vintage Royal commercial upright

[turbo_360]

This is a vintage Royal commercial upright that i picked up from a thrift store. it worked fine until a few days later I turned on the vac and i got shocked by the switch.Any reasoning on this. i had not opened this to take a look yet

 

[lesinutah]

Ok

It has to be power switch.
If you take off 2 screws and chrome bracket giving access to the switch assembly. If you make sure connections are secure you proceed to next step.
You take pics of switch assembly. You have to disconnect the wires from the switch. Then you take the cord and by motor is the cord goes into the handle. If you have a string or something to tie onto the end of wire where you disconnected from the switch tie it into cord. You will pull cord out bottom of the handle . Jumping ahead you tied cord or something to pull cord back into prior position . Back to cord being out. Check the cord for nicks. You probably will find some. Just use electrical tape to cover nicks. The culprit is a nick with copper wire showing. The copper hit the handle causing power to go through metal shocking you.
This is going to fix problem with a high probability. If it doesn't post back and get further directions.
If anything I said seems unclear just post question and I madmen, onery, human or many others can perhaps explain better.
Les
What model is your vacuum. It looks like a 10 amp 1030z or 1028z.
Les

 

[turbo_360]

Thanks for replying! This royal is a 9.0 amp and is 1030z

 

[lesinutah]

Nice

I had a 10 amp 1030z I sold on here. It was powerful.
Hopefully you get it fixed.
Les

 

[turbo_360]

Also this royal is a model 89135C

 

[lesinutah]

Hmm

It may give your heritage 360 a run for it's money. The 1030z was highest cfm in tests I'm not sure if vaclabs avalir or sentria 2 beat it. I know Mike had a cannister higher and proteam was higher but sentria/avalir and 100
30z were top upright vacuums.
I have a 10.5 amp royal I need to test.
It's close to heritage power probably a little more power. I don't know I'd say it's better than heritage but it's a beast. I love Kirby's and I really like royals. There similar but Kirby uses amodel fan and is easy to use a hose making it more consumer friendly. The 1030z is a commercial vacuum. The black belt cover flap is the give away.
Les

 

[madman]

It doesn't look like it has a grounded plug. Not that I'm insisting you ground it, just noting that's why you got a shock instead of popping a circuit breaker. But now that you've had the shock, take a moment to reflect on how harmless it was. Fun fact, if you plug it into a GFCI outlet and attempt to be shocked by it, it should trip the GFCI.

Does it run, anyway?

One does not simply get a shock by touching just one thing. You must have been in contact with something else at the same time. Which is very likely you were in contact with something grounded, like a plumbing fixture, light switch cover plate screw, etc. Knowing that, the fault is most likely on the Line side of the power within the vacuum (because ground and Neutral/common are the same).

Like Les says, suspect the switch first, and inspect EVERY INCH of the cord, both outside and inside the handle, etc. I bet if you remove the switch you will see something. Probably someone replaced the switch and did a botch job.

 

[lesinutah]

Madmen

Cords are double insulated. If it's double insulated it meets same electrical code. You obviously cant connect the two.
Idk just popped in my head. If it is double insulated you can't really ground it.
Les
I could be wrong but I don't think so on this one.

 

[turbo_360]

It runs just fine.It was the toggle switch that shocked me.It wasn't a full 120 volts but it was enough to were I can fell it.

 

[lesinutah]

Nice

Well when it grounds out you say lots of swear words.
When you put together 2 of your favorite vacuums (d80s) and they are without motor shell where you can see armature and carbon brushes arcing out at the same time one burns green and the other dark blue and you have to unplug ya feel it. Then both to dark orange then fire extinguisher and your polish up machines are charred melted together trash. That ya really don't get over.
I don't plug in until there mechanical and electrically sound. Then I polish.
I polished my 1030z in 15 minutes.
You mess up enough you get fast and good at things.
Lol sorry had a flash back.
Les

 

[rivstg1]

my first Royal did the same 'shock' to me as well. It was the wire within the upright metal handle tube. Wrapped it, pushed it back down into the tube, and its been all good ever since

 

[hygiene903]

Yes, sounds like you've got bare wire touching metal somewhere in the handle. As Les said, first thing to check is the wire connections in the handle. They should be secured with wire nuts or tape, and make sure the bare wires are completely covered. If the connections are all OK, Then it's either a bare spot in the wire or a defective switch causing your problem. Proceed to check the cord as Les described it, watching for bare spots. After correcting any of these problems, if it is still shocking you, then the switch itself is probably bad. Wishing you the best of luck finding and fixing the problem,
Jeff

 

[madman]

Les, yes technically the cord is 'double insulated,' but that term is usually used to describe the appliance, not just the cord. This vacuum is probably not double insulated (almost guarantee you that since it's being all zappy), and the reason it's not is because it's metal. So the wires inside it are insulated (first), but it's very unlikely there is another (second) layer of insulation protecting the already-insulated wires from shorting to the metal parts of the vac. So it's probably not up to snuff for UL type listings these days.

But now I'm just getting technical :/