Caple cooker hood wiring

kennylands84

I have an elderly Caple cooker hood model CCH6 which needs a new motor.
The replacement motor has different colour wiring from the 4 wires that come from the switch to the motor.
So, does anyone know what the 4 coloured wires from the existing switch are ? One is neutral, the others are speed 1,2,3, and colours are white, black, pink and blue.
The replacement motor has coded wiring so I know which one is neutral, speed 1,2,3 but I don't know the wiring colours from the existing switch.
Thanks
Peter

jk0

Can you not work out which is which by their position on the field winding? Possibly with the aid of a continuity buzzer, if you can't see the sheath colour?

kennylands84

Its not the wiring of the motor that I'm missing, the replacement motor has a colour coding sticker on it, it's the wiring from the cooker hood switch. There are 4 feeds to the motor, neutral, speed 1,2,3.
With the help of three wired bulbs I think I've managed to track down neutral and speed 1 and 3, but then speed 2 doesn't work. This could be a switch problem or I've got the colours/currents wrong.
Is there any way of finding which is neutral using a multi-meter ?

jk0

Can you post some close up photos, and maybe I can spot the problem?

kennylands84

Not sure how to send photos, as the forum asks for a link, if you send me an email address I can forward separately, but hope you can visualise from this rather long description.
The hood switch has 1 light and 4 buttons. button 1 is "0-1 Fan", button 2 is "Mid", button 3 is "Max", button 4 is "0-1 Light".
There are 8 wires to the switch: live and neutral in, light live and neutral out, and 4 wires to the motor (neutral, speeds 1, 2, 3). these 4 are the ones I don't know which is which but the colours are blue, white, pink, black.
The "0-1 light" button works fine illuminating the hood lights.
The "0-1 Fan" button illuminates the switch front panel light, ie "on".

These are the multimeter readings for various switch settings for the 4 wires. that feed the motor.
"0-1 fan" off => all 4 wires read 0v
"0-1 fan" only on => pink motor feed wire reads 240, all others 0
"0-1 fan" + "Mid" both on => Blue 240, all others 0
"0-1 fan" + "Max" both on => Blue 240, all others 0
"0-1 fan" + "Mid" + "Max" all on => Blue 240, all other 0

Continuity testing:
"0-1 fan" has to be on for any continuity test to work.
"0-1 fan" only on => Live=Pink, Neutral=White
"0-1 fan" + "Mid" on => L=Blue, N=White
"0-1 fan" + "Max" on => L=Blue, N=Black
"0-1 fan" + "Mid" + "Max" on => L=Blue, N=Black

On the replacement motor there are 4 input wires of course, marked Neutral, Speed 1, Speed 2, Speed 3.

So the question is, which of the 4 wires out of the switch (black, white, blue, pink) go to which motor wires (neutral, 1, 2, 3) ?
Any help gratefully appreciated as I've already blown one motor coil by wiring incorrectly.

kennylands84

Hi again
As a non-expert electrician, I would think there is something wrong with the switch buttons ?How can blue to live for all three button combinations ?
I think I might only wire in Blue as Speed 3 and Black as Neutral and leave the other wires (pink and white) unconnected ?
would that work ?

jk0

Fraid I can't follow that text.


How was the previous item connected? Did you take a photo? Can't you use that as a guide?

ianto11

It doesn't sound to me as if your carrying out the continuity tests correctly, N shouldn't change from white to black and when you were conducting the voltage test, were you connecting to earth for the 0 volt ?

Why don't you email Caple as you've already blown one motor with your trial and error

kennylands84

Yes I had the meter probe connected to an earth terminal.
I agree neutral shouldn't change but it did, so maybe the switch is bad.
anyway, I've connected up only the black neutral and blue live feeds to the neutral and speed 3 wires to the motor and it works fine if only at one (high) speed.
I'll leave it at that.
I did email Caple a couple of times, worse than useless. If the hood wasn't an older design and built into the units I would have changed the whole thing long ago.
Buying a new switch from 4caple.co.uk is out of the question as well as they only carry the 5 button switch and not the 4 button switch.
so thanks for the responses but I think I'm (sort of) sorted.