I can remember using the growler in my uncle's repair shop about 50 years ago - very useful tool to have. That was back in the day when we used to remove bad starters and generators (before alternators were common) on cars and rebuild them right there in the shop instead of just replacing them with new units like they do today. I can remember rebuilding a huge starter off a John Deere tractor once.
It's been a while like 50 yrs but in auto electric shop we held a hacksaw blade over the armature and if the blade was pulled to armature, there was a shorted winding. Thanks for the video!
Thank you again good video. I used to rebuild car alternators and starters I just gave the armature the smell test and also you could see discoloration in the windings. But now days it's hard to find the components to repair starters and alternators. You can find them but you either have to drive all over the place or order them on line. Diode packs bearings and bushings used to be readily available in one county or town now you've got to hunt them down. Oh and I forgot the brushes and a few other parts.
Nice demonstration! I used to use a growler when I worked for an electric motor shop in the mid 90's. All my work was with APU's on jet planes Mainly Delta Airlines. They would send them in to have them rebuilt after so many running hours and very few had any issues but they wanted them rebuilt anyway.
Takes me back in time, I used to repair them when I worked for the Singer Sewing Machine factory in Scotland,...Happy days , nice video explains everything.
Very nice growler ya got there! Thank you very much for the demo. I got to see and hear about them at tech school 20 years ago but never got to see it in use!
nice 👌. i inherit my growler from my dad after he retired. i still use it in my repair shop up to this day and it does the job great. my dad's growler is older than me.
I have a growler and an armature lathe. I used to fix old tractor generators and starters. You can check starter armatures for shorts with it but not for opens for the fact the windings are too heavy gauge wire. My pacemaker stopped a couple of times while you had that on. Medtronic did not list Growlers but I but it would send mine into a tizzy.
Nice Vid Mike. They are still a few out there, lots of older G.A. planes still use gennies and some well equipped A & P shops have them for an occasional bench check.
Interesting. The growlers we use at the shop I work at are a different design but same principle. Most of the motors we work on are a tad bigger than that one your useing for demonstration. Setting a half ton armature on that little box would probably end badly and you wouldnt be rotateing it by hand :p Ours are more handheld and set on top of the part were testing but same basic testing procedure.
ZIGgassedUP Thanks a lot!! Older tools and equipment may be heavy and bulky and have fewer features but when I see the build quality and simplicity compared to most new items I don't even have to think about what I would rather use...
I went to a garage sale at the weekend and the woman said that she had an old grey growler, but it was a bit rough around the edges compared to this one. We used these at tech school in the 70's when I was an apprentice mechanic.
gjmob They usually are in rough shape because 20 some years ago they got pushed under the bench when starters and generators on cars became cheaper to just replace rather then repair!
Back in the early 80’s I worked for a power tool company as a tech we used a Growler unit similar to that one..also had a commutator cutter machine .those that were non repairable went in a large box back to the factory …aka recycle…now a days they end up in a landfill somewhere…great video Brother!
Good and informative video... but I stopped at 11:17... rather than flip the armature over, I would have moved the shorting washer... but I’m lazy.. LOL... now back to the video.
That is an interesting piece of equipment. The local Napa store near me still repairs generators in house. They have even converted one of my gen. from 6V to 12V for me. I imagine they probably have a growler sitting on the bench. Electric motors and generators are something that I wish I knew more about.
Nothing to them. An Armature growler, lathe and a ohmeter is pretty much it. It has been 35 years since I have worked on them. I still remember them like it was yesterday.
Start by ordering a remanufacturer kit. There are common kits available for generators, alternators, and starters as they're all pretty similar. You can save about $100 just on the rebuild by DIY too.
i used a growler back in the day god she taught me a few thngs ....lol no really used one to test armatures in small drills and hand tools the one i used you could wind up the voltage with a big knob was so cool
Mike : All around excellent vid man . Great restore work on that , It is still is a great tool to have when you have a love for the old stuff as we do !!
Very useful tool, probably even as a demagnetizer too :). I remember learning how to use one in high school auto shop. Geeze do they even have shop classes anymore?
Could you also test this by putting a ring of bare wire around the commutator, attaching it to one lead of a megger, then attach the other lead of the megger to the motor shaft, and megging it that way?
you answered your own question! i only use a multimeter... i test the armature coils and commutator and call it a day. of course the older outboard starters are so easy to rebuild / replace.
Here, in Brazil, we have a DIY armature tester, much simpler then the one you have, It is called "Ratinho". It is made out of a dishwasher motor pump. There are videos on RU-vid, unfortunately, all in Portuguese. Check it out.
Is there line voltage thru this? This thing scared me when the armature jumped at continuety check, this is the kind of tool i am quite delighted that it is not in use anymore. And that noise- i am used to when i hear that sound i immediately cut power because some went horrific wrong. But i see the usefulness in this, it would take me a while feeling safe using THAT. Nice explaining, though. You seem way more comfordable with this than I´ll ever be, keep up the good work.
Excelent video! Can you guive me some idea of the type of meter you use? I think that is an AC volt meter, but I'm interested in the full scale you can reach in each extreme setting of the knob. I have a crawler, but without the instrument. Thank you a lot.
I just got an Allen Growler, but it was smashed in shipping. Do you have a booklet or wiring diagram for these, so I could check mine out and possibly get it operable again?
I havew one made by Allen,..and it's a newer model, as the volt meter is ''built in' so to speak. I have no use for it,.but as I'm in Canada, I can't send it to you. It's been so loong since I used my Growler that I had forgotten how to use it... Cheers
I think You can compare it to an electromagnet running on AC, but the magnet field will be in the armature (normally it´s in cooperation with the stator), the hacksawblade will be drawn and retracted in the cycles of the line frequenzy from the mains, in this case (ie an electromagnet running on AC where the circuit is shorted out, that´s why it start acting weird i guess), if You live in America it will be 60 Hertz, that´s why it starts to vibrate i think. (That meter is just a Voltmeter with a reostat (adjustable resistance), same princip as in a modern multimeter, but analog instead of digital.) Sorry for my terrible English (it´s not my native language), but i hope it straightened things ot a bit more for You, it´s pretty simple once one get a basic grip on it.
I found an old SNAP ON growler a while back. Had no clue what it was.. pretty cool gadget for real. Not really my line. I should probably sell it. Let someone get some use out if it
