Dead 13.5T SSPro
 

I bought a 13.5T SSPro to run in my SC10 for racing. AE recomends 75/26 gearing for the 13.5. I started with 75/25 gearing, my temps have been between 155-158, so I never geared it any higher. Guys are blowing by me on the track, I can't even clear the little double. There is no binding in the drivetrain, this thing rolls super smooth. I ran 2 weeks with this motor, first week I did pretty good, got the bump up to the A main and finshed 4th. This week I qualified better and made it into the A on the qualifying but the truck was super slow and I finished 9th, coming off the track I got hung up on the pipe and tried giving it some throttle then all the sudden the motor stopped. I quickly unplugged everything. Motor is fried, esc works with another motor. Why was this motor so much slower than everyone else and still coming off the track so warm. Will this be warrantied or is it my fault? I need to buy another motor either way as I know I won't get this one back soon enough for the next race. Is the ballistic that much better? I may have to try something else

Have you taken the motor apart to see what exactly is wrong with it?

I did take the front endbell off and pull the rotor. Rotor isn't demagged and I didn't see anything obvious. But it def smells burnt. Went to the lhs and they marked down a ballistic to within $2 of what I could order one for so I'm gonna give that a try

Hmmm...I am pretty good at diagnosing and fixing electronics, so if you want, you could send the motor to me and I could see if I can figure out what is wrong with it, and either fix it or tell you what's needed to fix it, and then send it back to you (fixed or with instructions on how to fix it). If it needs replacement parts, I could buy them, fix the motor, and then just have you repay me once I finish...or, like I said already, I could send the motor back to you with a lost of the replacement parts it needs and instructions on how to fix it.

Thanks for the offer but the motor is only a month old so I'm gonna send it back to Novak.

We offer a fixed price replacement for burnt motors---our warranty does not cover burnt stators.

You could also upgrade to a Ballistic motor. Here is our non-warranty Trade in program:

TeamNovak BL Motor Trade-In Program

The problem with overheating your motor to the point of melting the wire insulation (shorting the stator wires together) is the real overheating cannot be measured after you complete your run---it is caused by intermittent blasts of excessive current.

Novak - I thought you had built in thermal protection on Motors?

You do!!!

"Novak's award-winning SS Pro Brushless Motors offer a world-class spec-racing experience. Each SS Pro motor is equipped with a nickel-plated sintered Neodymium rotor for maximum motor acceleration, braking power and performance in high-temperature conditions, and Thermal Overload technology to ensure the motor is operating at a safe temperature. The SS Pro motors also feature a shielded-sensor cable and a completely rebuildable design, allowing for the ability to upgrade or replace various motor parts. In addition, each motor is identified by a color-specific timing ring for simple differentiation between spec motors: 8.5 – black, 10.5 – blue, 13.5 – orange, 17.5 – yellow and 21.5 – green."

So how can a user get the motor hot enough to melt the insulation yet not de-mag the rotor... Its a bit cheaky to advertise thermal protection and then not warranty it!

Thermal overload protection is active only when using the motor with a Novak controller designed with the TOP sensor activated---Havoc 1S, 2S, 3S, etc. We removed the TOP from our GTBs (for example) years ago, because racers did not want their systems to stop because the motor was overheating.

Our racing escs have not included this circuitry for years. The blue sensor wire senses the motor temp, but the circuitry must be built-into both components for it to work.

Dynamic timing escs have created a horrible issue with burning up stators; this was an important reason why we designed the Ballistics to be completely rebuildable; racers can replace their stators and weakened magnets without returning the motors for service.

We added this Motor Warning(PDF / sixth on list) to our web site front page a couple of years ago:

Technical Updates

Our upcoming Havoc Pro SC, with 8 levels of built-in timing, features circuitry that will turn off the timing when the controller starts to overheat; this allows the racer to complete the race with no timing, but protects the esc from damage.

Thansk I'm not sure what ESC he was using but suspect it was a MMP.

As you may recall I did have the same issue occur on a goat 2s platform with the crawler 18.5T - I would have expected the protection to kick in before the stator melted.

Our BL Crawler systems are similar but the blue sensor wire is enabled differently; The Goat esc must sense a Novak BL Crawler motor attached to enable the crawler specific (not, TOP) circuitry. If you use a different mfg's motor, the crawler-specific program is not enabled. If the esc does not detect a Novak CR motor, the esc reverts to standard Havoc (not Crawler) performance.

I do not know that any other mfg enables the blue sensor wire (for anything)---and, believe me, many customers don't like it a bit. They believe their options are being limited. Maybe they are; however, with the low-cost Havoc Spec systems, we didn't want beginners burning up their electronics and returning them for "free" replacements. If you damage the motor stator, or weaken the magnet, you can pull enough current thru the esc to melt it down.

Is there any way of "telling" if the ESC recognizes it is joined with a Novak motor and hence protection is enabled.

I don't want to run into the same issue again...

