Will this end well? Electrical...

Wise Guy
Soldato
Joined
23 May 2009
Posts
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My air compressor stopped working so I opened the motor case and found that one of the connectors on the switch had melted into the switch casing and was not making contact any more. When you press the switch on this thing it makes a connection on the live AND the neutral. One of the neutral terminals was melted, so I pulled it out and connected it on the other non-melted terminal (where the switch makes the connection to).

So now I have a continuous connection on neutral but the switch still operates on the live wire. The compressor works again now but I have to wonder why they designed the switch to break both live and neutral? Is this going to burn down my house?
 
lol i'd go with no although there must be a problem for the connector to have burned out in the first place

any chance of a pic?
 
I think there was a poor connection in this chinese switch to start with and it caused the terminal to heat up and melt/burn. This is on 115V 15A USA electric BTW.

Red arrow shows where it melted.
Blue lines show where the switch makes a connection when ON.
Green arrow shows where I shifted the white wire to make it work again.

It will take 3 weeks for a replacement switch to arrive but I need it working right now.

switchb.jpg
 
i have a very low tolerance for health and safety so i would use it but keep an eye on it. if its switching i see no reason why it shouldn't be ok.
 
If there was a poor connection on that terminal then it would have caused arcing, which creates heat and would have ended up melting the plastic. If your concerned that the neutral is still connected while you're not using the compressor then just unplug it from the wall :)
 
Use the standard rule with dodgey electronic repairs and bodges. Plug it in at work to test. (Just not the server room).
 
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