Do you need replacement brushes for the B&D DR500 drill?

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Black and Decker Drill Model DR500

Doug Ackerman @doug4865

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Posted: Sep 9, 2016

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Do you need replacement brushes for the B&D DR500 drill?

I don't know if this a proper use of this forum. If not please forgive me.

My B&D DR500 1/2" reversible drill recently started having intermittent power outages and eventually would not power on at all. I found that one of the two motor brushes was worn down to nearly nothing and made poor contact. The other brush was only a bit longer. I found that replacement brushes were B&D part number 385733-01; lots of places had that part listed, all as "no longer available." I measured the residual brushes as 15/64" square and about 7/16" long. I found a host of online sellers (Ebay) selling 15/64" square brushes that were 1/2" to 3/4" long with attached leads, so I ordered some. My drill uses only the graphite blocks with no leads, so I (gently) sawed off the leads to get the proper length and put them in the drill motor. The drill now works fine. This was a much better solution than throwing out a perfectly good drill due to lack of a couple of tiny pieces of graphite. The brushes online are so cheap (~75 cents a pair) that you can buy several in case you mess up the saw cut. I am posting this in the hope that anyone else needing these does not have to waste as much time as I did looking for new brushes and does not have to discard an otherwise fine drill. This probably works for many more Black & Decker drills, etc that use this part number.

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2 Comments

Good start for a guide. Did you take any photos?

Sep 9, 2016 by mayer

I didn't think of taking photos. I still have the drill and I am getting pretty good at taking it apart, so I'll try to post some. You mention a guide. I could pretty easily make a pdf with description & photos of the whole process (I wrote lots of instructions in my career). Would such a document be useful and is there any good place to post one to make it readily available? Although I am working on this one motor, the concept & process could probably apply to many more. However, with the size of the internet and the number of handy folks out there, I expect such a guide should already exist and the only real value of my post is to correlate model/part numbers with suitable replacements.

Sep 9, 2016 by Doug Ackerman

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I didn't think of taking photos. I still have the drill and I am getting pretty good at taking it apart, so I'll try to post some. You mention a guide. I could pretty easily make a pdf with description & photos of the whole process (I wrote lots of instructions in my career). Would such a document be useful and is there any good place to post one to make it readily available? Although I am working on this one motor, the concept & process could probably apply to many more. However, with the size of the internet and the number of handy folks out there, I expect such a guide should already exist and the only real value of my post is to correlate model/part numbers with suitable replacements. — Doug Ackerman