Brushed motor maintenance without a comm lathe

[ThunderDragonCy]

I have a few Team Powers brushed motors and I would like to give them some maintenance after a season of racing. I don't want to buy a comm lathe and it doesn't have to be super racing high end work, I just want to give them a refresh without spending tonnes of money. Any thoughts? 

[sosidge]

Are these the sealed Team Powers motors for Iconic racing? Comm lathe can't be used on them anyway.

This kind of motor is basically maintenance free, maximum you can do with them is flush through with motor cleaner/contact cleaner/brake cleaner to get rid of some of the muck. But it doesn't make a difference to performance. 

Run them until they stop working, basically.

[alvinlwh]

I just ordered 2 sets of comm cleaner brushes from PJ. Not arrived yet, so not tried them out yet, but something for you to consider? 

[El Gecko]

Well it's not impossible to rebuild a sealed can motor, but it's definitely more difficult than a "rebuildable" racing motor. And like sosidge said, you can't use a lathe on it because of the sealed endbell. Although if you just pop the armature into an open-endbell can, you could then run it in the lathe. Some lathes will do bare armatures, so that's an option too.

If you just want to freshen it up and make it last a bit longer, take it all apart and clean it really well. Just don't break off any of the little tabs that hold the endbell onto the can. I haven't taken one of those particular motors apart, so I'm not familiar with the brush configuration, but there's a good chance the comm will be slightly (or seriously) hourglassed.

With the armature chucked in a drill or Dremel, you can use high-grit sandpaper (600 or so) to gently smooth the hourglass shape by hand. It's a very slow, very delicate process, and lathe users will generally get better results, but it has worked for me. It just took a long time to get the comm flat again because the hourglass was so deep.

The final step is to use some metal polish to get it really shiny, then motor spray to clean everything out. And make sure you clean the slots between comm segments too, as gunk can build up in there. Even if it's not perfect, it should run substantially better than when you started. I should also note that if you take the motor apart, it would no longer be legal for racing.

[Willy iine]

Most motor performance degradation is caused by the comm becoming un-true (not round) and dirty on the surface.   One can use some abrasive to remove the oxidation and gunk, but it is most-likely impossible to get the comm to be true again without cutting the comm on a lathe.  Sure you can clean the comm from the outside and brushes and maybe even try new brushes which do help (if replaceable), but to get it back to its original performance one needs to cut the comm and get new brushes, possibly new springs as well.

That said, +1 to what @sosidge mentioned above; I too would run the motor until it's slow and just replace it with a new one.

[ThunderDragonCy]

Thanks everyone. 

[WillyChang]

BiTD there’s “stock motor lathes” for sealed can motors where you can unbolt the brush hoods & it cuts through that aperture 

Won’t cut as true as a “mod motor lathe” on an extracted armature as it’ll be running on the stock can’s bushings vs V-guides