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My air compressor quit working. The motor just hums and will not start.
The belt and comporessor unit are free. I can easily spin it by hand,
which means it's not the motor bearings either. The motor is a 120V AC
about 1/2 HP. It has a capacitor on top, so I'm thinking that is a
starting cap. How likely is it that the cap is bad? I guess the only
other problem would be bad windings, but that often causes smoke. I
dont have smoke.


Could be a bad capacitor. My well pump quit a couple of weeks ago. An
above ground pump. It would just hum. I took off a cover and there was a
capacitor and a set of contacts that put the capacitor in the circuit on
startup. A piece of the contact block was broken and would not allow the
contacts to close. Replaced that and all was fine.