[DrStein99]

I am using a treadmill motor for my homemade cnc milling machine:

http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.as...tname=electric

and the brushes are very much torn up. The surplus center does not sell brushes. I was wondering if anyone knew where I could go to look to find replacement brushes for a motor like this or give advice, please - thanks.

[Al_The_Man]

Helwig Carbon Products
or try your local motor re-winders.
Al.

[DrStein99]

I was told that before but dont know where to begin to look. Visited sewing machine and vacuume repair shops and they tell me "we just replace the motors".

What sections in the yellowpages do motor-rewinders list services in?

[Al_The_Man]

In my yellow pages its Electric Motors -Sales & Service.
Al.

[DrStein99]

Ok there arent many listings. I found a place (finally), THANKS!

I dont know why but for some reason there was a little trick to it.

The name of the FIRST place I called is ______ ELECTRIC MOTORS. I call on the phone and explain "I have a dc-treadmill motor and the brushes are bad can you sell me brushes?" and their IMMEDIATE QUICK answer is "Oh no! we dont sell them".

I go in the to the next entry which is "___________ MOTOR REPAIR COMPANY". Ask the same thing, get the same answer. After some more ping-pong dialog, which aparently the keyword is "I know there are only so many different types of motor brushes, is it POSSIBLE I can match mine up to the closest one and sand down or shape one to fit?" in order to get a "Yes" out of the guy.

Why a stupid cat-and-mouse game is appropriate for such a simple question, I have no idea. More and more now adays I feel if the person on the phone knows I dont want to do $1,000 worth of business all my questions will have a "NO" answer.

[DrStein99]

I found some brushes that had to be modified at the motor repair company, and he said those were the last two he had. Fortuneately, they have stamped numbers on them so I hopefully will be able to catalog order them next time. But finding motor brushes is not an easy task, thats for sure.

Thanks for advice.

[brunog]

You can find motor brushes at McMaster Carr. They carry multiple sizes:

www.mcmaster.com

Hope this helps, best regards

Bruno

[DrStein99]

Yup, at around $13.00 for two brushes is too steep, the motors can be purchased new for $19.00 @ surplus center.

[NC Cams]

The local motor shop who is in our complex is regularly badgered with odd ball replacement brush requests. When I made my "fool of the week request", the guy wasn't busy so he showed me what was involved in ordering/obtaining brushes.

First and foremost, there are a few THOUSAND physical designs. These are then multiplied by any number of brush compound variations which are then modified AGAIN by the use of braided, stranded single or multiple shunts.

On top of that is the show stopper: you/they have to order a whole batch of 1 SINGLE BRUSH DESIGN AT A MINIMUM BUY QUANTITY from the brush manufacturer to get single solitary pair or they won't even consider making them.

In my case, the minimum order quantity was something like $500 and the lead time was 13-20 weeks - since my brushes had only about a 5% wear factor from theoretially new, they got 600 grit sand paper buffed and reinstalled.

It should be no wonder that the motor dealer and/or motor service shops won't sell brushes. Would you under those circumstances???

HINT: if you're buying a surplus motor, contact the manufacturer of the motor - they might have some surplus standard brushes in stock that they could/will sell.

However, if the motor was custom made as a "throw away", buy a bunch of the $19 surplus motors and treat them as they were designed to be treated when/if they need service. Namely, buy a new one and throw the old one away.

I realize that obtaining brushes should be as simple as the solutions proposed by the members a bit earlier. However after having tried those and a number of other solutions, I felt that the "realities" involved really needed to be explained because this simple task simply isn't that simple.

[Geof]

.....More and more now adays I feel if the person on the phone knows I dont want to do $1,000 worth of business all my questions will have a "NO" answer.

Your thread purpose is fulfilled so I don't feel gulity about going off topic .

Your comment reminds me of an occurence related by a person I know making add-ons for wheelchairs; custom headrests, armrests, etc. They had all their components made locally in the New York area in batches of less than a hundred up to a few hundred. Their supplier lost a number of contracts to other customers so they had to institute cost savings and lean down. So they told the wheelchair add-on guy that from now on their minimum order was 2000 units. Guess who now gets his parts made overseas in quantities of less than a hundred up to a few hundred? With five weeks delivery.

