On 07/05/2018 12:14, Dan S. MacAbre wrote:
The washing machine packed in this morning.Â* Filled up with water, and
then nothing.Â* I expected I was going to need to replace the motor
brushes (although they're only about two years old), but they are still
quite long.Â* I noticed that the commutator lands (or whatever you call
them) were blackened, and that the face of one of the brushes was quite
rough, like anthracite.Â* I also remembered that last night, it was
making what I now realised was an arcing noise, and not a chattering
noise that I'd normally associate with the brushes getting too short.
Anyway, I cleaned them up, and it's working fine now, but I'm wondering
what caused it.Â* Is one of the brushes malformed?Â* Or has low spring
pressure?Â* Or something else?

In my experience, worn washing machine motor brushes do appear to be
quite long UNTIL you compare them to new brushes!

When I had a Hotpoint that went through a set of brushes every couple to
three years I initially mistakenly assumed that the brushes were not
that worn when the motor first became intermittent. Removing,
inspecting and replacing the same always seemed to get the machine
working again for a month. In the end I always had a spare set and on
the first sign of a problem I immediately replaced the brushes.

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