Our copy will explain that only Novak motors will run with certain Novak escs. As I said, only the Havocs (listed above) currently have fixed, TOP sensors enabled. In the early GTB days, racers either cut, or unplugged the blue wires to circumvent the TOP.

However, disabling the blue wire in these Havocs will prevent them from running at all....Live and learn.

Sorry I'm confused are you saying a Novak Goat 2s ESC / Novak 18.5T crawler Combo system does not have thermal protection?

http://www.teamnovak.com/products/es...oat/index.html

This seems to say in the specs that the Goat 2S includes "Thermal Overload Protection and Novak’s Radio-Priority Circuitry™ "

I was using a mmpro as arct1k assumed. I bought a ballistic 13.5 to try now, Novaks last chance with me. I will prolly trade in my burnt 13.5 for a 17.5 for the winter indoor season.

I will check

The burnt stator issue is not exclusive to Novak BL motors used with the dynamic timing escs; you can burn up any mfg's motor.

No company, AFAIK, covers burnt stators or demagged rotors under warranty. Damage to electronics, due to racing, is not covered by any company's warranty. Warranties cover only defects in materials (or workmanship) over which the factory has control. We operate all of our electronics before packaging to assure that they are operational.

Novaks definition of warrants sucks IMO! Maybe we are just spoiled by castles customer service. I didn't have my mmpro in cheat mode when this happened and I was the slowest truck on the track. Maybe I'm nieve, but it really doesn't sound like something I did. I can assure you that if castle ever releases a sensor based motor they would be the dominating company for sure, not that they aren't already!

Sorry for the harsh words but it's bs that I spent $100 on a motor, play it safe and go one tooth smaller on pinion than recomended, burn up the motor in two weeks and it's not covered, without novak even looking at it.

I love Novak electronics, and have quite a few pieces in various vehicles, and I love Castle Creations, but to be honest, the best electronics on the market are Tekin electronics, and Tekin customer-service is by far the absolute best there is...it is so far above anyone else they need space-suits!

We always evaluate returned items (with receipts) to determine whether the warranty applies; if it has a factory-caused defect, it would be covered, no charge. We have never identified a factory-caused defect that causes motors to just "burn up".

Do other manufacturers really replace burnt motors free? And, how can mfgs be held responsible for users' damaging motors by overheating? Whenever, I read other companies' warranties, they are virtually identical to ours.

Do you believe that if you damage an item, the company should be responsible for sending you a "free" replacement? We sell a lot of motors, but---up to now---no timing escs. Therefore, racers are burning up our motors with other mfgs' timing controllers---over which we have absolutely no control.

Maybe other companies feel that their escs are burning up their motors so they replace more items free?

Another point: these motors, and the stator wire used and speced in (by ROAR), were developed long before the development and introduction of the dyn timing controllers.

The escs have thermal overload protection, not the motors. Crawler motors rarely get hot enough to need TOP.

If I thought this had to do with my setup I wouldn't have a problem sucking up the cost. But as I stated I wasn't in CHEAT mode, I was geared down from the recomended gearing, I was slower than everyone else on the track , and I still burnt up the motor. As far as what other companies do, Castle stands behind their products 100%, and sometimes they will replace something even if it was the users fault, thats why there are so many castle fans on this forum. I had to Mamba Monsters fail that where manufacturing defects and they stood behind them 100% as they should. I also had one fail that was most likely my fault for getting it slightly wet but they still replaced it and the only hassle i had was that I was without it for about 2 weeks, but I bought another one cause I knew they would stand behind it. All in all though, I have only heard of a couple people that have had problems with Castle Motors.

I'm very sorry to bad mouth Novak in their own sub forum here on RC-M, I do at least thank you for being part of the forum and offering some CS through this forum. I just feel that your warranty needs a little modification. I am giving your products another chance though, my SC10 is currently waiting for the next race with a brand new Ballistic 13.5 sitting in it, I dropped the gearing from 75/25 to 78/25 and I'll see what happens with this one. Keeping in mind that the recomended gearing for a 13.5 in the sc10 is 75/26

Are we recommending this SC10 gearing?

As I said above, we will evaluate your motor for free replacement. I realize customers prefer that we replace almost everything "free"---however, that's not a strategy for staying in business. Our policy is "whoever caused the damage pays for the repair".

There are warranty 3 evaluation possibilities:

~ item was obviously damaged by customer---fixed price replacement

~ item was obviously damaged by a factory defect---free replacement

~ Cause of damage unclear/gray area---customer gets benefit of the doubt/item replaced no charge

Some companies may not want to "bother" evaluating returns, so they just send out free replacements; they may believe that the costs of "free" replacements are roughly equal to compensating the tech employees doing the inspections. We quickly evaluate warranty returns because we want to know what's going wrong right away. If we see common types of customer damage, we can do a technical update to warn other customers; also, we post the updates on forums.

The 75/26 is Associated's recomended starting point for gearing on a 13.5 Motor. If you have a different recomendation please let me know. I will send the sspro 13.5 in for your evaluation this week