# New Motor Brush Seating?



## PeterH (Mar 20, 2009)

Just received a new Kostov 10 motor. I heard last night about seating the brushes by running the motor on 12 VDC for a few days. It makes sense to me, but I'm wondering if that is common practice or not. Thoughts?

Thanks,
Pete


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

PeterH said:


> Just received a new Kostov 10 motor. I heard last night about seating the brushes by running the motor on 12 VDC for a few days. It makes sense to me, but I'm wondering if that is common practice or not. Thoughts?
> 
> Thanks,
> Pete


Hi Pete,

We've discussed this numerous times here. Use the search function and you should be able to find those threads. If not, post back.

Regards,

major


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## lou-ace (Jul 21, 2009)

Hey Peter, I don't get the point of a "brush seat" their going to seat the way they seat when you run it. for sure don't hesitate to bench test or pre test your rig with 12volts to check your build and trouble shoot problems but do keep in min that your brushes WILL wear down at service and need to be replaced than, so reason dictates don't run the motor any longer that you have to! certianly not for "days" or without a load. I find more potential for harm than benifit from doing that. good luck.


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## major (Apr 4, 2008)

lou-ace said:


> Hey Peter, I don't get the point of a "brush seat" their going to seat the way they seat when you run it. for sure don't hesitate to bench test or pre test your rig with 12volts to check your build and trouble shoot problems but do keep in min that your brushes WILL wear down at service and need to be replaced than, so reason dictates don't run the motor any longer that you have to! certianly not for "days" or without a load. I find more potential for harm than benifit from doing that. good luck.


Hi lou,

This is totally wrong. You will get much better life from a properly seated brush than from brushes you put into service without break in. You can also damage the commutator by running green brushes too hard. I think that the brush expert at the recent EVCCON recommended 4 to 5 days of break in seating at low voltage, no load.

Regards,

major


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## lou-ace (Jul 21, 2009)

peter, lister to Major!!! he obviously has more experience than me, I'm a bit of a hack at this, my rig is running great after no "break in" but that's totally anecdotal. I'm not an engineer, or in any way experienced here, I just worked for a while in a electrical motor shop where we frequently saw worn down commuters secondary to bad maintainance or ignorance. if a "break in" is recomended I would do that. but I would recomend more than that a stringent inspection of the brushes, and a replacement of them either from the manufactures recomended service schedule or a recomendation of the manufactures acceptable wear tolerance of the brushes.


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## Plamenator (Mar 6, 2009)

If I remember correctly, the procedure is to run the motor for 60min under load prior shipping so brushes must be somewhat seated already (check if comm is new and shiny or not).

Just drive it easy for the first 2-3 hours of work (<450A;<4500rpm) and then gradually increase.


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