Motor start Capacitor for a Unimat lathe

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RWanke

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I recently acquired a very nice Unimat lathe. I plugged it in and ran it for just a few seconds to see if it worked but wanted to clean and oil it up before running it and replace the power cord as it was cracked and pretty sketchy. To replace the cord I took the cover off the capacitor on the motor. This is a DB200 model lathe. It has the Motren Eindhoven, made in Holland motor. The ID plate on the motor has V 115 P 810 A 12 Cs 60 W 125 T/min 2800 HP 01 and what I assume is a serial number of 469249. To change the cord I was going to have to access the capacitor terminals in order to solder the new cord to the motor. It was very tight in the metal cover and I had to pry/tap/muscle the capacitor out. After putting the new power cord on, the motor would not start without spinning the shaft. I am pretty sure I trashed the capacitor. Problem is I can't read the numbers on the capacitor very well. From what is left of the printing on it, it appears to have a 5 then a small space (possible . or another number???) another 5 then uF +/- 10% best I can tell. The only thing legible on the second line is 25 v-. The third line only thing legible is X9. Capacitor has 2 terminals (solder type) and is about 3-1/4" long and 1-9/16" dia.

Can anybody tell me for sure what capacitor I need to replace this one with a correct one?
 
It should have a Voltage rating of the operating voltage i.e. 125 volts for a 115 only motor and 250 volts if a convertible voltage i.e. 115/220 and 55 uf sounds right on the capacitance.
There are some charts on the net if you do some searching.
 
So do you think it might be a 55uF and not a 5.5uF? It has a space between the 5s on it but can't really see what was there. It looks like it could possibly have either a dot or possibly a 1 by the amount of room between the numbers.

I have been looking on the net all day trying to figure out what capacitance it would need but have yet to find an answer (elextrixicaly dumb).
 
I took the 25v on the second line to be 125 v operating voltage. ???
 
I think 5.5 uF/125v sounds about right for that size motor- but you may have a tough time sourcing a replacement
Are you sure you damaged the cap? Could it just be a bad connection?
 
I checked the cap with a meter and I am not sure if it is good or bad by my method. Setting my multimeter on the capacitance symbol. The meter reads I. When I connect the leads it stays on I.

I can find 6uF caps that are physically a little smaller and also some that look a lot smaller and in a square format but what is the difference in these capacitors? Also would a 5.5uf 250v capacitor work the same?

Thanks for the responses.
 
You could use a value a bit higher than 5.5 microfarad and it would work fine. And yes, the voltage rating can be higher, but never lower
than the original
 
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Thank you for the reply. I am ordering a cap today. We'll see how it works out.
 
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