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Colex Vacuum Replacement

4cpro

New Member
Has anyone had experience with fixing the vaccums on the Colex Flatbed once they die? I just replaced 3 units at $215 each and two burned out 3 weeks later. They told me my operator must have tightened the retaining bolts too tightly and burned out the brushes. I have no clue about that, but I'm annoyed I have been going thought a bunch of these and just tossing them out. Now looking at buying two more...

Anyway I bought a 20 pack of brushes for $11.00 and some small copper crimps and plan on putting new brushes in and hopefully fixing them for at a cost of $1.25.

Will post the result but just wondering if anyone had done this. It just seems like throwing these things out is wasteful, expensive and stupid.
 

JBurton

Signtologist
It just seems like throwing these things out is wasteful, expensive and stupid.

That it is, if all that is burnt out is the brushes. If they claim your operator torqued them too tight, they better have a torque value for you. O'reilly's rents out a torque wrench if need be.
 

victor bogdanov

Active Member
I replaced all my vacuums this year , they all went out one after the other a few weeks apart on my 4 year old machine. I'm pretty sure one of the blowers i had to replace twice.

This was some of the hardest contortion / getting into tight placed that I ever had to do. I thought is was impossible to do without removing belt but got it done, all scratched up and dirty in the end. Was all covered in some kind of black dust

All my burned out motors seemed to have something loose/ rattling inside, keeping a few spares on hand just in case

1.jpg


https://photos.app.goo.gl/nLKmuxLKzFyoaReY7
 

ikarasu

Premium Subscriber
If it's anything like the motors on our machine(non colex, but a flatbed printer) .... They may sell brushes but good luck swapping them out. The motors are cheaply built and setup to be one and done . . We replaced the brushes on one motor and ended up having to tape / glue the thing back together - and that was done by our owner who is an electrical engineer and worked on motors and rebuilding them for 30 years ... After we did one he bought 5 spares and said it's not worth saving $200 to replace the brushes.

Let me know how your brush replacement goes,I imagine they all use the same cheaper style motors.
 
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