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Individual spare parts are no longer available directly from Stuart Turner who only sell complete service kits

I bought a 7uf starter capacitor for a Showermate 1.4 (installed 2007) from aquaflowproducts.co.uk for £15. aquaflowproducts sell a complete range of spare parts for Stuart Turner pumps.

How did I know that a capacitor would fix the pump? After turning on the tap, the pump was humming but not working; it was also getting warm. I read elsewhere that this is a classic symptom of a failed capacitor. Some people say that you should replace the PCB board at the same time, but I did not do so.

I wanted to confirm quickly and cheaply if the capacitor was faulty. So, for testing purposes only, I spent £5 in a Maplin shop on a 8uf capacitor (nearest available which Maplin stocked) - it was physically too large to fit inside the casing of the pump so could not be used long term. The Maplin capacitor worked, so I then ordered a correct 7uf replacement from aquaflowproducts

The capacitor My replacement 7uf capacitor was made by Ducati - you can find it from other suppliers (possibly more cheaply). Aquaflow call it a
7uf start capacitor.

The pump has 2 wires (with spade terminals) to connect to the capacitor. Although there are 4 terminals on the capacitor, there is a ridge which divides the +v and -ve sides - connect the spade terminals to one terminal on each side of the ridge (diagonally opposite is easiest).

As far as I can tell, it does not matter which wire goes to which terminal on the capacitor as long as you use one terminal from each side of the ridge.

The capacitor that I bought from Maplin for testing is called a
8µF 250V Motor Run Capacitor - Maplin product code: N33KG

Useful sources of web information
How to repair a Stuart Turner Pump www.plumbteamltd.co.uk/stuart.html

Water pump repair by Pascal Brown of Domestic Pumps www.domesticpumps.ie His excellent video is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZxBI1OnpMo (the section at 2:20 deals with humming)

Pump repair by Sebastian Hibbert www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzVrMz0tzZA

Suppliers of the 7uf capacitor
http://aquaflowproducts.co.uk

http://capacitor-shop.co.uk/product/capacitor-fits-stuart-turner-7uf-mfd-st-17670-240v-pf/

http://www.domesticpumps.ie/product-category/spare-parts/

http://www.idealbathrooms.com/category/92702-stuart-turner.aspx


Safety Always switch off the power supply before doing this type of repair - mine was supplied from a double pole fused spur unit, which I switched off. If yours is not double pole isolated, you might want to remedy that before continuing with the repair (or switch off all power at the mains).

As an extra precaution, you may want to discharge the capacitor. After turning the power off (both poles), I discharged mine by using a dead short to earth. bernardgreen (in the post below) has very kindly advised against this technique and suggests an alternative method.
 
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As an extra precaution, discharge the condenser after turning the power off. Connect a piece of wire to earth (usually a nearby metal water pipe). Place the other end of the wire on each condenser terminal in turn.
That will not discharge the capacitor, to discharge the capacitor there has to be a resistive path from one terminal to the other. Earthing terminals one at a time will not provide that path. If the capacitor is still in the motor and the switch is single pole ( Neutral still connected ) then earthing either one of the capacitor terminals would create a Neutral to Earth fault and most likely trip the RCD ( assuming an RCD was fitted )

Putting a dead short across a charged capacitor will cause a very high current to flow until the capacitor is discharged. This high current could damage the capacitor by burning out internal connections.

The best way to discharge a capacitor is by connecting a resistor between the terminals for several seconds. At mains voltages use a 10 K, 2 watt resistor to bleed the charge away. Larger capacitors will need a higher wattage resistor to prevent the resistor getting too hot.

After being discharged some capacitors can "re-charge" when chemically stored energy converts back to electrical energy
 

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