New life for my old Actuator

[tvropro]

I had a friend of mine make some new brushes and cut the commutator on my old 24" Thompson Saginaw actuator. Works beautiful... Now I have a spare. The Motek HARL that replaced it back in January is fine but it's good to know I have the old baby good as new on standby.

I didn't know much about the inter workings of the Saginaw before, now I know it very well.

 

[Cadsulfide]

Glad to hear it was refurbed rather than trashed

 

[esteveW]

Glad to hear of your repairs worked out. I just refurbished a 20" that was full of mud and rust after being submerged in a flood several years ago.

Steve

 

[tvropro]

The only thing wrong with the arm was the brushes were worn out really bad and the pigtails of one of the brushes was scoring the commutator. My friend took off 40 thousandths and made new brushes out of carbon stock. Then he soldiered copper squares to the pigtails and put them in front of the springs.

This thing died bigtime on New Years Eve after 19 and a half years of service. The rest of the arm was in good shape so it was worth saving and fixing. The quick fix in the winter was to replace the jack and get back up and running This allowed me to take my time, tear the Thompson apart and evaluate it.

While I love my new Motek 24" HARL I know that it will never last as long as the Thompson did. And fixing it for next to nothing vs paying $350 for a new one was icing on the cake.

Satellite Guys Members are known for trying to make the best out of anything related to our hobby. Why toss anything if you can make good use of it. :up

 

[tvropro]

Ready for another 19+years

I cleaned off the rust and painted it with Epoxy paint. It's ready for another couple decades now

 

[esteveW]

Glad to see the pictures of your Thompson Saganaw. It looks just like my 20" that I rebuilt. However, it didn't have any name info left on it. Now I know what I have.

Great job. I am missing the rubber bellow boot. But I think they are available.

Steve

 

[tvropro]

The boots are available. I like them. My HARL don't have one so I will have to see what problems may occur from this.