SRSG motor - HELP!!!!!

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Original poster: "Mr Gregory Peters by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <s371034-at-student.uq.edu.au>

Hello all,

Today I was running my coil and getting solid 8 foot arcs, when
suddenly, and rather destructively, the SRSG motor died. The motor is a
1HP bench grinder, which I had modified to run in sync. I think it is a
capacitor run motor. Upon inspection, some of the windings were melted,
and the entire motor was full of carbon. I saw no reason for it to fail.
No sparks hit it while operating. It all happened rather suddenly. I
have had some funny problems with this motor. Often, when applying
power, it would just sit there and vibrate back and forth, as if it
didn't know which way to spin. Could this just be because I stuffed up
when grinding the flats (off centre, unequal size, etc)? Could this and
the failure be related (was the motor drawing excess current, causing
the wires to melt etc)? Before I go and buy a new grinder, are these
motors suitable for this pupose, or are they doomed to fail?. It was
definitely running in sync ok. Has anyone else successfully used one of
these motors for sync operation?

Cheers,

Greg Peters
Department of Earth Sciences,
University of Queensland, Australia
Phone: 0402 841 677
http://www.geocities-dot-com/gregjpeters