I am replacing a 2 speed condenser motor which had 4 wires - black, purple, brown and red. Black was wired to L1, red to L2, purple and brown to cap. The cap terminal that the purple was on, also has a black wire attached coming from some type of controller.

The new motor has 5 wires - black, purple, red, brown and brown\white stripe. I know that the two browns go to the cap, but I'm not sure where the black, purple and red go. I tried hooking up the two browns to the cap, the purple to the L1 and the black to the L2 and insulated the red. The motor would only run if I started it by hand and then appeared to be running at about half the speed that it should run.

The new motor also gave instructions for a three wire hookup that said to insulate the brown/white, connect the purple to the cap, black to L1. This seemed to work OK. The fan would come on and run at high speed. Later on though, I noticed that the motor would run, but then shut down for awhile and then come back on. I then connected the red wire to the L2 and it now appears to be working OK, but it appears to be running at a slightly slower speed.

My first question is, how should the 5 wire setup be wired, since it didn't work the way I tried it. Did I have it hooked up wrong?

My second question is, how do I get the 3 wire hookup to work at high speed.

My third question is, why would this need a high and slow speed? Wouldn't it just work OK with the high speed and If so how do I wire that up?

My fourth question is, most of the motors that I read about here have a white wire. Mine doesn't?

Thanks