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Milwaukee drill dead M18 system

delgriffith

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Nov 7, 2021
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I have a Milwaukee drill that is completely dead, no movement or buzzing. The battery is good, works in another drill. I replaced the stator, control board and switch, still nothing. I get voltage on the terminals to the control board. As far as I can tell, the only other thing to replace is the rotor. But it seems like just magnet with nothing to fail. Does anyone know how a rotor could fail completely? And any way to test it? Anything I could be missing? Kinda stumped on this.
 
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Whitworth

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Dec 26, 2011
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Home Depot has some holiday deals on M18 drills, $100-$150 ish, with battery.
Is it really worth it to play the throw parts at something while keeping fingers crossed game ?
 

American Locomotive

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Jan 8, 2017
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As others mentioned, do you get any buzzing or anything out of the drill? Does the light come on?

Some brushless tools have a separate special magnetic "encoder ring" that sensors look at to determine the rotor position. If that ring becomes demagnetized or damaged, the drill won't work. But not every brushless tool uses that. You should also make sure the rotor can actually turn. If a bearing let go, it may be binding up against the stator.
 

Spire

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Apr 5, 2006
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Kenai, Alaska
I had an out of warranty, non registered drill fail, chuck busted off. Went to Milwaukee website and requested service, sent it in and got a completely rebuilt unit back a few weeks later.
 
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delgriffith

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Nov 7, 2021
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Home Depot has some holiday deals on M18 drills, $100-$150 ish, with battery.
Is it really worth it to play the throw parts at something while keeping fingers crossed game ?
It's a mag base drill close to $2k new. It does not buzz at all. the work light does come on. bearings turn freely.
 

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5ubtle

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It's a mag base drill close to $2k new.
What is the model number?

Service parts for Milwaukee mag drill 2887

I assume that you are using factory, new service parts? Even so, "new parts" does not equal "working parts".

I agree that there doesn't seem like much to go wrong in the rotor other than the encoder. Do you see how the encoder works?

Pictures of the stator and control board could be helpful.
 
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delgriffith

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Nov 7, 2021
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why not take it in to Milwaukee tool for a repair quote?
Out of warranty and because as far as I could tell there was only one "part" available to fail - stator, control board and switch are all one part in the catalog. If bearings, gears and battery are good, and they are, the only other part to fail is the rotor which is just a magnet that looks fine and is very magnetic. I am starting to think I may have a bad new part from China, as 5ubtle mentioned. Although the "Encoder" isn't clear to me, if that's integrated with the rotor I don't see it. Here are stator pics. I'll follow up with model, it's not nearby right now to check.

Thanks!
 

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visionguru

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Does the control board get power? Is there a fuse somewhere? I'd sort out any mechanical (such as switches) and power issues before suspecting the new parts.
 

Maui

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I would verify the switch is actually working as intended. That is one part that often fails on drill presses eventually, and I have a very old hand drill where that hapened recently. One way to bypass it is to put an inline on/off switch in the power cord which is probably what I will end up doing on mine.
 

IndyGarage

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Maybe this is a dumb observation, but you actually have three components: The Switch in a brown box. The controller in a black rubberized box and the motor driver board/stator. I think the black box might be the problem. That's where the "whistling sound" comes from on a cordless tool.

If all three of them come as one repair part, then you probably got a bad one.
 
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delgriffith

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Nov 7, 2021
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Maybe this is a dumb observation, but you actually have three components: The Switch in a brown box. The controller in a black rubberized box and the motor driver board/stator. I think the black box might be the problem. That's where the "whistling sound" comes from on a cordless tool.

If all three of them come as one repair part, then you probably got a bad one.
Yeah they all come as one, and I've tested that it gets power on the black control board. If that part alone should hum when power is applied regardless of what condition the rotor is in, it doesn't.
 
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