Hello all,


I have an older Amana HVAC system in my home. Home is 6yrs old. It Appears that my condenser unit was struck by lightning because one of the 3 terminals on the dual run capacitor was blown/melted and all the wires connected to the dual run capacitor were fried (It did storm the night before). So an "AC tech" neighbor of mine says I need to replace the run capacitor. He replaced it with a run capacitor that has only two terminals. The AC starts again and it is blowing cool air. The next day it goes out again... he comes over, looks at it and now the condenser fan motor is out?? I didn't know anything about HVAC systems at the moment and still don't. However, I did some quick research and read in a couple of places that the two terminal run capacitor, "powers only one device" (compressor or fan motor). Is this correct?. and if so, is it possible that the motor went bad because the wrong capacitor (2 terminal) was used to replace the dual run capacitor the day before?

You need 2 capacitors or a double capacitor.

Its called a permanent split capacitor, make sure it is sized correctly, and I doubt it was hit by lightning, your compressor may be getting on in years and may be on its way out.