Triton Router TRA001 - sparks

**Kuffy** · 31st December 2016, 06:50 PM

so today I installed a flush trim bit into my table mounted TRA001 to do a 1 minute job. 5 hours later, I am here on the forums asking questions because I have no idea. When I turned the router on early this arvo, it sparked up and sounded like a router and a welder at the same time. So I shut it down hoping it was the armature like it was on my smaller MOF001 back in this thread
Burnt commutator Triton MOF001 router

I tested the commutator all the way around and got a consistent 1.0-1.2 reading when setting the multimeter to the 200 ohms setting. I can't see any evidence of burning. I even put it all back together again and let the thing spin for a few minutes so that it would give it time to generate enough heat to start burning. So I reckon (with my wealth of knowledge with electricity) that the armature is still good. So I now reckon it is the brushes or the speed controller.

Firstly, is this brush any good (they both look the same)? It seems good me, plenty of meat left. But it gets super super hot, and you can see the copper wire has signs of heat discolouration.
SAM_0387.jpg

Secondly, if that brush looks good, does anyone know how I would test for a faulty speed controller. Or is that one of those things that even a sparky which knew what he was doing would simply swap out and see what happens?

thanks

**NathanaelBC** · 31st December 2016, 09:34 PM

Brush and spring looks fine for amount of carbon and springiness, but sparking would indicate a contact problem and the discolouration looks a bit suspicious so I'd stay with that course of inquiry for now; look at the cap make sure that's going back on properly and compressing the spring.

**NathanaelBC** · 31st December 2016, 09:35 PM

Is there also discolouration on the other brush? Pitted surface?

**Kuffy** · 31st December 2016, 09:46 PM

The springs are long enough and the plastic brush caps are installed correctly.

I just took a closer look at both of the brushes. The brush in the image has the heat discoloured copper wire, but the other brush copper wire looks brand spankin' new. Seems reasonable that might be my problem.

**NathanaelBC** · 31st December 2016, 09:56 PM

Can you blow out the brush housing with an air compressor just in case the brush is catching on something?

**Kuffy** · 31st December 2016, 10:01 PM

I used a toothbrush to clean out the brush housing's and then the shop vac. It looks pretty good in there, but possibly there is a fine burr inside. Tomorrow if I feel like bashing my head against a wall I will open it up again and hit it with some emery paper.

**Kuffy** · 11th January 2017, 01:00 PM

I replaced the brushes and that didn't help, and I also burnt the new set of brushes. So I took all the electrical gizmos out of the thing to look at them all. I reckon I found the problem. The field winding is arcing to one of the brush holders, and it is this brush which is burning out. The field windings are burnt also though not entirely clear in the photos. I think what is happening is in the field winding where it is burning, is the same section where the left winding joins to the right winding. Those copper joining wires are fairly loose, I'm guessing they have stretched due to the heat. Now the vibration in the machine when running is causing these two wires to touch and then something bad happens from there. The arcing isn't very bad at low rpm, but at or near top RPM is feels like a welder and you can quickly smell that any plastic inside is beginning to melt.

I will replace the fields and the burnt brush connector.
SAM_0466.jpg SAM_0467.jpg SAM_0468.jpg

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