You can't meg a single phase Motor?

[Copperclad]

I was told today that you cannot meg a 1ph. motor.
Is this correct?
I asked why, and was told that you would damage the start winding???
Ok, you have a start winding, and a run winding, but as far as I know they are both wired in parallel.....the cent. swith only opens and closes the capacitor for start to run mode.
I would love to hear some of your input on this matter, as Im trying to understand...this motor is a single phase-cap start with a thermal protector.
It is gfi protected (driving a large fountain) It trips the gfi erratically and I only wanted to meg the windings ( and submerged cord) to make sure there is no leakage to ground to cause a fault.
Sorry to admin for posting this in the wrong place......is there a place for just general trade questions?

Thanks to all!

 

[busman]

I don't see why not. You are just looking for leakage from the any part of the motor power circuit to ground. The only trick would be that the capacitor will act like an open-circuit at DC voltage, so you would need to meg each lead separately to test both sides of the capacitor. With that said, I've meggered many single phase motors that were just fine afterward.

Mark

 

[benaround]

If you have a good ampere meter, clamp it around both circuit conductors, any small

reading will be 'leakage'.