Recently I had a garage door opener stop working and it was replaced. I decided to take it apart and realized the capacitor had blown a hole in itself. The motor, despite being about 20yrs old, seems to be flawless. I would like to possibly repurpose the motor for a future project. However I don't have a replacement starting capacitor, but I do have 2 capacitors salvaged from microwaves.
My questions are:
- Will these caps work (even poorly work?) without the risk of damaging them or the motor?
- Could attempting to start the motor with no capacitor at all possibly harm the motor in anyway? Would it even start?
What I believe is that there is no harm in using these capacitors to start the motor, and that at most, they will simply fail to get it started. I'm just mainly concerned with any sort of catastrophic failure such as the motor setting
fire, or the caps exploding (probably unlikely, but rather be safe than sorry).
The motor is rated @ 120V 60Hz 5AMPS
The microwave capacitors are rated @ 2100V(ea.) .95μF & .76μF 50/60Hz(Both)
Here are some pictures of the motor, original capacitor, and MOT capacitors I'm working with.
Best Answer
Your original capacitor has a capacitance of between 50 microfarad and 60 microfarad (sometimes abbreviated confusingly to MFD): -
Your microwave capacitors are 0.95 uF and 0.76 uF respectively rendering them useless as a replacement for the original motor start capacitor.
Here's a link to Amazon where you can get a GENIE garage door opener replacement capacitor (apparently, if you believe what amazon say!).
Don't try running the motor without the correct capacitor or it might smoke a bit.