Hold on. WAIT right there. Before you ignore this post on how to replace the carbon brushes consider this … most appliances have motors, most motors have carbon brushes and the most common thing to stop a motor from working is worn carbon brushes.
If you know how to replace them you can fix almost anything motor and save hundreds of thousands of dollars in your lifetime. Total exaggeration in terms of money saved unless you happen to own a nuclear power plant, but I had to get your attention.
Changing carbon brushes sounds like something only a large man with a hairy belly would attend to, but trust me … no hair is required. If you can replace a battery in your smoke detector, you can replace a carbon brush.
Just to suck you in a little more, here's a list of things that usually have motors with carbon brushes.
What has a carbon brush?
- Power Tools
- Vacuum Cleaners
- Washing Machines
- Dryers
- Blenders
- Kitchen Aid
- and MORE.
Not all motors have carbon brushes that you can replace, but most of them do. And it really is as easy as replacing a battery. Or close to it anyway. That's another tiny bit of exaggeration but I can sense you need a little encouragement. It's way easier than getting rid of back fat. I can guarantee that.
This … is a carbon brush.
I know. You were expecting an actual brush. Surprise! They don't look like brushes. The one on the left is a new carbon brush. The one on the right is a worn carbon brush. It's like a pencil eraser that's been worn out.
A carbon brush is basically the "thing" that conducts the electricity to the motor. It actually conducts it through the motor's commutator, but since I don't care about that, I figure you don't. Don't worry about what a commutator is. Nobody knows and nobody cares.
Carbon brushes are built to wear down. If they didn't wear down, and they were constantly rubbing hard against the (nobody cares) commutator it would damage the commutator. Which is a bad thing to do even if you don't care about the commutator.
So carbon brushes are made of a material that is softer than the commutator. After years of wear, they end up being just tiny little nubs and need to be replaced because they no longer conduct electricity to the all important (but we don't care about it) commutator.
If the motor stops running, or the thing stops turning, sucking, blending or mixing … it's probably worn carbon brushes.
To replace them you need to do two things. You need to find out WHAT carbon brushes your motor takes and then you need to buy them.
You can Google your appliance and see if you can find the carbon brushes for your particular motor there, or you can call an appliance repair shop with the make and model of your appliance and have them look it up for you. Then if they carry them in stock you can either buy them from your local appliance repair shop or you can order them online. I ordered mine online because my appliance repair shop didn't have them in stock.
They arrived within 4 or 5 days.
So let's do this. Let's replace carbon brushes! Because it's FUN and we're FUN and everyone's here so we might as well! See? Isn't this the most exciting thing you've ever read about? And you thought this was going to be boring. Hah. I showed you.
I'll be showing you how I replaced the carbon brushes on my Bosch Front Load Washing machine. This is the machine I owned for 20 years and only replaced recently. The technique will be similar no matter what the appliance though.
Remove the motor. Sounds scary but isn't. O.K., it was a little scary pulling the motor out of my washing machine but now that I've done it I realize it really isn't scary at all and in fact I immediately felt superior to pretty much everyone else in the world the moment I did it.
Removing the motor from a hairdryer won't be nearly as scary.
Always UNPLUG whatever you're working on before you work on it.
I removed the back cover of my washing machine and located the motor with my eyeballs.
Any electrical that was attached to the motor got disconnected.
There was this little green wire ...
And this big plug of wires.
The inside of a washing machine and motor is filthy. Wear surgical gloves.
Once the electrical is disconnected you can remove the motor. This particular motor was held in by 2 bolts. One at the front of the motor and one at the back.
Loosen the bolts. First the one at the front.
And then the one at the back.
Now the motor will pull out with a little wiggling and work. It doesn't weigh much. A few pounds, so don't worry about that.
Drag it onto your work space and start looking for the 2 carbon brushes. I'm pointing to where the 2 carbon brushes are.
You can recognize the carbon brushes by the clips. This is what you're looking for.
Simply pull the electrical connection apart either with your fingers or with needle nose pliers.
The actual carbon brush is held in place by a small brass clip which needs to be wiggled out of its spot.
Then just give a little pull to pull the old brush out. Make sure you pay attention to what direction the carbon brush came out! It has a beveled edge and the new one has to go in the same way the old one came out, otherwise the brushes will be rubbing on the (we don't care) commutator the wrong way and won't work.
As a reminder, this is the old brush beside a new brush. You can see how worn down the old one is. No wonder it didn't work anymore. I wouldn't work if I was that worn out either.
Now it's time to put the new carbon brush in.
Just feed it into the hole you took the one one out of, making sure to put it in the same way. You can see I drew a picture with a Sharpie on my motor so I wouldn't forget which direction to put it in.
I had trouble getting it all the way down so I just used a bamboo skewer to coax it down.
Squishing the springy coil down takes some patience and fiddling. Just keep at it and it'll all go down. Then insert the clip into the slot.
Reattach the electrical clip.
And you're done. Now replace the other carbon brush the exact same way.
Drag your motor back to your appliance, in this case my washing machine, and put it back in place.
How to Replace Carbon Brushes On Any Motor.
Materials
- Replacement carbon brushes
Tools
- whatever you need to remove motor from casing.
Instructions
- Remove motor from whatever appliance you are replaces the brushes on. Make sure it's unplugged!
- This might require that you undo wires running to the motor and whatever screws or bolts that might be holding it in place.
