I have acquired an old blower. The motor has four wires (earth, blue, black, brown) and is currently wired up Earth-Earth, Blue-Neutral, Black-Live, Brown not connected, which doesn’t seem right. When plugged in it energises but doesn’t spin. If I give it a nudge it’ll spin and runs fine. I’m guessing I need a capacitor (or two) and a tweak to the wiring. Part number is br09e-4m-160 but when I google that I don’t get may hits. Any ideas on what it might need and how to wire it so it starts up and is happy? The label mentions 2uF which sounds about right for a motor capacitor

Black is neutral, blue is Live according to this PDF:
Motor leaflet

Shouldn’t make any difference with AC? Suspect that (direction) is what the other wire is all about!

Know naff all about AC motors tbh but a quick google brings up this helpful document:
https://blog.orientalmotor.com/show-tell-ac-induction-motors

pretty sure you can quickly determine the wiring by trial and error. Yes, sounds like it needs a cap to start up by itself without you having to nudge it!

Thanks. Have done a bit of fiddling. Put an 18uF capacitor between black and brown and it would neither start nor run. Tried a 2uF and wouldn’t start but did run with a nudge. There is also a possibility that the motor is faulty given how I acquired it but it seems so close to working

Maybe a daft question but did you use a motor rated 450V capacitor?

You could try a slightly larger capacitor if it nearly started with the 2uf but I’d be careful as it will then run hot and could melt.

I think the brown will be a start winding that needs capacitance connected in series. It should then be disconnected via a centrifugal switch once the motor is turning. It’s a split phase motor by the look of it; the start winding causes a phase shift just sufficient to give the motor it’s initial kick and get it moving. Once that’s done it’s not needed, hence the c/switch. If the starter winding is left connected it may burn out as it has a higher resistance than the run winding.