SpEEdyBL
08-12-2007, 04:11 AM
As you may have heard, I mentioned earlier that I was going to test the Feigao 8xl against the Novak HV4.5 System. Well, things didn’t go to the best of my luck. Although I managed to prep my Ofna MBX R2 for a brushless system and battery quite easily, it all went down hill from there. My Novak HV4.5 ran fine in the buggy with nine and eleven tooth pinions at first, but every two to five minutes consistently, a tire would come of a rim or an outdrive that gets secured by a set-screw would come loose. I never got to take proper temp readings because continuous runs were to short.
The next thing I knew, the motor shaft snaps off as if it were nothing. This was at the very beginning of the 3rd charge of the pack 5000mah 4s pack I was using. I touched the throttle once, the vehicle moved about two feet and the motor was suddenly free spinning. The motor mount that I made out of a spare 3.5mm thick chassis I admit was not as sturdy as it could be, but it wasn’t wobbly enough that the pinion gear would skip across the spur. It took a bit of muscle ot wobble it at all really.
Now that I could no longer run my HV4.5 motor, I decided run my 8xl/MM combo before placing an order for a replacement rotor on Towerhobbies. I mean, something else might break. Naw, really? After about 7 minutes of running geared 20/51 (really high btw FDR ~ 8:1) both motor and esc were above 190F and many of the teeth of both the front and rear STEEL bevel gears had crumbled to bits! Not only that, but when I checked the motor, the rear endbell was loose. I didn’t even think it was screwed on all the way to begin with. In fact, when I opened the motor up out of curiosity, I found that the endbell could not have been screwed on all the way because the length of the shims added to the length of the rotor was shorter than the internal length of the can! Of course I should mention that the rotor may have been defective to begin with and before I start, just to give you an idea of how cheap Feigao motors are, the 45mm xl rotor was made out of one 30mm long segment, and one 15mm segment side by side. The rotor I had was defective because the two segments were not even touching! They were about 1mm apart, which caused the poor fit inside the can. It appeared as if they were touching at one point, because it could be seen where the broken glue joint that held them together had lined up, but it doesn’t explain why the motor wasn’t screwed on all the way to begin with.
My bad luck doesn’t end here. In fact I’m about half way through so you can stop reading incase you are already overwhelmed. Lets take a look at my shopping list now. A new rotor and new bevel gears of course, but also a pinion gear that would fit directly on a 1/8” shaft (without a 5mm to 1/8” bore reducer, which was needed for the other pinions.) Once my orders came in the mail, I went out to try the HV4.5 again with the new 12 tooth pinion gear. The new bevel gears were installed and this time I put spacers on the bevel pinion for a better mesh in the gearboxes. Guess what. Two minutes into the run, while the vehicle was moving at full speed, the pinion gear pops off and the car goes flying into a curb. Only the bumper broke, but I lost the gear. What now? Now I still have my ll tooth pinion gear. I tried to run that. Finally some luck, but still not lucky enough. After two esc thermals and one motor thermal over the course of a 24 minute run, (I was fairly light on the throttle, which also may have contributed to the high temps and I wasn’t running the included heat sink on the motor) an outdrive falls off; a different one than before! Just as I was going to get my first full run! My pack had about 1000 mah left in it! I’ve gotta say, that really pissed me off. You want to hear the end of the story? The next run after that, I go to a giant parking lot w/ no bumps and the motor shaft snaps off once again less than 5 min into the run. And for the sake of complaining, while I desperately needed to have heavier shock oil in the in front shocks than in the rear . The bottle labeled 80wt that I bought had thinner oil than another bottle with 55 wt. Same brand and everything. It just goes to show how this isn’t totally my fault! Now I can rant about how unlucky I am but you get the idea. Also, you may be wondering why i didn't use thread lock. I'm not lucky with that either.
The next thing I knew, the motor shaft snaps off as if it were nothing. This was at the very beginning of the 3rd charge of the pack 5000mah 4s pack I was using. I touched the throttle once, the vehicle moved about two feet and the motor was suddenly free spinning. The motor mount that I made out of a spare 3.5mm thick chassis I admit was not as sturdy as it could be, but it wasn’t wobbly enough that the pinion gear would skip across the spur. It took a bit of muscle ot wobble it at all really.
Now that I could no longer run my HV4.5 motor, I decided run my 8xl/MM combo before placing an order for a replacement rotor on Towerhobbies. I mean, something else might break. Naw, really? After about 7 minutes of running geared 20/51 (really high btw FDR ~ 8:1) both motor and esc were above 190F and many of the teeth of both the front and rear STEEL bevel gears had crumbled to bits! Not only that, but when I checked the motor, the rear endbell was loose. I didn’t even think it was screwed on all the way to begin with. In fact, when I opened the motor up out of curiosity, I found that the endbell could not have been screwed on all the way because the length of the shims added to the length of the rotor was shorter than the internal length of the can! Of course I should mention that the rotor may have been defective to begin with and before I start, just to give you an idea of how cheap Feigao motors are, the 45mm xl rotor was made out of one 30mm long segment, and one 15mm segment side by side. The rotor I had was defective because the two segments were not even touching! They were about 1mm apart, which caused the poor fit inside the can. It appeared as if they were touching at one point, because it could be seen where the broken glue joint that held them together had lined up, but it doesn’t explain why the motor wasn’t screwed on all the way to begin with.
My bad luck doesn’t end here. In fact I’m about half way through so you can stop reading incase you are already overwhelmed. Lets take a look at my shopping list now. A new rotor and new bevel gears of course, but also a pinion gear that would fit directly on a 1/8” shaft (without a 5mm to 1/8” bore reducer, which was needed for the other pinions.) Once my orders came in the mail, I went out to try the HV4.5 again with the new 12 tooth pinion gear. The new bevel gears were installed and this time I put spacers on the bevel pinion for a better mesh in the gearboxes. Guess what. Two minutes into the run, while the vehicle was moving at full speed, the pinion gear pops off and the car goes flying into a curb. Only the bumper broke, but I lost the gear. What now? Now I still have my ll tooth pinion gear. I tried to run that. Finally some luck, but still not lucky enough. After two esc thermals and one motor thermal over the course of a 24 minute run, (I was fairly light on the throttle, which also may have contributed to the high temps and I wasn’t running the included heat sink on the motor) an outdrive falls off; a different one than before! Just as I was going to get my first full run! My pack had about 1000 mah left in it! I’ve gotta say, that really pissed me off. You want to hear the end of the story? The next run after that, I go to a giant parking lot w/ no bumps and the motor shaft snaps off once again less than 5 min into the run. And for the sake of complaining, while I desperately needed to have heavier shock oil in the in front shocks than in the rear . The bottle labeled 80wt that I bought had thinner oil than another bottle with 55 wt. Same brand and everything. It just goes to show how this isn’t totally my fault! Now I can rant about how unlucky I am but you get the idea. Also, you may be wondering why i didn't use thread lock. I'm not lucky with that either.