Fein Turbo II - suddenly the motor isn't running?

[mrFinpgh]

I've had a Fein Turbo II for 9 years. It's been used for all sorts of renovation work around my house and of course a lot of various woodworking projects. 

For the most part, I keep it in my basement, hooked up to a dust deputy that I just recently made a larger box for.  I was using it yesterday to vacuum up dust from my bench so I could clear some space for an order of veneer I just received. It was working fine.

This afternoon, we were prepping some floor for tile (see my other thread..) and i needed to clean up some flaked concrete and dust from some holes.  I hauled it upstairs (the worst part about the vacuum.. the handle is not ergonomic) and plugged it in. I asked my wife to switch it on, nothing happens. i thought she might have switched it to 'auto' so she tried the other way.. still nothing. 

It is definitely getting power : the lights come on, and the power adjustment indicators work ok.  It seems like the motor is just not getting the message. 

I have a lot of stuff on my to-do list, but if I can avoid running out and buying a new dust extractor I'd obviously prefer to do that.  Anyone have an idea about where I should begin to poke+prod to see if I can fix this?

Thanks,
Adam

 

[Michael Kellough]

Very likely the brushes have worn down and are now too short.
Might not be too difficult to replace them.

 

[TinyShop]

I second the brushes angle..

Also, but on a separate matter, take a bicycle tube and use it to tightly wrap the handle (like wrapping a handlebar) and, voila!, comfy handle. 

 

[Cheese]

3rd vote on the brushes...but a side note is that Fein really doesn't support their equipment in the same manner as Festool & Milwaukee.

I have an older Turbo II and virtually every part is no longer available. If you want to put some life into your current vac, I'd suggest you act sooner than later.  [smile]

The Fein vacs are fantastic but the support is negligible.

 

[mrFinpgh]

Thanks guys.  I also had a 1/2" drill fail theatrically on me this evening while mixing thinset. It had performed that job many times before with structolite, thinset, joint compound,etc..  guess it was just time for it to go. Today was not my day.

Looks like everyone thinks the brushes could be the culprit. Makes sense that they would be worn out - I use that vac with any other power tools I run, and also with a lot of the renovation work I'll run it for long periods rather than turning it on and off every few minutes.  Would that cause the motor to stop working so suddenly?

Looks like Fein doesn't stock brushes for my model (the older one with the round canister) anymore:
https://etk.fein.de/spc/index.php?r=item/list&id=8494

Is there any way to determine whether some other carbon brushes could be substituted for the original ones?

 

[Michael Kellough]

I changed the brushes on my Turbo II years ago and got a couple more years out of it. The second time it quit I found dozens of little pieces of copper wire all over the place. The Turbo II lasted from 2002 to about 2019. Replaced it with a Flex vac.

A couple years ago my CT Mini quit suddenly. Opened it up and found out the Festool brushes have a clever little kill switch built in. A tiny plastic rod mounted on a spring is inside the brush. When the carbon wears down far enough the non-conductive rod erupts from the end of the brush and immediately stops the current.

When I called Festool to buy brushes I was told they didn’t sell brushes, just the motor. They said when the brushes wear all the way down the life expectancy of the motor is also at an end. I posted something about it in the FOG and Christian O. happened to notice and I got a call from Indiana to get my address so they could send replacement brushes. Unfortunately sent brushes for the wrong vac. By then I had found brushes by searching photos on the net that looked nearly identical and cost very little. I only had to bend something to get them to work.

Brushes are pretty simple. Get one out of the vac and measure it. You’ll have to estimate the original length or interpolate from photos via internet search. If you find one that is close (same style of wire lead) but a little too big you can sand the carbon down to get the brush to fit the sleeve.

 

[mrFinpgh]

I changed the brushes on my Turbo II years ago and got a couple more years out of it. The second time it quit I found dozens of little pieces of copper wire all over the place. The Turbo II lasted from 2002 to about 2019. Replaced it with a Flex vac.

A couple years ago my CT Mini quit suddenly. Opened it up and found out the Festool brushes have a clever little kill switch built in. A tiny plastic rod mounted on a spring is inside the brush. When the carbon wears down far enough the non-conductive rod erupts from the end of the brush and immediately stops the current.

Brushes are pretty simple. Get one out of the vac and measure it. You’ll have to estimate the original length or interpolate from photos via internet search. If you find one that is close (same style of wire lead) but a little too big you can sand the carbon down to get the brush to fit the sleeve.

Good to be aware of.

in doing some digging, it looks like some folks are having success putting an Ametek motor in Fein vacs.  At least then i'd have a good chance at being able to get my hands on replacement parts.  It sounds like some of the fein vacs may be using Ametek for their motors to begin with.. not sure if the older Turbo II would be one of those.

Also: it looks like Fein has discontinued the HEPA filters for this model. I've used mine to collect lead paint and a variety of undesirable silicates over the years. I know that some folks put the gore cleanstream filter on this vacuum, but I'm guessing that might mean constraining it to only woodworking and plastering type activities and not using it on some of the less pleasant renovation stuff.