DIY: Sensor Brush Visible Dust Motor Replacement

Not much have changed since I bought my "Never Leave Home Without it" Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly 724 and The Sensor Loupe kit and the way I clean my sensors.

In a previous 2008 post I taught you how to clean your sensor (Cleaning Dust Bunnies With a Butterfly), I know that back then we were in 2008 and cameras were not so evolved in auto cleaning sensor technology now in 2013 a lot has changed but since then the only real factor that changed was an upgraded the Arctic Butterfly new version the 724 (Super Bright) which now is equipped with 2 super bright LEDs Sensor Brush and changed it's color to a marine blue ;)

This Arctic Butterfly been traveling with me all over the place, from dusty environments to some splashy ones and well... a couple of weeks ago the brush motor just got it's last days and at a certain point it stopped rotating completely.

So I decided to make my hands dirty and find a replacement for it.

It's been a while that I did not post anything here on the blog on DIY (Do It Yourself) matter so here goes this post, to the fans of DIY, that I hope it would help you save a couple of bucks on buying a new one.

I will take you step by step on how to simply replace the motor with a much better and quite one ;)

Enjoy

Well first it took me a couple of days to really find a replacement unit for the motor itself. Just because I did not have any clue or idea what kind of motor or what type and RPM the guys at Visible Dust were using for theirs.

Luckily I found, here in Europe, RobotShop.com and these guys have almost any kind of motors for... well just take a look at their page and you will see what I'm talking about.



Well first let's start with the gear we need to make this simply replacement.

This is an easy procedure and what we need is:

- Damaged Arctic Butterfly ;)
- New motor Brushed DC Motor (RM1A) RB-Sbo-48
- Small knife to open the plastic case (nothing special here) and actually do not even need to cut.
- Welding Iron
- Some soldering



First let's start with the new motor that I happily found at RobotShop and that you can safely order has they ship very quickly to any place in Europe

Here is the direct reference for the motor

Brushed DC Motor (RM1A) RB-Sbo-48

It's not the same motor as the original Arctic Butterfly but it fits perfectly.



Here you can see the back part of the new motor RM1A with the connections. 



Here is the label order :)



Then I just attached the brush to see if it fit's the hole and it works, Excellent !!!



Next Step, you just open the battery cover of the Arctic Butterfly, remove the batteries and put the brush inside the protective cover so it won't get contaminated with oil or dust.

REMEMBER that the bush tips cannot touch anything or else it will contaminate your sensor with dust or oil particles. This is a tool that needs to always be clean, just remember that.



Now lets carefully open the Arctic Butterfly by starting near the button switch. This would be a much easier place to start open it up as soon has you lift it it will pop open. Not too much pressure needed.



Here it is... this is what looks inside.



Now let's remove the button switch and put it aside so you don't loose it.



This is the switch button and you can see the hole where it connects to the switch inside the cover and this is, when you assemble it later on, the part that goes down inside the hole.



Next you carefully lift the motor. You can see here that my motor had already a couple of visible damage and time corrosion and also some kind of oil inside??? (go figure...)



Closer look at the motor.



At this point you can clearly see that it has 2 soldering connection one by the red cable and the other on the yellow cables that goes also connects to the 2 front led's. Also notice that at the yellow junction is an iron part connected that comes from the battery connector and also needs to be soldered with the yellow cables.



Let's Start by unsoldering the red cable has this would be much easier to start from.



Now to the other side we unsolder the yellow connection cables.



Here is the connected silver iron that I talked earlier and that also needs to be soldered with the yellow cables so the motor can have it's power.

(This iron piece can be easily removed and later on put it to place with no problem).



Let's take a look at a side-by-side on the motors. On the right you have the new one and at left the older model.

You can see now that they are different and also the connections are on a different position but the new one fits almost perfectly in the cover.



This is what looks like when you remove the old motor. You see that the box it's full of some kind of oil that later on I've cleaned before putting the new motor. Maybe this happens because the motor is opened... well who knows...



To make it easier to solder I just put some solder on the tips before I started the procedure this way it will ensure me a quick solder of the parts. I've solder the + side to the red wire.



You can see that I've also removed the battery connect iron part so I can solder it better with the yellow connections.



Here in detail after putting the iron part to place. I also had to bend it a little bit has the connections were a little apart from the old motor one's.



Side by Side of the motors.



Another side by side view of the motors.



Let close this thing up by first putting the button switch into place.



Put some batteries and pray...



Insert the brush...



Ups... I noticed that something wasn't right has I tested the motor before closing and everything was working good but when I put the brush it did not worked :(

Fear not... quick and closer look revealed that at some point when closing the shaft the mother been pressed to one side and now the brush is touching one of the parts of the case.

Let's open this again and check out what is going on...



GOT IT!!!

Since the motor has a closer connections to the body part it touches this plastic mount at far back.



I just use an x-act to cut the tips of the plastic so that the motor connections would not touch it.

I did not unsolder the motor I simply and carefully moved it aside so I can cut this.



And after this last step I have my working and trusty Visible Dust Artic Butterfly working again.

What I noticed from the older model is that this one is a much more quite one and does not zuuummmbbb that much.

Hope this could help you save a couple of bucks when yours stop working.

If you want to know how to use it please also read my 2008 article Cleaning Dust Bunnies with a Butterfly