What is a brushless motor, and why is it marked as a good thing? Are “brushed motors” common?
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To make an electric motor, you generally need two things: A magnetic field, and a changing magnetic field. The changing magnetic field “pushes” against the constant magnetic field and creates the rotation.
There are a few ways to do this. One is to wrap wires around parts of the rotor so that it can be made into an electromagnet. To do that, you need to supply electric current to something that is rotating. So there are electrical contacts on the rotor, and metal brushes that supply the power even as it turns. It’s a relatively cheap way to make a working electric motor and they are very common.
But as others have mentioned, brushed motors have a lot of drawbacks, such as creating electrical “noise” and wearing out. A brushless motor avoids most of these drawbacks, but they have their own set of disadvantages.
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