This morning's project was inspection of the motor and the foot pedal. I took apart the motor casing, cleaned out the dust (which was -really- not bad at all!), examined the brushes (in great shape!) and added a wee teflon washer to the inside non-pulley end of the motor axle (do we call it an axle or something else?), to take a bit of the play which was present. I think the motor is fine, wiring-wise, but as that is stepping out of my territory just yet, I am going to show it to someone more clever at these things.
The foot pedal is another story. I found that I had to step -way- on the pedal in order to get the motor to kick in, and when it did, it was fairly full-on. Inside the foot pedal, there were a few dust bunnies, but more alarmingly, this small hunk fell out; it looks to be made of the same material as the carbon brushes. I am showing a pin, for scale:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]441426[/ATTACH]
Next, inside the rheostat, I know that there are two columns of approx 100 carbon discs. I wanted to take a look at all the contact points leading up to those discs. Here is as far as I can get. What looks to be like it should be a capped-nut sort of thing on either side, is only one, and the other side looks like a broken off stump of what appears to be that carbon-brush-type material again. The capped-nut type hardware which is intact also feels as though it is that material. So, I am hypothesizing that these two caps are indeed made of carbon, and one broke off.
Is this rheostat irrevocably hooped? Can these odd little outdated bits be replaced? I so dearly hope so. Here is a photo. I am sorry if I am not using the correct terminology; this is all rather new to me, insofar as electrical things are concerned. I would really appreciate any pointers. I know I can get a new foot pedal, but I'd rather not, for two reasons; firstly, the cost, and secondly, if it really is as simple as a wee piece of carbon, then I cannot stomach the thought of this all going to waste.
I hope someone here can help! Here are photos of the rheostat, showing the one intact and the other broken bit:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]441427[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]441428[/ATTACH]