Vax Rapide V-025 Carpet Cleaner Repair

This model is old but reliable and, considering the price of a modern replacement, well worth repairing.

The fault report was "went bang and stopped working". I spent an hour figuring out how to access the screws to dismantle it and ended up with it strewn on my tiny workshop floor amongst the existing clutter.

Finally, I located the fuse. The glass tube had shattered but it was safely enclosed in a plastic tube that was sealed at both ends. I also discovered a bridge rectifier enclosed with black heat shrink sleeving.

I replaced the broken 6.3A fuse with a 7A fuse in a fuseholder for ease of replacement because I still wasn't sure of the fault cause.

The bridge rectifier was completely short-circuit so I replaced that with a similar one and insulated it with heat shrink sleeving.

I reassembled the whole unit to test it. With mains power applied, the main suction motor roared into life but the smaller brush-drive motor didn't. On dismantling, it was clear that the coil of one of the suppression chokes was damaged and it tested open-circuit.

I made a temporary replacement for the purpose of testing and reassembled the motor. I connected a multimeter across the two teminals and rotated the rotor, slowly. Most of the rotor windings measured slightly less than 2000 Ohms but one was open-circuit and one measured 250 Ohms.

Conclusion June 21, 2020

The customer later told me that the brush had been full of dog hairs and had jammed. This had caused the motor to stall and overheat, causing a winding to go short-circuit. That caused the bridge rectifier to go short-circuit, which blew the fuse.

I am waiting for replies from a couple of companies that might be able to supply a replacement motor.

UPDATE August 24, 2020

I ordered a pair of motors from Alibaba website (sold only in pairs). When they arrived, they didn't match the photo. The carbon brush housings stuck out of the sides of the motor and it was impossible to fit. However, I found one on eBay that looked almost right except that the spindle was a larger diameter. I ordered it and fitted it. The brush spins at a much faster speed but it seems to work OK.

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