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Anybody know a guestimated value of an electric motor that has been tore down.

I know they go for about 25 cents a pound whole, so how about separated,

copper removed + the metal itself.

They are 1/2 hp motors.

If the copper is gone then they are just shred steel.

For something like a 1/2hp motor it usually works out better to leave them as-is and sell for electric motor price.

OK, thought maybe if there were 3lbs or so of copper it would be worth while to strip them.

I strip all my motors, But I have a place that pays top dollar for the windings. I strip compressors also. If I see that it is a AL winding then I leave them intact and sale them whole. Or I will take the Cast off the ends and sale as the shell and guts.

I got myself to curious, I went out and stripped one and got all the copper separated
and ended up with 2.77lbs worth. I have a few more and I will strip them too even
though its a little time consuming. My shop is my kick back area so as long as I'm
killing a little time (which I have) so why not. It will more than double the price.

Can you weight them as you do them. Get a before, copper after, steel after, AL after. with that you can get the full return rate and with a spread sheet find how much better you are doing.


I have done this with heavy compressors and found the copper return rate on them to be %8. Give or take.

Hades12 wrote:Can you weight them as you do them. Get a before, copper after, steel after, AL after. with that you can get the full return rate and with a spread sheet find how much better you are doing.


I have done this with heavy compressors and found the copper return rate on them to be %8. Give or take.

Yea I'll do that later, still have everything separated.

It had just over 14 lbs of other than copper. A 2nd one had 3.13 lbs of copper in it, different type of motor.

How much time is it taking to pull the copper? I tried a large (30 HP) motor once and didn't think it was worth the effort. I've never tried cleaning small motors.

It took me an easy 1/2 hr to remove the copper. If your time is valuable its probably not worth doing.

Unwinding motors and transformers is a pain in the butt.

No problem here. It's illegal for scrap yards to buy stripped wire and motor windings in AZ.

Find a way to squish them into a block so you can ship cheep and I will sale them to my yard.


I use an air hammer, and a few heads to do motors. and do them as a batch. so first I take off the ends with the air screwdriver and a ratchet, use a cut off to strip the steel case. use a cutter bit inbetween the plates to cut off one end, then use a ball joint head to push the copper out of the core.

So far I have done several thousand pounds.

abe wrote:It took me an easy 1/2 hr to remove the copper. If your time is valuable its probably not worth doing.

That's better production than I had with a larger motor. I'll have to try some small ones. Thanks.

I have an alternator from my pickup that I've been thinking about tearing down for the copper. After reading this post I've got a feeling it's not going to be near as easy as I thought to crack open!

alternator should open with about 3 screws, may have a push tab also that you need to push.


Motors are easy once you have do a few of them. Except Steppers, they go in the motor bucket with the transformers and AL motors.

Hades12 wrote:Motors are easy once you have do a few of them. Except Steppers, they go in the motor bucket with the transformers and AL motors.

What's a Stepper?

A stepper motor has several fields and each one is wrapped around a small space. Kind of like a transformer.

In this image each of the squares on the out side is a seperate "coil" of copper. Lots of work to cut them up and not worth the time. If I can remember I threw one in the motor bucket a few days ago and I will get a pic of it. Newer HVAC that has veriable speed motors are Steppers.

Are the stepper motors good for making wind generators?

This is a stepper motor.

Not sure if it would work as a generator or not. it works by making a field that attracts the pole on the shaft, then making a field next to it and letting the first go. That is what makes them variable speed and there are electronics involved to do all of it.

Taijitu wrote:Are the stepper motors good for making wind generators?

The easiest and cheapest thing to use for a wind generator is an old GM alternator. They've got a 12V regulator built in, and you can pick them up for next to nothing (they were $20 new/rebuilt a few years ago). Just use the appropriate pulleys between the blade shaft and alternator to get it up to the correct speed, and an inverter on the other side of a battery bank to get 120V AC power.

I wonder what the internal AC voltage is of an alternator. Why change it to DC just to take it back to AC.