[PLUG-TALK] Electric motor repair parts (2)

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Sun Jan 11 20:24:46 UTC 2009


Thanks for the replies!

One friend suggested looking at the brushes that are used in other
appliances, such as vacuum cleaners.  That started a chain of
lateral thinking, and searches through Google Images to find
carbon brushes in holders that look like the ones that I've got.

I was amazed to find that the motor in my treadmill is actually
a variant of the motors used in British Hotpoint washing machines,
and that the brush holders are common repair parts over there.

See for example:
   http://www.apart4u.com/default.cfm?viewprod&id=9748
... and even a youtube video:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GmtRBiXLFc

There are multiple sizes of these brush holders - mine are black
and have the 5mm by 10mm sideways brushes, held with a couple of
spiral leaf springs.  I will see if I can find a U.S. GE part
number for that, and locate them domestically.  However, I suspect
that this particular motor is primarily a UK phenomena, and that
repairing them is also (we are more into use-once-and-discard over
here).  So I will probably end up having a half-dozen brush holders
shipped across the pond.  Cheaper than a replacement treadmill.

While the upcoming depression will be really hard on folks, we
may learn some positive lessons from it.  I hope one of the lessons
is how to fix and improve the stuff we already have, rather than
the current process of buying more and more crap, hoping that our
next purchase will bring more satisfaction than the last one.  A
"reuse and improve" orientation will be an incredible boon for 
Linux and reprogrammable devices.  When the same clump of stuff can
perform better next month than it does this month, then we can get
more goodness with less expenditure and externalities.  We may all
be poor as hell, but live like billionaires.  Works for me.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs



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