Checking the motor...

[Dude]

• Tweet

Ok, so I'm stripping down the odd dyson and replacing belts and brush bars etc no problem.  But when it comes to a motor, what or how do you check them?  If the machine works do you simply do nothing to it and put it back together, or is there anything you check while its out? 

[macman]

You can check the brushes and whether it sparks or not. If it does, it's probably on the way out.
You can change the brushes, but most of us will go for a new motor as it's the better long-term solution-if the brushes are going, the rest of the motor may not be far behind.
The only other thing I do is blow any dust out with a can of compressed air.

[beko1987]

I do a few thing to check the motor:

Firstly, remove the post motor filter, and the little diffuser, then turn it on. Can you see sparking? Does it sound ok? Does it whine or get grumbly when winding down when you turn it off?
Once the machine is stripped down, and the motor is in your hand, I spin it by hand and check it spins smoothly, if so then the bearings are ok. Then check the armature (where the carbons sit). It should be a bit dirty, but not horrific. Any pitting, scorch marks or scratches are normally bad news. If you fancy, you can remove the carbon brushes and check the ends are nice and smooth, not chipped etc, but you can usually tell by the armature condition.

Finally, try and pull the belt spindle in and out, no movement is good. As above, I then blow any dust (and palster dust) off, and vac it off with a dusting brush to make it nice and clean. I have stripped motors apart to change the bearings before, which may or may not work, but if you have a pile of scrap motors with good and bad parts it cant hurt to try! I agree with the changing of the carbons though, by the time the damage is done there's not much you can do to save it. If I have a motor in bits to change bearings/armatures around I shine the armature up with wire wool, but don't do this when the motors together as if any wire threads get onto the coil they could short out and cause damage.

After all this, when you have the motor and housing back together and screwed in, connect the switch and mains cable up and fire her up to check operation, and that you havent pulled the motor wires out when putting the motor into the housing, as if you get the whole machine together and looking lovely, and then find it's dead, you have to strip it all back again to plug it back in. Ask me how I know... (I normally tape the connections together now to save having to do this!)

[Parwaz7862]

I would use cold water and a wiper cloth to clean the bin because when I got my DC25 animal brand new, I liked it a lot, and decided to wash the bin after a few uses, and them the bin went cloudy when I used hot water, so I am using cold water from now onwards

[beko1987]

Lol wrong thread Tayyab! I dont use steaming hot water, I'm a wuss with hot stuff, and our shower blew the thermostat after using it piping hot for a few machines (luckily it was under warranty), so just warm now all the way!

[Parwaz7862]

Lol oops, I meant to comment on the washing the bin thread hehe nd lucky :)