When I was at Otis, we used to blow out the motor and generators once a year, regulary.

Then I went to another company, where nobody did that, not ever. So being the new guy, I tried to do what I thought was right, and blew out a group of six cars. Generators started sparking and failing left and right. That was a particularly bad day...

So if it hasn't been blown out in quite a while, might be better to leave it alone! Maybe just clean the brush rigging to keep the loop from going to ground, as a first step. Then if it just HAS to be blown out, ok, but be careful not to fill the air with carbon dust, or it could f'up another elevator.

Yea,we blew out a Westinghouse generator and the damn thing caught on fire..sometimes better to leave enough alone..

Dont give up on blowing out motors and gen sets. If you dont the motor shop will end up with them anyway. We use a large fan and bed sheets to controll the carbon dust. Some of our guys even wet the sheets first to catch more dust. Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better.

A plastic bag or sheeting ,duct tape and a vacuum to suck up the dust inside the contained blowout area works great.

Great idea!

Dan, do they wrap the sheet around one end of the gen set, like a big sock?

http://sandersfilters.com/pp.pdf

Basically seal up as much as you can leaving access to blow out and vacuum sucking at the other end.

Yes. And then duct tape or the really big zip ties to hold them in place. The bed sheets let the air thru so you dont end up with a big baloon on your hands. And the fan at the machine room door just to move any dust that escapes headed the right direction. Of coure this is if you have an outside entrance. Otherwise the window or luvered exhaust vents work too. Over 50% of what would of been pulled and sent to a motor shop at my old company we now fix with a blower or compressor and a couple of hours! If your motor shop will be honest with you they will tell you most of their work is just cleaning.

i started doing this when the co i used to work for were bought out by otis. the only problem is you tend to set off smoke alarms which are directly connected to the fire brigade. at about $1500 a truck,the buildings get billed for false alarms which get passed on to the contractors concerned. we stopped the process. ive done it a few times and the boss was not happy.

We cover up the smokes plus all other equipment in the MR (if we can) and blow them out, the generator (or motor) is gonna come out either now or later... I've seen people wash the brush rigging and commutator with ElectraClean, totally in place - without isolating anything but the power... I for one don't wanna be around when they turn it back on.

When I started it was common practice to use an electrical cleaner, known in the industry as "SS25". I forget the manufacturer, but I remember the little movie that was shown dumping a small running motor into a 5 gallon bucket of this stuff, and it would just continue to run.

We used to put this stuff in a pump sprayer and wash out generators, motors, controls, etc...

I hear it was pulled off the market as a known carcinogen...

Wonder what's finally going to kill me? The SS25, the Varsol, the numerous other chemicals, the carbon dust, the asbestos dust, electromatic fields, or my one pack a day ciggarette habit?....LOL...

I will not shed one tear when the last generator and DC hoist motor is pulled and replaced.

not to mention "White spirits" which we can't use anymore either