Anyone know what this material is?

[waddycall]

Anyone know what the arc covers/chutes on this 75 year old contactor are made from. They seem like some form of ceramic. Just curious if they could be ACM. Coils burnt out. I’ll be replacing it (probably)

 

[Pete.]

Could well be ACM. Just dismantle it carefully and don't break them. Do it outside in abreeze if it really bothers you.

The pull-in coil doesn;t look cooked. Might be a simple break.

 

[waddycall]

Thanks Pete. The wrap on the coil is burnt up and insulation on a leader burnt out. The control circuit fuse popped and shut the machine off. I could smell burning but we have a neighbour who’s a pyromaniac so assumed it was him

 

[waddycall]

I’m wondering if the coils rewindable but I’ve got enough scope creep on projects at the moment

 

[waddycall]

Looks like I can run this on a vfd in the meantime

 

[Pete.]

Thanks Pete. The wrap on the coil is burnt up and insulation on a leader burnt out. The control circuit fuse popped and shut the machine off. I could smell burning but we have a neighbour who’s a pyromaniac so assumed it was him

Yeah it sounds dead. Winding it should be a trivial matter. Just get some same-diameter magnet wire off Brocott on ebay and a pot of their red laquer goop. measure the diameter of the winding on the bobbin and re-wind it to about the same diameter, or a little more. Solder you leads, secure them well to the winding, paint on your varnish and let it cure and you're done. Being just a pull-in coil it'll have a good tolerance for number of turns.

 

[Seadog]

If you do decide to rewind, I've a few spools of wire of varying gauges. Message me and I'll see if I have the correct gauge.

 

[waddycall]

Thanks chaps. It would be good to save it. The machines pretty much original from 1951 and I’d like to keep it that way. I’ll see if I can get the electrical assembly out tomorrow. It needs to come out as one thing by the looks of it and I’ll go from there. Maybe rewinding the coil could be easier than wiring up a VFD