- Locate the carbon brushes on the motor and remove their electrical wires.
- Pull brushes from their housing in the motor. Pay attention to what direction they are in. Carbon brushes are angled on the end and the angle needs to be in the same direction when you replace them.
- Insert your NEW brushes and then do everything in reverse to put your motor back together.
I don't know about you but I feel confident that I could fix pretty much any problem now.
Except back fat.
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Omg Karen! This is genius! I have a graveyard of fans that don't turn anymore that might get a new lease on life. Us "old" girls need all the cool air we can get 24/7.
You are my Hero! Does anything scare you?
Centipedes. ~ karen
Many moons ago my Husband of 17 years ,just left and that was it. Of course, the furnace quit working the second day and it was December. I called the gas company thinking it was something to do with it. The nice gas guy told me what it was pointed to it. It was the ignitor. (way before internet days) I ordered one from a parts company loosened two screws and put it in. Worked great for another 10 years. This is where," try to fix it first" started. Your post has inspired me, to look into the mixer, and see if this is what the deal is with this. Thank you for this post.
Also, how old is your washer, I was wondering how fast these guys can go out.
Oh, thank goodness those are surgical gloves! I thought, for a quick second, you had a serious problem with hydration and that your skin was oddly puckered in the shape of some electrical slot and not bouncing back. And then you said "Always wear surgical gloves" and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief for your hydration. Phew.
Yup, lol. Fully hydrated. :) ~ karen
Did a similar thing a week ago...replaced the motor on our washing machine with the help of Mr. Google and the Whirlpool website and $39.00 for replacement part! Works better than it ever did. Now I'm looking at my sad, well-used, but dying weed whacker and thinking...WWKD???? What would Karen do???? Thanks for the inspiration! I'm gonna do it!
Mmmm. Karen might just throw away the weed whacker, lol. Or she might fix it. Who knows. ;) ~ karen
Screw the Maytag repairman................. we've got Karen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Screw him. ~ karen!
Karen - Can you now teach me how to replace my front door. Serious problem, totally intimidated.
I second this! I need to replace a worn out bathroom door.:-)
Everyone is so complimentary and I'm thinking, "I waited two days for this?!" Humpfh!
I love these kinds of posts. And I don't even own a washer.
You're amazing because you can talk about carbon brushes and (no one cares about) commutators AND still bring the LOLz. You make this stuff look easy. Which I guess is what you're trying to show us, that it ain't rocket science!
I burnt out an electric drill, years ago and took it to a small motor repair place to have the brushes replaced. I assumed they were actually " brushes". Little, fuzzy brushes! But now I know better. Thanks for informing us. Knowlege is power!
As an electrician I was reading your post anticipating a " train wreck" but did an awesome post! Great job Karen!!! I might be the only one who cares about the commutator
YOU*ARE* UTTERLY*AMAZING
Dont let ANYONE tell you that you're not
PS don't you love that new expression, "Let's do this" ?
This will come in handy sometime. The most brilliant part is making a diagram with a sharpie. This will help with so many things.
Well. I learned something today. My ex - who was a quite a handy type - would fix just about anything - or give it the old college try at least. I had heard the term "brushes" on numerous occasions when he was futzing with things but I never actually looked at them, being content to let him deal with it. I always assumed they were - well - brushlike. It never occurred to me that they were solid and so named because they literally brushed against something.
Now I know. Thanks, Karen.
You can make anything interesting!
LOL. Thanks Heather. I'll admit it was a bit of a struggle to make carbon brushes interesting. ;) ~ karen
You ARE AWESOME! GirlPower to the 9th power! ... or something like that. I wish you wrote the instruction manuals for all things that need fixing - I understand your language
When I saw you were wearing gloves I thought this was going to be a sterile surgical procedure. Sounds just a s complicated to me though.
I know - maybe with all your spare time you could video the process so it wasn't so intimidating!
OK what really got me was when you said take out the motor - how did you know what "things" were holding the motor in place and which were part of said motor. It all looks the same to me. Sorta like a great exam. I tried, honest. But there are all sorts of bumps and lumps in there. I had just been to my doctor when he said you should do self exams. Well a week later, I was showering and said, what the heck, I'll try. Then to my surprise I found several little bumps and immediately called him. He said come in the morning, I'll open early so we can get you in. Well, after I drove the hour to get to him, he examined me and said, those are just normal things inside. You are fine. Well they ought to sell boobs with things inside so we could feel what to feel for. All that to say, the motor has so many "things" all around how in the world did you know to take the 2 "bolts" out to get the motor out? The first pic of you hand inside looked like a horror movie until I realized on the next pic that you were wearing gloves. I'm just so afraid of doing something really wrong. Need to start small like changing the smoke alarm battery.
There was a hospital in Honolulu that did free breast exams every October, all month long. One of the requirements to get the free exam was to find all the lumps in a set of man-made breasts they had in a box. So they have such things to learn how to identify lumps!
Now that would be a great thing to give as a gift to your daughter or your mother. Why haven't I ever seen these or why hasn't any doctor ever had them available. Nevermind, I probably know the answer. Thanks for the tip.
http://www.enasco.com/c/healthcare/BSE_TSE/Breast+Self-Examination/Simulators+%26+Models/ has several models! A little expensive, so maybe a local club could purchase one. It would be a great thing for the Girl Scouts to teach the troops!