Ideas for getting cut motor brush cap off

[Dale]

I was in the middle of a carve when I heard a slight change in the noise of the machine so stopped the carve and could hear a squeeking noise when I turned the spindle by hand. Disconnected the flex shaft from the spindle and rotated the flex shaft again and found the noise was coming from the cut motor. Removed the cut motor and shaft and now cannot rotate the shaft at all. I have removed the bottom brush and it looks OK (have about 100 hrs on this set of brushes) but I cannot get the cap off of the top brush. I am using a large screw driver that fits in the slot pretty good but cannot get it to break loose. I have not dinged up the slot yet but wondering if anyone has any ideas or tricks to try before I do.

[bergerud]

You could put some masking tape on the end of the driver. That can make it a tighter fit and reduce the high stress points from the screw driver which could break the cap. Do you think it is melted? The other option would be to take the motor apart. Maybe the brass part of the brush contact has melted into the cap and is stopping it from turning.

[Dale]

Guess I'll try taking the motor apart. Anything I need to be aware of?

[bergerud]

Just keep track of how it goes together. Do not disconnect anything you do not have to. Flipping the field wires will make it run backwards. Leave the motor and all its parts in one half of the casing and just disconnect the one brush.

[Dale]

Thanks for the help I found my problem. The plastic around the brush holder had melted. Guess I'll be ordering a new cut motor tomorrow unless someone has a top half of a motor casing they would like to sell.

[bergerud]

You might call LHR. Maybe they have a casing they could sell you.

[rmock]

had this happen a while ago, ended up drilling out the cap and turning a plug to fit. used hose clamp to keep it tight. Rough fix but worked

[fwharris]

Use the dremel to cut a deeper slot into the cap to get a better bite with the screw driver.

[Dale]

Unfortunately it is more than just the cap that melted, the whole channel that holds the brush is melted and deformed. The brushes actually only have 92 hours on them, not sure what happened.

[bergerud]

As a matter of interest, can you see where the heat came from? I would think it was from a poor connection. Is there an obvious hot spot?