Norelco AAII Motor Lubrication

[Paul Finn]

The Norelco AAII 35/70 projectors', single motor, has oil tubes on both ends of the motor case. The tubes have screw cap/covers on the outboard ends. There is no mention of lubrication instructions for the motor in the installation-operation-service manual. Has anyone ever seen a manufacturer recommendation, or used, or developed a recommended lube procedure for these motors?

Thank you, Paul Finn

[Steve Guttag]

It's really going back a bit. I seem to recall that the MASTER motors (as used in the the later units for the USA...motors differered by vintage and country) has screw on covers for grease. As I seem to recall, you'd fill the pocket with grease and use the cover to dispense a little bit and when you ran out, you'd refill. But again, I may be confusing it with a different motor system. The clutch assembly has an oil fill on its end-cap, that I remember.

[EDIT]

If you go to the warehouse section, under field bulletins...there are the "Theatre Service Instructions." Visitor Messages talks about the Master Motors...there is a brief mention of lubrication whereby they just discuss grease on the bearings themselves. What to use and to pack them...so my memory above is incorrect. It would appear that one is to pull the motors down to get to the bearings.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Having been inside a lot of those and as old as they are, it's best to have it pulled apart, the bearings cleaned, checked for wear and replaced or just regreased. I don't ever recall seeing motor bearings looking all nice and pretty at 50+ years old. I also encountered some Master motors that had shields on both sides of both bearings. Fortunately, no one had ever lubed those and they were not full of grease. The bearings are cheap if you have your own puller and a press to install the new ones.

Anyway, Good luck.

[John Eickhof]

they are grease cups, remove caps and fill cup with short fiber bearing grease (auto wheel bearing grease) start cap on threads then depending on use, screw cap down 1/4 to 1/2 turn once every six months to a year. Short fiber grease will not harden like lithium grease will so in necessary to remove and clean, however, do not over grease as extra grease will foul starter switch contacts and get into tha armatures! this also applies to older Leland motors on Simplex soundheads and Robbins and Meyers motors on RCA soundheads.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I have yet to see any DP-70 motors with grease cups. Anyway, it's only OK if you know that the shields have been removed or were never there. Otherwise the grease is going no where except probably all over the start switch or the interior of the motor.

[Henry Atkinson]

Ours had been greased in a previous life, and part of our VFD installation process involved removing all of the grease from the air vents (!) of the top 30 FPS motors before reassembling and replacing the bottom motor with a new 3-phase unit. It made a pretty big difference in how easy the mechanism is to trial advance by hand, so do be sure to check that your motors are not over-greased, even on a motor that's just sitting idle.

[Stefan Scholz]

Mine have motors without grease caps, use normal ball bearings. Motor is a 127 V singlephase capacitor start asynchronous motor on the 1956 machine, and a smaller 3 phase 220/380 asynchronous, wired in 220 Steinmetz with start capacitor on the 1963 projector.
Otherwise, these motors are rathe old. It's definitively not wrong to give them an overhaul, cleaning, checking bearing, replacing them, checking stator windings for insulation etc.
Or convert to a modern direct drive with a coupled BLDC servo motor, the preferred and best option to keep these machines in service.