We have found many solid endbell motors recently with shorts. One or both brushhoods may be shorted to the endbell due to various reasons. These motors tend to run decent, but vary from losing performance to blowing up speedos quickly. This is not a new topic, but it is just becoming realized how damaging these motors can be to electronics with todays batteries and how wide spread they may be. As these motor age and work their way down they may be devastating to the average Joe's mid level equipment... and are costing many tenths they do not realize right now.

Anyone else have experience with this issue or interested?

Tekin Prez

Give us some examples of the motors with problems please.

We have found a variety of shorts in solid endbell motors from all manufacturers. Some versions are better than others... That's what we are trying to figure out by increasing our sample base. We found a higher percentage than expected within our team.

At the very least it is something we will all have to be aware of since the potential exist even from damage on any solid endbell design.

Tekin Prez

how about a picture of what your talking about, it's hard to figure from what your saying.

We are looking for shorts from the brush hoods to the endbell, can or armature shaft. These should be open. Use a basic voltage meter and check for continuity. Find 2 places on the endbell where you can measure continuity (non anodized spots), then measure from one of these to the brush hoods.

We think some of the designs are prone to shorts if banged hard or abused with the solder iron. Some motors have cleaned up indicating brush dust, some are likely worse when hot due to the thermal expansion of all the metals. Some are cap board issues or where the anadizing has worn off. Some are shorted NIB.

There should not be continuity between the hoods and anywhere... except the other hood when assembled via the brushes and windings. When there is you have a nice little heater element, wasted power and a tough load for a speedo.

Tekin Prez

OK, let me ask the question that many out there are wondering.
- What is a 'solid endbell' motor? Please give 3 examples. Extra credit for giving both brand and model.

Orion V2
EPIC Shock
Checkpoint

Jim, With all the racers that visit this forum I have never once seen anyone post about this problem. So not sure why you are seeing what you are seeing or if racers are just not generally talking about it (which I would find hard to believe ;) ).

Hank, I don't think most racers know if they have the problem.
The motor may still run.
Just get hot or have other issues, including toast the ESC.

I have seen it with a few locals, that had un-explained motor issues.
Manily with V2's.

You know, come to think of it I may have seen that problem in one of my race partners V2 last year. No matter what he did it just wouldn't run properly.

how do you fix the problem?

how do you fix the problem?

Replace the motor. :(

New end bell.

New end bell.

and for what you would likely pay for a new endbell, you can just about buy a new motor.

thats redonkulous

Jim, With all the racers that visit this forum I have never once seen anyone post about this problem. So not sure why you are seeing what you are seeing or if racers are just not generally talking about it (which I would find hard to believe ;) ).

The traditional endbells are a lot harder to short so this is relatively new, and in many cases they really do run pretty good.... but any short is a bad and has the potential to be a really bad.... The pros have had motor wires melting off, com and brush issues, runtime ... they may be dealing with it more than they think.

Shows just how tough the speedos really are and backs they really should never blow unless something is wrong..... We found a dozen in just a handful drivers, a few verified had smoked our speedo. I watched it happen and repeated it on our test track with a shorted 7x2.... then ran a 'good' 7x1 for a full battery and the speedo was just warm.

Its real and going to be around for a while.

Tekin Prez

Found another today that burned up a Rebel esc. Sure enough the motor in question had a shorted endbell to both brushhoods.... and turns out had burned up a speedo before this and why they bought the Tekin Rebel to begin with.

If we do not warranty these failures, which we should not, this may be good for sales....but bad for ave Joe...

Tekin Prez

hmmm so many years and ive never "encountered" this problem. i even used to have a version 0 of the tekin rebel. hmmm.. maybe I just dont push my cars enough to the extreme. good to see tekin talking about this... :-)

then again... when a motor doesnt work for me.. i part it out... or stick it on a lathe LOL. hahah

Solid endbells have not been around that long and many of the shorted ones run good enough that you may not notice. It appears more common than we would have expected... now that we are looking. When you sell thousands of speedos even a few percent equals a lot of unhappy and frustrated customers... that always blame us first and may get discuraged with the whole hobby.

Speedos do not break under normal operation. Something has to be wrong to go poof. Sometimes a part will break loose or just fail, but more often it is caused by an external component. We have to plug into everything and handle all the power for the battery, motor, receiver and servo... we have to understand it all.

Tekin Prez

Solid endbells have not been around that long ... It appears more common than we would have expected... Tekin Prez

Maybe more common than you expected, but it flat out amazes me that there are any that aren't shorted. After all it is practically direct metal to metal contact.

It's not direct metal to metal contact.....hard anodization basically puts a thin film of plastic over the part.....and there is glue seperating the parts also...

The problem lies either in wear and tear, as the parts begin to degrade....or in the anodization being too thin or scratched during the assembly process....

These are just some of things you will have to live with when running an aluminum endbell motor......I told Big Jim this would be an issue 3 years ago....


Later EddieO

Is this problem confined to mod motors or are stock motors affected too?

Any of the solid end motors.....