal with someone, they will probably stick the correct one on there for you for less than 75 bones. Not to discourage a man from doing his own thing but what you are trying to do is NOT RECOMMENDED. Besides I can buy that capacitor for probably less than 6 bucks how much are the two from grainger that you are buying. Sometimes it just is not worth it man, now go burn off your extra energy making phone calls to your favorite repair tech and then maybe burn some energy on the driveway resealing or a nice light fixture/ceiling fan/appliance repair/lawnmower repair etc LOL lots of other stuff needs attention I bet?

Call local electric motor repair shops or HVAC supply houses.

Sure. Right after I buy a metal detector, take a shovel out the
park, see can I find one out there. :-)

Thx,
Puddin'

Call around there any hvac shop will have them and one will sell to you. So they make a buck .

ED ;)

Pudding,

A metal detector isn't necessary.
Two separate caps are just fine and the advice you got from "Fine, Fine Feller" is correct.
The only difference between a dual capacitor and two singles is that there is an internal jumper on the single joining the common terminals in each.
All that matters is that the correct wires from "F" and "C" get placed on the correct capacitor.
The two commons need a jumper and how ever you do it, all the other wires get hooked up to the common side of the two caps.
The 25mfd is for the compressor and the 5 the fan motor.

>A metal detector isn't necessary.

Thankfully so.

>Two separate caps are just fine and the advice you got from
>"Fine, Fine Feller" is correct.

I thank you once.

>The only difference between a dual capacitor and two singles
>is that there is an internal jumper on the single joining
>the common terminals in each.

I thank you twice.

>All that matters is that the correct wires from "F" and "C"
>get placed on the correct capacitor.
>The two commons need a jumper and how ever you do it, all
>the other wires get hooked up to the common side of the two
>caps. The 25mfd is for the compressor and the 5 the fan motor.

I thank you a third time.

There's something funny going on with the GE oval dual 25/5 mfd
440v. cap. Neither Grainger (which handles the GE line) nor
Galco has a direct replacement. I've seen a few on the net
from names I'm not familiar with. Dunno what's going on with
this.

No matter. I think I'm now equipped to replace the cap.
There may be another problem with the system, I'm still
sorting it out. Maybe I'll post a different question later.

Cheers,
Puddin'