Replacement of old control box

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bakerjw

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This is a great forum and I've learned a lot by reading and searching but I didn't see my question specifically answered and that is.
As long as horsepower ratings are maintained, are 3 wire pump control boxes interchangeable?

I have an well with an older Jacuzzi control box that has been sitting idle for a few years. It was running fine 3 years ago but after testing it and finding bacteria in it we switched over to city water. That was about 3 years ago. My wife and I have recently decided to get the well back in service for watering our garden and modest livestock. So I pulled the motor control out of mothballs and hooked it back up. When I went to run the pump there was no large current draw and no noise from the motor.

I ohmed out the motor and the start and run windings agree with what is listed on the cover of the motor control.
I know that the starter capacitor is bad (tested on cap checker) and is readily available (47-56 mfd).
The overload is about half an ohm and the relay contacts are at 0 ohms.
The coil of the relay ohmed out higher than what was listed on the panel but was close enough to some of the other measurements that I have seen listed here.

The well itself is 45 feet deep with a 6" casing and unfortunately blocked by construction in the house to make removal a bit tedious.

So rather than mess around tracking down a start capacitor and dealing with the potential of a bad start relay I've considered picking up a new 3 wire motor (1HP) control box from one of the big box stores. I just some guidance to see if they are compatible or not. If they are I might pick one up and try it. If the pump works, then great. If not I can take it back and get a new pump to drop back in there.

Thoughts? suggestions? Other ideas?

fwiw, I am a system test engineer for Siemens and have done industrial electronics for 20 years. BUT I don't know everything and each facets of electrical equipment has its own little quirks and idiosyncrasies. All help is appreciated.
 

Ballvalve

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The capacitor is only 8 bucks, why not start there? Sounds like your relay was fine so should still be. A standard Franklin QD box should work too. The Jaq box was probably a Franklin anyway.
 

Ichabod

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I swapped the box on my deep well pump with a different manufacturer's box, matching horsepower and it works fine. Even with a bad capacitor you should hear something and see some current surge. That's not a good sign. With a bad cap I would expect to hear some hum and then the overload device should trip. That's what happened to mine one time when the cap failed open. Go to the Franklin Pump website and look around. They have a lot of good info there.

Ichabod
 
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