I dunno ... a lot of this is trial & error for me. Been accumulating sealed units for awhile. The weather is a little warmer so the time has come to get outside and process them. The window ac compressors seem to be the hardest to do. I tried a pipe cutter for getting the stator out. It makes a nice cut but it takes awhile. The sawzall is another way but you really need to clamp your work down or it shakes & vibrates all over the place. The sawzall really isn't the tool for cutting the crown off the windings once you finally do get the stator free. It generally won't give you a clean cut.
It seems like it's back to the 4" angle grinder with a 1/16" thick cutting wheel as the best all around tool for processing smaller motors. It just sucks because you need to gear up with coveralls, a respirator, hearing protection, and a face shield.
At least the windings come out easily enough with an electric motor stator that was used in a sealed unit. Just cut the crown off with the grinder and the windings come out with very little effort because they're all lubed up with compressor oil.
I'm with you guys on the burning. It's rural here so it could be done ... but i would prefer not to make all that toxic smoke. There are other ways of doing the job that are less harmful to the environment. This video was probably shot in India or Pakistan. It's footage from a longer video that was up on youtube for awhile. Anyway ... it's no wonder why they're having some awful smog and air pollution problems in that part of the world. It's making the people there sick with breathing problems.
Bookmarks