How to break in a brushed motor

[Greywolf74]

I had my 12-year old son participate and make a motor break in table using a DC motor speed controller with potentiometer we had in the parts bin and 12 volt power supply. I lent him a shunt to track the amperage and we used a volt meter to set the voltage at 3 volts. It worked out great! We broke in a new Holms Hobbies 12 turn 5-slot motor for the recently built Traxxas Big foot we put together from mostly spare Traxxas 2WD parts and some extra help from Jenny’s and Amain. Thank you Greywolf74 for sharing that video which was the inspiration for this. We used whatever parts we had in the house and spent no money. I observed the brushes before and after we did this and it really does work. Those brushes were perfectly coped to that comm after 20 minutes running under water and that water was full of carbon.

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Thats awesome brutha! I love stuff like this!

 

[Oliver Moore]

One common method for breaking in a new brushed motor is to run it at about half speed for a few minutes, then let it cool down for a few minutes, and repeat that process a few times. This helps the brushes and commutator to wear in evenly and can improve the motor's overall performance

 

[Greywolf74]

One common method for breaking in a new brushed motor is to run it at about half speed for a few minutes, then let it cool down for a few minutes, and repeat that process a few times. This helps the brushes and commutator to wear in evenly and can improve the motor's overall performance

This process would put a lot more stress on the brushes than a more traditional low RPM water break-in