Synchronous motor timer for a water softener needed

[Mutttley]

I know this is a long shot but I hope that the combined wisdom of the whitegoods engineers can at least point me in the right direction.

We have an elderly water softener badged “Aquasof”. Model number is no longer visible. It relies on a synchronous motor timer for its control.

We had a power interruption recently, and it has now begun to run backwards, and cannot be persuaded to return to normal. In the past when this has happened, removing power from the device was enough to make it run the right way on powering up again. Now it won’t play the game any more, and continues to run backwards whatever I do.

The timer is egg-shaped i.e. the motor is attached to a gearbox. The casing is crimped shut, preventing me from investigating the inside – however I doubt if there’s anything I could do in there. Synchronous motors are supposed to be able to run only one way, I thought.

The information stamped into the rim is M001 3W S 240VAC 50Hz then a CSA logo, 30A77-L 235. I can post pictures if that will help.

Can you tell me where I might get a replacement timer? It seems such a common component that I’d hope to be able to get a replacement somewhere. The softener is at least 25 years old, so it has done us proud, but I don’t want to throw it out if it isn’t necessary.

[electrofix]

Re: Synchronous motor timer for a water softener needed

most Synchronous motors will run both way but to stop this happening there is normally a little plasic pawl that jams the rotor if it tries to go in the wrong direction. chances are this plastic part is either jammed or broken. if its jammed will prob be grease going hard with age and wd40 in the motor might cure it

Dave

[Mutttley]

Re: Synchronous motor timer for a water softener needed

Thanks for that – I knew there had to be a way of biasing the motors to run one way, but not what it was. Sadly spraying with All-In-One high performance spray lubricant (my teflon spray of choice) hasn’t free’d up anything. I suspect whatever was in there has broken. Quite a bit of the plastic in the motor has cracked with age. The motor casing is crimped together and is either steel or some tough aluminium alloy – I can’t persuade the crimps open.

I managed to separate the motor and gearbox – they were simply latched together.

Disassembled the gearbox ( light aluminium casing, the crimping was easy to undo) and found one of the gears had two teeth stripped. Probably happened when I was trying to persuade it to start going in the right direction.

The gear train is of varying materials – plastic, looks like phenolic resin, in the earlier gears (low-torque, closer to the motor), nylon in the next-to-last one going to metal on the output gear (there are two more gears in the timer on the softener itself). The small plastic pinion that meshed with the large nylon gear had stripped. With nothing to lose, I set about replacing the teeth using 20 thou brass rod (well, 0.5 mm but close enough for government work). This has restored the gearbox to functionality. My wife says I’ve given it gold teeth :). Pics can be posted if anyone is interested.

I started the motor with the gearbox hung by its output gear from a clamp, to bias it in the right direction. That has worked for now, but I still would like to source a replacement motor. Hen’s teeth are more common though.

Ah well, a few more months of service from the old device, at least. I want to replace it with one that works by flow-metering the volume of water softened and so only regenerates when necessary. They start at about £600 and can go to £1000. We’re on a cesspool and the softener contributes to filling it sooner than I’d like.

[electrofix]

Re: Synchronous motor timer for a water softener needed

if you want to post a picture of the motor one of us may recognise it
these motors are quite common and if aquasol bought it in there may be other appliances with the same unit

Dave

[Mutttley]

Re: Synchronous motor timer for a water softener needed

Thanks for the suggestion. Any help with identifying this component and suggesting a source for a spare would be most welcome.

The motor. You can see cracks in the plastic.

Motor and gearbox, from the top

From the side

From the bottom, just showing the gearbox.

The gold teeth 😀

The gears

[electrofix]

Re: Synchronous motor timer for a water softener needed

these liitle units where used quite a lot on older machine only modern day part is on central heating valves

try

http://www.bes.co.uk/products/112.asp?k … base#11025

or

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/p38289

also a lot of local plumbers merchants will stock these

looks very similar to me the only if i can think of is it may turn clockwise or anti-clockwise but its cheap enough

Dave

[Mutttley]

Re: Synchronous motor timer for a water softener needed

Thanks: I hadn’t thought of motorised valves as a source of supply, but of course a synchronous motor will turn at a speed set by the supply frequency, so as long as I can uncouple the motor from the gearbox, and the pinion is the same size/number of teeth, I can just swap the motor over.

The gearbox on the timer has more reduction steps, it’s going at a lot less than 5rpm.

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