Electric motors

Originally Posted by hills

It's been pretty busy with the day job lately. Busy with things to do on the homefront as well. It hasn't left much time / energy for scrapping.

It's a hard call on the sealed units and fractional motors. The copper is there .... but it's quite a bit of work for a modest amount of gain. I did a household refrigerator compressor last month. The yield was about 1.4 lbs of #2 copper. It's something to do if you have the time i guess. Better than nothing at all in the dead of winter. Keeps your hands busy doing something useful. Nothing wrong with that.



Those Diablo carbide sawzall blades sure are good. I used an 8 tooth per inch (TPI) for cutting open that sealed unit. It wasn't at all hard to do with that compressor firmly screwed down to the bench. All the oil stays down at the bottom as long as you keep the whole thing upright while you're working on it. You just lift out the motor and set that aside for processing later. Unbolt what remains of the compressor and just pour the oil out into a bucket. Not such a messy job as you would think if you work out a method.

Did a bunch of rads awhile back. It's funny because you would think that a sawzall blade for cutting off the ends is just a sawzall blade. I tried the Diablo 22-24 tpi carbide strip and it made a pretty big difference. It made such a clean cut that the little copper noodles were so easy to remove from the steel ends. You don't get much copper from all the noodles and AC lines but it eventually adds up to a few pounds after awhile. There seems to be more value in the clean rads themselves. The noodles are just the gravy. You could sell the ends as CBM and you wouldn't be out much. It would save the time fussing with them for little bits of copper.

Anyhow ... just my experience so far.

Nice I'm thinking about getting a SDS hammer drill with a wide chisel bit to chop the motors in half then just pull the copper out of both ends. Ideas on the brand and wide chisel bit to use? I don't think they make a wise chisel bit for metal just concrete and tile. Can I still use it?. For cutting through the steel ?. Good for you never tried those blades with that teeth count anyway.

I've got a Bosh Bulldog SDS Extreme. I've had it for years and it's never given me a bit of trouble. It's a good tool.

Don't know about splitting motors apart though. I think you would need something like a chisel bit that was a foot wide. The point of it would have to be pretty sharp to wedge between the laminates and split the motor. It doesn't seem like the tool would have the power to do that. I think you would need something like a 40 ton hydraulic press to split a motor apart.

I usually cut one end off the windings with an angle grinder and then use a punch to drive out the copper. It's the best way i've found to do the job.

Originally Posted by hills

I've got a Bosh Bulldog SDS Extreme. I've had it for years and it's never given me a bit of trouble. It's a good tool.

Don't know about splitting motors apart though. I think you would need something like a chisel bit that was a foot wide. The point of it would have to be pretty sharp to wedge between the laminates and split the motor. It doesn't seem like the tool would have the power to do that. I think you would need something like a 40 ton hydraulic press to split a motor apart.

I usually cut one end off the windings with an angle grinder and then use a punch to drive out the copper. It's the best way i've found to do the job.

I saw a video on it not sure if it's a hammer drill or not it says it is though is it or is it something else ? They sell it for 200$ for the machine and 5 bits and 150$ for shipping and 5 percent fees the bit they use is 5in wide almost. I paid 199 for a Milwaukee corded and free angle grinder plus 30$ for a chisel bit that's for concrete cant find any chisel bits made for chopping through metal haha.

I did 18 motors in 2hrs with the ads hammer drill works pretty well hardly any dust still have a long way to go haha. I'm going to get a wider bit though I still have the string to take off though that part sucks.

Originally Posted by mike1

I did 18 motors in 2hrs with the ads hammer drill works pretty well hardly any dust still have a long way to go haha. I'm going to get a wider bit though I still have the string to take off though that part sucks.

I looked into the SDS bits Mike. The widest one i was able to find was 6" wide. They aren't common but they are out there.

Try google search term 6" wide SDS chisel bit. It will turn up a few results.

Amazon has them I think. Going to do more today