Anchor windlass brush problem

[zippy]

My Quick anchor windlass stopped working and when I took it apart I found that all 4 brushes were split lengthwise, still in the housing, but jammed and some were not making contact. I haven’t been able to find what would cause the brushes to break like this. It’s easy to replace the brushes but there are some gouges on the end of the commutator. I did a windings and bar check and there are no problems. Should I be concerned about these gouges and any ideas of what might have caused them? Not sure if I can manually pull up my 100 ft of chain and 35kg Rocna until this is fixed.

[stormalong]

Could they have been so worn down that they were not held straight in the brush holders? How old is the windlass?

[deblen]

Are the "gouges" actually ground up pieces of brush? / Len

[Pitchondesign]

Had a similar problem with my windlass motor. Mine looks just like yours, the only difference being the condition of the brushes. Mine were not split. The rotor commutator looked exactly like yours. After taking the cover off the rear of the motor and operating the motor, it sparked badly and rotated slowly.

I took sandpaper to the commutator, starting with 120, then moving to progressively finer grades to 600. I removed all score marks and sanded to a shiny smooth surface. The commutator is copper and sands easily. The brushes had score marks, which I sanded out with fine paper to shiny smooth. I put it back together, and sparking was gone, and the motor was operating normally.

My guess is the arcing and sparking erodes both the brushes and commutator causeing roughness, which damages the brushes.

[glenn.225]

If you can find a place to have the commutator turned (most any lathe should do) and some new brushes, you should be back in business.

That commutator is not terrible but should be turned. Hand sanding could make it out of round.

[markxengineerin]

Yes that commutator can be fixed. It's easiest if you can mount it in a lathe, but don't try to take a pass with a cutting tool- it will bite and chatter and make things worse- learned that one the hard way. Sandpaper is the way to go, as others have said!

Replace brushes, make sure they are the right ones and don't flop around too much, and you should be good to go.