[NC Cams]

In line with Geoff's comments re: custom made motor parts for whatevers: We learned some intersting lessons with regard to motors when we were trying to get a thing going supplying R/C car motors over a decade ago.

The Oriental motor makers who made PMDC motors had numerous "cores" available that they had produced over the years. The biggies at the time were Igarashi and Mabuchi with Mabuchi ultimately the bigger supplier who's designs ultimately proved superior due to their replaceable brush configurations. Supposedly, Mabuchi marketed the hobby variants initially thru Yokomo but ultimately many more trading companies got into the act of selling the "mabuchi/yokomo" core'd motors.

Anyway, it turned out that Mabuchi had a bunch of small shops like Yokomo that they farmed out business to. These shops could/would easily make their small batch customs and/or prototypes using standard pieces parts and custom made this or that's as needed/wanted by the various trading companies they marketed through.

When you have the ability to make anything in the way of 5 through 5000 pieces, it is easy to satisfy the needs of your client base. However, if your manufacturing base was designed/constructed to make millions of the same design motor, it would cost you a fortune to start, stop and resetup the line to make 5 of these, then 50 of those and 200 of something else. This is surely why the domestic company in Geof's post had to rely on off-shore sourcing for their low volume needs.

THe economies of scale made the R/C motors cheap and plentiful when the early "weed wacker" motors were all that were used to power the early R/C cars - the "trick motor of the week" that the sport ultimately evolved into is what drove the costs through the roof and ultimately priced it out of the reach of many if not most.

To reprove the viability of cheap motors, we staged the inaugural "dust buster race" at a national race in Detroit a number of years ago. This event conclusively proved that low cost motors and batteries from "dustbusters' would suffice for power.

I dunno if they still do it but the participants at the race ultimately proved that "dusbuster power" would/could/did run as fast and mostly faster than the cheated up "stock" or "super stock" motors of the day.

The race was between the "factory pros" who were invited to the IROC Dustbuster Race by the Detroit event organizers. They did it not by outspending but simply by out prepping and out driving them with hand-out battery packs and motors and bodies. The motors and batteries were literally handed out in dustbuster form and then stripped out over a period of several hours and installed into prebuilt preapproved chassis's.

It was one of the most entertaining and fun to watch races that I ever attended while involved with R/C.

Sorry for the WAY off topic nature of this post but it does illustrate what some creativity can do with surplus stuff as well as why different cultures can do things better than others when it comes to low volume production.

[NC Cams]

For the Surplus Center motor listed in post #1, try here for brushes:

Argord Corporation
940 Lansdowne Ave,
Toronto, Ontario Canada M6H 3Z4
Phone: (416) 530-1680

[DrStein99]

Ok I found the brushes at a fair price. This post if for anyone else looking for them hopefully they will find my informative post!

The motor is used in the mini-mills, sold by harbor freight, grizzly, and other vendors. Under GRIZZLY.com it is a G8689 Mini Milling Machine. The PART NUMBER for the brushes (FROM GRIZZLY) IS:

P8689187 - $4.50 (4-12-2007 quoted price)

link to the milling machine parts diagram:

http://www.grizzly.com/products/G8689/parts/1

--------------------------------------------------------------

Part link from www.LITTLEMACHINESHOP.com, price $3.95

which is also a good source for all other spare parts on this motor

http://www.littlemachineshop.com/pro...686&category=6

[foam27]

You're gonna laugh....but try Ace hardware, they have quite a few types of brushes....

[DrStein99]

Yes that type of info would have been great before I bought a new motor. I will check them out, thanks for info.

I do not seem to get much cooperation by calling places that fix motors over the phone, as usual most want me to spend $1,000 on stuff in order for me to have their attention.

[brunog]

Yes that type of info would have been great before I bought a new motor. I will check them out, thanks for info.

I do not seem to get much cooperation by calling places that fix motors over the phone, as usual most want me to spend $1,000 on stuff in order for me to have their attention.

Personally, at $20 a piece, I would have boughtchanged the motor in the first place. Trying to find brushes for a cheap motor is a total waste of time.

Congatulations for your new motor

[DrStein99]

The new motor is installed and works just fine. Now this time I will install an external fan, as it appears necessary.