My jigsaw started sparking and throwing out smoke, so I took it to bits, found a shorted coil in the motor, and disconnected it. But it's still doing this (sew video). Is there anything that can be done, or does it go in the bucket?
Recycle the copper
Does the motor have brushes? The sparking looks like a motor with worn brushes. Easily replaced on most.
The brushes look fine. I've been down that road before only to find it was because a coil was overloading the brushes.
Metal ain't worth much.
I was trying to be environmentally conscious. Throw it in the trash if you want. Around here, I would sit it on the curb and a "scrapper" would take it. One bit of copper may not bring much but when they accumulate a bucket full, it is beer money
After looking at the video I too think it's the brushes, still. They can look fine and be too short. When I couldn't find** brushes for my convertible top motor, I wadded up 2 little pieces of aluminum foil and put them underneath the springs that pushed the brushes against the commutator. So they pushed harder. The motor was still working when I got rid of the car 2 or 3 years later.
**Before I started, I'd found what I thought were the right size at a real hardware store that had 20 sizes of brush, and the carbon was the right size, but the braided copper "wire" of the new ones was 1/3 or less the x-section of the old ones. I couldn't lower the top to go looking for anything else, and so I figured it was safer to stick with the old one.+1
Yeah well if he balances it against the gas he burns driving all around town collecting, he's in the hole.
I guess the coil could have shorted, wearing out one brush. It does behave a little better without the shorted coil connected. I'll try new brushes.
Do they not recycle for you round there? We have 5 different bins collected from our homes here, between weekly and 3-weekly.
1) Waste. 2) Garden waste. 3) Paper/card/plastic/metal. 4) Glass/batteries/anything electrical like the jigsaw/usable clothes. 5) Food waste.
I'll sand the commutator and get new brushes.
These guys make a living at it. Little bits like that motor do not amount to much but they also get bigger things like AC units, white goods and chunks of scrap aluminum. The trucks are usually pretty full when you see them. I always sit my stuff out there and it disappears pretty quickly, although I will admit, since construction has recovered, there are not as many people doing it. It did take a week for a fridge to go away and they used to be gone in a day. OK by me, I scored a spare set of crisper bins, Someone had already taken the ice maker.
They are very selective about what they take, it is a single stream facility and I think they end up burning most of it. They pluck out the clean aluminum, magnet out the steel and do a very rough sort of the rest. It really makes more sense to burn paper and plastic in the waste to energy plant than to truck it 1000 miles to a plant that will lose money recycling it.
There is only one scrap metal guy around here, I hear him shouting for metal only once every 2 or 3 months. When I told him of a freezer to pick up from my house, it took 2 weeks and several reminder phonecalls for him to collect it.
Dunno what the costs are here, as the government is probably subsidising the recycling out of my taxes without my permission.
If it's a brand name unit you can likely buy a new armature for it, but it will likely cost as much as the saw. The armature on it has at least one bad winding on it - either shorted or open.
On a cheap unit generally not worth the effort. If it was a fein or festool, or possibly a Milwaukee or Delta it might be worth while. Black and decker or no-name-chinese, not worth even contemplating the repair.
Trust me micky - it's more than brushes. He's "burnrd out" the armature - guaranteed. Most likely a shorted coil - possibly (but unlikely) an open coil.. No set of brushes available will solve the problem - but if he keeps running it that way it WILL damage the brushes.
Well I've disconnected one winding, and I'll fit new brushes (which only cost a quid).
Definitely shorted, definitely not open. I tested every pair of contacts, all 1.1 ohms, and one 0.1 ohms. I've disconnected the shorted one.
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