I've noticed every now and then that the compressor on my AC has a bit of trouble starting up. Like, the fan will come on, and it'll try to start the compressor but it won't quite turn over. Then maybe a minute later it'll re-try to start the compressor and it'll kick on just fine.
My first thought was that the starting capacitater might be going soft, given that the unit is going on 20-some years old now. But I pulled the electrical cover off and gave it a check, and it was actually still reading just fine. A touch low on the compressor side but still well within reasonable values.
For future reference, it's a 50/5 µF capacitato. (The 50 side is for the compressor, the 5 for the fan, since the latter is a much smaller motor with lower starting current requirements)
It would have been nice if it were the problem, given that a replacement costs about $15 and takes all of 10 minutes to install.
Oh well, I shall meditate on this a while. The cooling works for now, so it's no big emergency.
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