I know when I clean a motor, I dismantle it completely as there isn’t a lot of parts to it but take note of the parts and I use isopropyl alcohol and an airbrush and spray everything till it comes clean. And when I put it all back together I put a drop of oil on the armature were it rides on the bearing blocks or where the metal contacts the plastic and using alligator clips and a transformer, hook the clips to the brush contacts and slowly add power and run it for a couple minutes at varied rpm and reverse same thing. As far as the loco goes I remove all the old lube and grease same way just both trucks and relive and drop of oil on shafts and such and rotate the wheels and gears to spread the lube and reassembly the loco and test it the same way as the motor. This has proven the best for me. Hope it helps you. And remember if the chassis does not freewheel well the motor is going to be working that much harder.
Did you thoroughly clean the commutator segments and the brushes, especially where they contact the commutator segments? Doug
Airbrushes the commutator wiring spaces between the contacts the springs brushes brush cylinders. Everything. If you don’t have an airbrush you can swish it in alcohol but do not brush the armature as you may break the welds in the armature where the wires are soldered. Be very careful in this area as it is almost impossible to resolver the wire as it’s only about .005-.008 of an inch.
What did you use to clean the commutator plates? I use Isopropyl Alcohol with a cotton swab and let everything thoroughly dry before putting the motor back together. I do add just a small drop of oil to the output shafts of the motor, but be careful, just a tiny drop is more than enough. Some people like to add a drop of Atlas Conductalube or Labelle oil to the commutator plates, I do not use this method because over time the oil attracts gunk. Did you also wipe off the brushes? One last thing to try if you have a volt ohm meter, make sure none of the plates are shorting to adjacent plates and make sure none of the winding's are open. If you find a couple of plates shorting to the adjacent plates, just clean out the spaces between the plates with the Isopropyl Alcohol and cotton swab. Don't over do it, you don't want to loosen the glue that hold the plates to the motor armature. For stubborn build up between the plates, gently and I mean very gently, use the tip of an xacto knife to clean out spaces between the plates. If you have any open winding's you're pretty much done at that point. Since the motor did run and hopefully you didn't run the motor on too high of a voltage (greater than 12 VDC), my guess is the plates are dirty again. If you didn't clean the brushes the first time, make sure you clean them as well as the commutator plates. Did the motor get hot when you ran it? If it got hot, check for shorted winding's. Let us know what you find?
I would think it could, that is why I always stay away from the winding's and just use a cotton swap with Isopropyl Alcohol on the commutator plates. Like ViperJim1 mentioned, always be very careful of where the winding's are soldered to the commutator plates. Break that solder joint and you're pretty much done for.
I use about 20 psi and am pretty quik and don’t spend a long time in the winding but spray away from the windings on the plates and between them. Out of countless motors I think maybe 2 were messed up, but I don’t know if it was the alcohol or something in the windings. Starting out use the method rich-s used.
Very unlikely. That stuff is tough.It usually requires the use of sandpaper to prep the wire for soldering, but if you want to damage it, use something like MEK or Lacquer thinner or brush cleaner or old fashioned solvent paint remover.
So I was able to figure out what was going on. one of the filaments (not sure if that's the right word or not) coming from the top of the motor that gets screwed down to the circuit board was touching the aluminum plate that covers the motor, shorting it out. I put some of that orange/clearish tape for electrical components around that filament to keep it away from the aluminum plate and it works like a charm now... Thanks everybody for your replies, they definitely helped me figure out the problem!
