Vacuum cleaner doesn't turn on

There can be a couple of things that would shut down your vacuum cleaner. A wiring fault inside the cord retractor, power switch has failed, the motor armature has failed or the brushes on the motor have either worn down past their serviceable life or jammed (unless the motor has burned out - you would notice the smell). If you aren't electrically savvy I wouldn't attempt to disassemble your vacuum cleaner, but all of the above issues can be fixed at home. Take it into a shop for repairs. I have serviced the motors on a number of different vacuum cleaners successfully without having to spend money on repairs except to replace a bad on/off switch for a few dollars.

I'm going to give this a shot hoping that you don't fry something.
Be careful.
It's just basic wiring.
The motor has 2wires coming out ?
If yes, it doesn't matter which of the incoming Black/White, or Euro Brown/Blue connects to which wire on the motor. The Green/Green with Yellow stripe Ground goes to metal aka ground. Hopefully you can find where the original ground connection is located and put ground there.
You will have to cut ONLY the Black (Brown if Euro) wire at/near the switch.
One end of the cut Black/Brown wire goes to one side of the switch, the other cut end goes to the other side of the switch.
Here's what happens -
With the switch off and the vacuum plugged in, nothing runs because the Black/Brown wire is not allowing a path for current because the switch is off.
When you turn the switch on, the circuit completes. Current flows thru the switch to the motor, out the motor on the White/Blue and back into the outlet..
If something shorts to metal the current will flow thru the metal and into the Green/Yellow stripe wire and into the outlet and trip the breaker.
If you ever take anything apart to repair, the first tool you get is your phone and take pictures of everything.

It sounds like there's a problem between the power cord and the vacuum cleaner itself. Remove the power cord check the connection at the vacuum cleaner and see if something came unconnected

Sometimes the vacuum will overheat, if this happens the vacuum will shut down to protect it from damage.

Unplug the vacuum, and let it sit unused 30 minutes.

Please let me know if this has solved your problem.

There is a short in the vacuum and it appears to be intermittent.

To my knowledge, the on/off switch is the only area to turn your vacuum on or off. There might be a problem with your cord, or with the switch itself. I suggest checking for clogs and anything that may cause a problem.

I also suggest taking it to a local vacuum shop to have it looked and as you may need some new parts (cord/switch)

Hello,

Ok, thanks for the clarification. Even though the cord doesn't have any external damage, it's still very possible that it has gone bad. When a Sebo upright doesn't even start, this can mean one of several things. The parts that could go bad that would cause the machine not to turn on would be the cord (most common on a Sebo), the on/off switch, the PC board that's on top of the motor, or the actual motor. In the 7 years that I've been selling Sebo, I have only changed out one PC board, and I've never had to replace a single motor on a Sebo yet. I have had to replace several cords over the years, some showing external damage, others didn't show any damage.

The cord and the switch are going to be the easiest parts to test, and also happen to be the most common, so this is a great place to start.


Here's how you can test the switch and the cord on the vacuum cleaner. You'll need to have a simply Electrical tester that will test if current is going through the cord. Here's a link to a similar one that is very inexpensive that I used in this repair solution:
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xh7/R-100183054/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053


Step 1. Unwrap the electrical cord from the vacuum cleaner, and set the entire cord aside. Also remove the on-board wand that rests directly behind the bag housing. After the wand has been taken out, you should see on the left side of the vacuum where the handle goes into the body of the vacuum a little gray lever (my picture this lever is yellow as I only had a Sebo X5 on the floor, but the repair is identical). This is what the lever looks like:



Step 2. As you'll see if you look closely, the lever says "closed". Turn the lever towards the front of the vacuum so the lever reads "open".



Step 3. Once the lever is moved to open, lift straight up on the entire handle assembly to remove it from the vacuum cleaner.



Step 4. Once you have the handle assembly out of the vacuum cleaner, turn the handle upside down. You'll be able to see two small metal electrical terminals that connect into the base of the vacuum where the handle meets the vacuum cleaner. Make sure that both terminals are visible. I have seen a few Sebo's where the handle has come loose, and these terminals no longer make connection to the rest of the vacuum, causing the vacuum not to turn on. You can re-attach the handle into the vacuum cleaner, turn the lever on the side from open back to closed, and test the vacuum to see if it comes on.

Step 5. If the vacuum failed to come on after reinstalling the handle, take the handle back out of the vacuum. Put one of the wires from your electrical tester into each terminal in the bottom of the handle assembly. Make sure that the tester is actually making contact with the metal terminals. It should look like this:



Step 6. With each of the electrical tester wires pushed down into the handle and making sure they are making contact, plug the cord into a standard wall outlet. If current is present, the electrical tester will light up. If not light comes on, try flipping the on/off switch and see if this has an effect on if the tester lights up or not:



As you can see in the picture above, the cord and switch on this vacuum are good. If your tester lights up when you put it into the handle, then this means that your cord and switch are good. This means that either your motor, or PC board have gone bad.

If the tester signals that you don't have any power at the bottom of the handle, then this means that either your switch or your cord is bad.

If you will please let me know the results of the electrical test here on the bottom of the handle, I will then go into the next steps of the repair, and explain how to open up the machine and either replace the cord / switch, or if you did have power here, the pc board or the motor.

Please just use the clarification request form that you used last time. I hope this was helpful in diagnosing your machine. If this helped you, please be kind and rate the repair as helpful by clicking the thumbs up icons in the top of the repair.

I look forward to helping you fix your Sebo.

Chris J.
GoVacuum

The fact that you wiggled the cord and it came on would seem to indicate a defective cord, either at the plug end or at the machine itself. Look again at where the cord enters the vac and at the wall. twist it slightly if you see a thin or collapsed area that is your problem.