I have an old hayward pump motor. I know very well how to get the pump off and remove it to have a clean motor left. But I'm wondering if there's any way to get to the copper coils inside using tools you can buy at a hardware store? It's for an old super max. It has a silver casing.
Getting the most recycling dollars out of an old motor?
- Thread starter ThePoolMagician
- Start date
I replace blower motors at work on occasion. I used to let my son take them apart (better those than something I DON'T want disassembled by an 8 year old) and turn in the separate metals. I got to thinking abut it, and it's so labor intensive to separate metals from a motor that it doesn't seem worth it. I don't mess with steel because it takes so much room to have any appreciable dollar value. By the time it's broken down to copper and aluminum, we're better off taking the value as irony(mixed metal/motors). (The locks I have to destroy get taken apart for the brass, and the video cable strips easily for the clean #2 copper)
Ok, I guess since I cant find any info online about it, that must mean it's not an easy task. I just wondered if there were maybe a hidden inner screw set that makes the whole thing fall apart or something of the sort.
I would have a ton of clean copper by now.
I would have a ton of clean copper by now.
When a motor shop needs to rewind a motor, they don't waste time trying to pick out the copper. They burn it out in special ovens called, appropriately enough, burn out ovens. They know that it is way too time and labor consuming to even try to salvage any of it.
BTW, most motors use copper that is covered in varnish. A scrap yard would want that removed for top dollar.
It's worse than that. The wire itself is enameled, but the windings, once in the stator, are usually potted in with an epoxy solution to create a single, monolithic block. It's often done with VPI, or vacuum-pressure impregnation, where the assembly is placed in a chamber and all the air is evacuated, then epoxy is injected under pressure into the windings. It eliminates any movement within the wires from heat, physical, or magnetic shock.