Electric Motors. They are everywhere that you can look even if you don’t see them working. Ever roll the window down in your car? Well, we’re guessing the answer is yes and that window rolls all because of an electric motor (or multiple).
Ever enter a garage door whether it is a house or a commercial parking lot? How do you think that the door comes up? Yup! You guessed right again, electric motors.
Electric motors are everywhere you look and you almost never see them, until you start scrapping and then you’ll see them everywhere.
Should I Take Apart My Electric Motor For Scrap?
Many people ask one of the most common scrapping questions out there of whether or not to take apart an electric motor and we tell them to try. But before you try for the first time, let us give you a little background on them.
An average electric motor that you will come across while scrapping will weigh about 10-20 pounds including the housing and all the copper and steel inside of it. Should you take it apart? That’s a tough question, but we will try to help answer it.
Math Time.
Let’s say you have a 10lb. electric motor and it is worth $0.15 per lb in scrap (prices vary of course depending on market demands, etc.) which means that motor is worth $1.50 as-is.
If you take that electric motor apart you will need tools, time, and patience. These are not that easy to take apart and when you start to get all of your tools out you will have to take some serious time to do it.
On average out of the 10lbs., the copper inside is only about 10-15% of the weight which would equal about 1.5 pounds. Let’s say that your scrap yard buys the copper at .00 per pound, so you will have $3.00 worth of copper but you will also have 8.5 pounds left of steel which could be worth $0.05 per lb.
- Value w/out taking it apart = $1.50 per lb.
- Value after taking it apart = $3.00 of copper + $0.425 cents worth of steel = $3.43 for that same motor!!
You may look at that and say, “Wow! Of course, I will take it apart and double my money!!!” Just don’t forget a few things…
Negative Benefits
Time. Time is the one thing that you cannot forget to factor out of this. What are YOU worth per hour? Let’s say you are making $15 per hour at your regular job (for those of us who can’t scrap full time!) so that’s what you would make in one hours time of work.
We have tried taking apart an average-sized motor and even having all of the tools ready and knowing how to take it apart it will still take you about 7-10 minutes to dismantle them.
That means (10 minutes/60 minutes * $15 per hour = $2.50 of your time) you actually would have lost about a $1 by taking it apart if you were being paid by the hour.
Now, most of you that are taking these apart are doing it on your own time so you are not being paid and it is extra income at that point, but we still like to point it out.
How To Capitalize:
If you love taking motors apart and love scrapping then we have a few suggestions for you.
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- Save your motors up. This way instead of getting your tools out, your station prepped, and you maximize your time by doing 10-15 motors at a time.
- Watch out for aluminum wound motors. Many companies have started to use aluminum in their motor windings opposed to the traditional ones that are copper. This will yield a much smaller return on your hard work.
- Size Matters. There are a lot of smaller motors that you may want to or be tempted to take apart. Our advice is do not do it. They are just too small and not ever worth the effort.
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