heat shrink/stress releiver? What is this?

[JeffEmbracedDC]

Hey, guys. On most brushless motors there is a piece of large heat shrink wrapped around all 3 wires right where the wires come out of the motor. I know the heat shrink isn't a stress reiver, so what is it? Are you not supposed to bend the wires past that point? can I remove the heat shrink and bend the wires flat along mt motor so they don't stick out 1/2"?

Thanks, guys.

-J

[Rtsbasic]

Its a bad idea to bend those wires close to the motor hence the reason for stiff heatshrink wrapped around them. They're the actual motor windings your moving, so bending them too close to the motor can cause them to potentially short, and other bad things.

[JeffEmbracedDC]

Hmmm.. My configuration really doesn't allow for the huge stiff wires to come straight out. Do you have any idea what options I might have? Thanks.

-J

[JeffEmbracedDC]

and, what "other bad things" could possibly happen? Thanks, RTSBasic.

-J

[Rtsbasic]

if you hold the windings in place where they leave the motor with a pair of pliers, then gently bend them around with another pair of pliers, you should be fine. I've done that to one of my motors before to accommodate the car it had to go in. Means you don't have quite as much of the wire poking straight out.

A few companies make motors that don't have the windings sticking out like that. The Mamba motors don't, nor does any sensored motor.

Other "bad things", you can snap strands inside the windings, so you don't get full power and can cause cogging issues.

[JeffEmbracedDC]

Thanks. That's pretty much what I figured. I bent them over gently and held the windings in place against the can so I thik I'm OK. I just hope the motor works when I go to turn it on :(.

I have a mamba system for my TC4 and yeah, the windings must all be internal, but I just picked up a fegaio for my hyper 7 conversion and it's got these massive hard wires sticking right out of the side.

Got one more question: How do I find out which of the wires of the motor are which (R, W, B). Is it the same configuration as the mamba max motors (which is R-W-B when looking directly at the end bell). Thanks!

-J

[Rtsbasic]

To be honest, I'm not sure. I use plugs on all my motors, so if it spins the wrong way, you can just switch any two of the plugs to reverse its direction. Very handy :) There's no particular order for the motor wires, you can't damage anything by having them in a random order.

[JeffEmbracedDC]

Great! That's good to know. I'll just change them till it's right. Thanks!

[Rtsbasic]

No problem mate, good luck with the Hyper 7 :)

[JeffEmbracedDC]

Well, I set it up and turned it on and it seems to run fine. I haven't used it before, so I don't know if I may have lost any power or am having more cogging than usual, but it seems to run ok. I'll do some more testing tomorrow after I tune my ESC better to the car and motor.

-J

[Demon-TC3]

STILL JELLOUS JEFF!

hehe good luck with the Hyper.

[Joe Ford]

Jeff...wire colors mean 0 in motors. You have to plug it in and run it to find out if it's going to run the direction you want it to. If it doesn't just swap any two wires and you're good to go. As for the piece of shrink near where the wires exit the can, that is to insulate the wires from the side of the motor. If it wasn't there and they touched the side of the can you'd be combining phases of the motor and it wouldn't move an inch...only cog and potentially blow the ESC. Our motor have terminal ends inside the endbell...the wires sticking out are not the windings themselves, but most other motors this is not the case. As for the cogging, what is the entire system? Car, gearing, final drive ratio, batteries (# of cells, manufacturer, and capacity please), if NiMH how many charges/discharges on the pack, battery connectors, programming in the ESC, how close is the ESC to the receiver, calibrated to your transmitter, etc? Let me know.

[JeffEmbracedDC]

Jeff...wire colors mean 0 in motors. You have to plug it in and run it to find out if it's going to run the direction you want it to. If it doesn't just swap any two wires and you're good to go. As for the piece of shrink near where the wires exit the can, that is to insulate the wires from the side of the motor. If it wasn't there and they touched the side of the can you'd be combining phases of the motor and it wouldn't move an inch...only cog and potentially blow the ESC. Our motor have terminal ends inside the endbell...the wires sticking out are not the windings themselves, but most other motors this is not the case. As for the cogging, what is the entire system? Car, gearing, final drive ratio, batteries (# of cells, manufacturer, and capacity please), if NiMH how many charges/discharges on the pack, battery connectors, programming in the ESC, how close is the ESC to the receiver, calibrated to your transmitter, etc? Let me know.

Hey, Joe. I noticed your location is Olathe, KS, and from what you're explaining it seems like you're talking about the castle creations CMS36 motors. The motor I have been refering to is a fegaio 540C8XL motor and with that motor I believe that the wires coming out are indeed the motor windings. The cogging issues I was having was due to the drag brake setting on the ESC. When I let off the throttle and tap the throttle again it would jerk around. I set the drag brake to 0% and it worked as I had expected. I'm happy with how everything has turned out so far and it seems to be running great. Thanks for your concern, Joe! If you are a castle guy, do you guys sell the mamba max ESC plastic tray/cases separately? I was changing the battery leads tonight and got a little too close to the plastic and melted it a bit. It's still solid, but it looks bad :) Thanks!

-J

[Joe Ford]

I am a Castle rep...work in t"he moat" (aka tech support). ;) Shrink still has the same function, but you're correct...on the Feigao's it is the winding coming out of the motor. As for the case, what did you do?!? Soldering on the ESC itself voids the warranty!!! Drag brake shouldn't have had an influence on off the line performance...you sure you didn't mean punch control? Please advise. I can get you out a case if you send an email to support@castlecreations.com ;)

[JeffEmbracedDC]

Wha? Soldering on new wires to the exposed soldering tabs/oles voids the warranty? Are you serious?.. also, the drag brake didn't cause issues off the start. Let's say I let off the throttle to turn a corner. When I hit the throttle again to round the corner it would jerk a little bit. It was the transition between the brake and accelleration that was jerking a little bit. I'm not sure if that's cogging, or what that might be. Thanks! But yeah, does soldering on new leads seriously void the warranty? You've gotta be kidding me :( It doesn't say that in the back of the manual where it lists the items that the warranty doesn't cover (abuse, neglect, damage due to incorrect wiring, over voltage, overloading) Thanks.

-Jeff

[Demon-TC3]

Ive never seen an ESC where soldering to the solder tabs voids the warrenty...Joe is that what you understand or did you think he got a wire and for some reason soldered it to the case... :confused:

Still i cant see why soldering to external solder tabs would void warrenty!

[Rtsbasic]

Indeed, I always thought that was the advantage of exposed solder tabs, so you can change the leads if they become damaged? Not that I've needed to on my Mamba, but its not an uncommon thing.