changing vac motor brushes

[madscientist]

does anyone have a trick for getting the little piece of copper (that the wire connects to) out of the old brush body without detroying it? i'm batting about .250 lifetime.

 

[Greg Pack]

Crush the old brush with a pair of pipe pliers or vise grips. The terminal will fall right out.

 

[MEP001]

I gave up trying to replace the brushes on the Lamb motors and just replace the whole motor. The wires aren't even long enough to get the brush out where I can crush it to remove it. I switched to the Domel motors from Windtrax since Kleen-Rite dropped the GS (The replacement one they carry is crap). For $4 more, the Domel has more lift and more volume, and the brush is very easy to change. I did have a heck of a time getting the top cover off without breaking it, so I just broke one hook off each side. It still stays on, and I can twist it right off now. I'll be very happy with the Domels if they last.

 

[PaulLovesJamie]

Crush the old brush with a pair of pipe pliers or vise grips. The terminal will fall right out.

+1
Squeeze diagonally from corner to corner near the end where the wire goes in, and you often wont even need to do more than crack the plastic.

 

[madscientist]

thanks for the replies, guys.

 

[Earl Weiss]

FWIW after factoring in labor cost and life extension / reliability I stopped changing brushes long ago. I wait till a motor fails and replace it. By the time a brush needs changing there was usualy a substantial amount of corrosion in the motor so a lot of other parts were reaching the end of their service life as well.

 

[Waxman]

Man, I've changed brushes in my vacs a few times and they seem to come right back to 100% power/suction. Maybe I've just got 'the touch'.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Man, I've changed brushes in my vacs a few times and they seem to come right back to 100% power/suction. Maybe I've just got 'the touch'.

I have no doubt that if you do certain maintenance things will work like new.

Their is still a cost / benefit.

An interesting test would be to have hour meters on a dozen or so identical vacs. After a set time, say 1000 hours of operation, change the brushes on half the vacs. See how much time you spend doing it.

Continue the brush changing schedule until they fail. Let the others run to failure and see how much the life of the changed ones was extended.

If a motor is $30.00 and a brush kit $3.00 you need at least a 10% extension to make it worthwhile, without factoring labor cost.

If you factor your labor at $12.00 you need at least a 50% life extension to break even.

 

[MEP001]

Now that I've changed a number of motors out, I've implemented an annual brush change procedure on all motors that have been replaced, the rest I'll run until failure. My plan isn't about the cost-effectiveness of changing brushes vs. replacing motors, it's about minimizing the failure rate of the replacement motors. It's been my experience that the end-of-life of the brushes will usually take the motor out with them, and if I don't catch it right away I'll have dissatisfied customers. It's for that same reason that I inspect the bay hoses daily and replace them when they look like they might break soon - what's a $15 hose worth compared to a customer who has been wetted down by a burst hose, or worse someone who's been injured by it?

 

[Wally]

Before you install the new brush, take a miniature screwdriver or a pocket knife and tap it in the slot where the wire goes. You want to open up the space just a little and then the little copper piece will come out real easy. I`ve been doing this a long time. An old trick I learned right here on the forum from Greg Pack.

 

[Jim Caudill]

On the old forum, I had posted a step by step tutorial on how to change out the brushes. I forget the exact time, but I could change them out in something like 15 minutes. Changing a motor, for me, involves other incidentals that I can't ignore, resulting in something like an hour job that entails changing out both motors and a general cleanup. I have found that it makes sense to change brushes once, the next time service is required - it is best to replace the motor. The bearings are usually shot by the time the second set of brushes are worn down. I usually use a technique where I grab the wire terminal with needle nose pliers and use a small screwdriver to pry against the pliers, extracting the terminal. You want to get the terminals loose before you loosen the brush-retaining screws.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Now that I've changed a number of motors out, I've implemented an annual brush change procedure on all motors that have been replaced, the rest I'll run until failure. My plan isn't about the cost-effectiveness of changing brushes vs. replacing motors, it's about minimizing the failure rate of the replacement motors. It's been my experience that the end-of-life of the brushes will usually take the motor out with them, and if I don't catch it right away I'll have dissatisfied customers.

Your point about reliability is well taken, and I know how to look at a hose and see if it's worn.

So the question is how do you look at a working vacuum with OK brushes and tell if it's time to change it because failure is near. Or, haven't you had any where you placed brushes these fail yet, or will you just change them every 2nd year if they last that long?

 

[Jim Caudill]

Well Earl, that the rub, isn't it? You really can't tell and we are such a "crude" business that we don't have, nor can we justify any type of monitoring or data recording. This sort of thing could be designed-in to a state of the art facility, but I know of no one that uses PLC's to control vacs. The only thing I know is to loosen the brush (leave the wire intact) and pull it back far enough to see how much brush material is still there. I guess it is no different than trying to figure out when to change the brake pads on your car. You just got to look at them once in a while.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

The way I usually can tell if the brushes are bad is that the motor has stopped running sometimes catching fire. If the top of the motor is melted I usually know they're bad. If the fire from motor one has melted the plastic parts of the other motors I usually decide those motors need replacing also. If the wires to those same motors are burnt and/or melted I usually decide I have motor and/or brush issues. If you haven't figured it out by now, I never change brushes. I don't like working on vacs and only do when they don't suck good. I write the install date on each motor. When I am replacing a motor I check the dates on the others in that vac. If they are over two years old they usually get the heave-ho.

 

[Randy]

I ram a small screw driver (like the ones you get at the conventions) between the plastic body of the brush and the brass spade, pry up a couple of times and the spade comes right out. I don?t see what the big deal. The last time I bought vac?s was 8 year ago. I?ve changed the brushes once since then. The last time I changed brushes I had a motor fry a couple of days later.

 

[Greg Pack]

I don't see the big deal about changing brushes. My brushes make it about a year. I change them on all vac motors annually. These are vacs that average about 400 vac cycles per month. I can change brushes in five minutes if they're on a work bench or less than ten minutes still mounted on most vacs. The exception is the very service-unfriendly Fragramatics combo unit. In that case plan on triple the time and being zapped by 110v at least twice.

I get probably three brush changes before the motor goes kaput.

 

[MEP001]

So the question is how do you look at a working vacuum with OK brushes and tell if it's time to change it because failure is near. Or, haven't you had any where you placed brushes these fail yet, or will you just change them every 2nd year if they last that long?

Long story short, I shuffled around some motors to have all the vacs with the same brand of motors in pairs, and I replaced the brushes in all the motors except the Lambs. As far as how to tell when they're bad, it's just a few bucks for the brushes and five minutes per vac to change them. If I'm changing them too early, then I'll be throwing away less-than-half-worn brushes. I have time to change the brushes once a year, but I'm not going to sweat trying to work out exactly how long I can go before I need to change them. Again it's like my bay hose procedure, the extra $100 or so a year I spend on replacing the hoses before they break give tremendous peace of mind as well as less downtime and no ****ed-off customers from burst hoses. Pick a common problem you deal with and figure out how much it would be worth to you to eliminate it.