Thread: 2HP Induction Motor Capacitor replacement

A quick look on gumtree found a reasonably priced 2nd hand Carbatec fm300 style dust extractor just around the corner, for much the same price as getting the old motor serviced.

It appears to have been used to collect hard stuff and aluminium swarf among other things and has suffered a few penetrations of the plastic pieces, no problem as I can swap over with the corresponding pieces from my old dusty.

My dilemma now is the constructions are slightly different. The old dusty was a King Of UFO brand. The metal work is probably a slightly heavier guage. The KUFO motor was class E and 2850 rpm. The newer CT motor is class B and 2950 rpm. From my googling class E seems to be have been deprecated and was a lower spec to class B, although it might have had a higher startup inertia and torque rating. This might be significant as the impeller on the KUFO is 32cm diameter plastic with 10 vanes while the CT is 30cm diameter with 7 metal vanes. It would appear to me the plastic impeller would therefore be moving more air, or does the extra 100rpm make up for that on the 7 vane impeller?

fm300a.jpg fm300b.jpg

I was thinking of taking the motor off the CT and using it on the KUFO and impeller, but it looks like the motor spindle sizes don't match. The CT is about 19mm (I haven't pulled the impeller off yet) while the old KUFO was 22mm. The keyway is larger on the KUFO as well. So reusing the old impeller may be more tricky than it first appeared. Would it be worth it?

Another design difference is the separator between the bags. The KUFO has a ramped path ringed around the separator while the CT has a simple dished separator with a hole in the middle. Which would be better to use? I have found fine dust builds up on the KUFO ramp which caused a mess when emptying the bottom bag, I'm thinking the dished separator might be better at self cleaning.

I had also installed a pleated filter on the KUFO. I will move it to replace the top filter bag on the CT if I end up using that.