How can I detect a short on an electrical motor?

Question

an air compressor is not working, my maintenance guy blames the electrical motor, he says it has "shorted", how can we confirm that?

Answer 1

Try resetting the overload on the motor starter. If it is tripped then quite possibly your motor is bad. You could just be overloading the compressor. The compressor not running could be all sorts of problems.

However, many times times you can just check the motor leads to ground. You should not get any continuity to ground, however this is not a complete test. To really test it you need meters that most people don't have. My suggestion, call a local compressor company, they can be expensive but are cheaper than putting a new motor on and finding it doesn't work.

Answer 2

Short of taking it apart and making sure the wires are holding the current and not jumping to other wires, you can take a voltmeter and put it on the wire that comes from the power supply to make sure the wire is receiving from the supply.

Answer 3

my answer is try to check it out first on auto repair shop..