Lighthouse Motor Failure

[80grit]

I know many on here use Lighthouse motors for their vac system, and many have had failures. I have 4 motors mounted outside under a covered area. 2 of them are the primary ones that I use 80% of the time. The other the are secondary, and I really only use those when I need a boost.

One of the secondary motors failed the other day. I know the main failure is due to heat, but two other motors have many more hours, and I haven't had a problem.

My question is what happened when yours failed? Was it heat or something else? With mine, the impeller sheared into several bits inside the housing. The motor itself will still run. I don't feel like it overheated, but what else could have happened?

[jerry_stanek]

could it have been something built a nest in it

[knight_toolworks]

I always have the same they make hot motor smells sparks fly and they stop running but it is usually the brushes.

[gundog]

The one I had that failed was a lack of air movement and I am pretty sure the electric motor failed. Between the 2 of us we could probably make one good one out of 2 bad ones.

[Alex Naumenko]

I ve been running two motor box for two years 8 hours 5 days a week. Works same as a day I installed them.

[bearcat]

I have not seen a impeller failure in thousands of hours of running multiple motors. The brushes wear out first and after 2 or 3 brush sets, the lower bearing fails. Heat is the enemy.

Ed

[80grit]

I'm still not sure what happened. They are mounted outside, just on the other side of the wall from my dust collectors. I heard an odd surging noise, and assumed there was something jammed in the collector at first.

I'm usually pretty curious when things break and like to like to take things apart, but I didn't bother since it is sealed up.

[80grit]

To follow up a bit:

It's been a few months, and I'm just now getting around to replacing my blown motor. I removed all of them from my PVC manifold to inspect and replace the seals with a 1/4" silicone rubber sheet.

I meant to take a picture, but the two primary ones are connected directly to the manifold via 2" SCH 40. Everything looked fine with no evidence of excess heat. The secondary pair have check valves similar to the one pictured. The mating flanges on both of the secondary motors have been hot enough to get distorted. The one with the blown motor was much worse.


931e2006-ded0-4546-a76c-9f551184b1b4_1000.jpg


I'm trying to figure out why those two would get so much hotter than the primaries, and the only unique factor is see are the check valves. Could they be providing excessive restriction, enough to make them run much hotter? They both seem to be functioning properly with no damage. I do have a thermostat sensor connected to one of the primaries, and I try to keep the temp below 150 degrees. I never did check all 4 when they were running to see how much hotter the secondaries ran. Even when I am just running the two, I have to sacrifice a good bit of vacuum to keep them "cool". It gets up to about 95 degrees here these days, and I have to open up more table sections to give the motors more air. So, when I can usually get over 8", I get only 5".

I guess part of the answer is more air. I do have a filter/muffler, but it's never enough. Seems like I need something bigger and more adjustable.

[Tim Lucas]

I had one lighthouse motor let go and tripped the breaker, was running two at the time but replaced it and added a third and no further problems. Not sure why it failed.

I would not mount the motor directly to the flange as they do run hot.

With the check valve did you drill a vent hole for the motor?

My thinking is you have motors outside the check valve trying to pull it closed and one motor trying to pull it open and breath at the same time, vent hole for fresh air should be considered.

Just my thoughts
Tim

[80grit]

I had the gaskets that used to come with the motors between the flange and the motor base. I just purchased some silicon sheet to replace all the old gaskets.

I have a sintered muffler/filter with a valve near my machine like others here use, but it obviously isn't enough. I'm probably going to drill (4) 1/16" holes in the check valve body between the valve and the motors to be sure that each motor gets an equal amount of fresh air.