Overheating...

[Heffay]

Hi all.

RC10T

My Novak 10.5 w/ GTB is shutting down due to motor heat.
What I'm asking for here, are suggestions for heat sinks, fans, gearing solutions, or anything else you can possibly think of to make it run cooler.

My gear ratio is pretty low right now... 9.59... but, I need bigger spur gears to be able to reach a smaller pinion. I only have 81 tooth spurs at the moment.

I have no fan on the GTB.

How much draw do fans produce? Will they seriously affect my runtime on nimh?

Any and all help appreciated!

P.S. I'm after pavement speed, mostly.

[Charlie don't surf]

You need a fan on the GTB, and it needs to be the black fan, not the clear one

[Heffay]

Well, more so, I need a fan and/or heatsink on the motor, since that is what is overheating.
The sensors from the motor are telling the ESC to shut down the motor not the ESC, while leaving the steering up and running.
Being that the last owner of the GTB siliconed the trans cap to the side of the heatsink on the GTB, it covers one set of the fan mounting screws... getting the fan mounted could be difficult. But, that is not a huge issue. I don't have enough room for the fan where my ESC is mounted now, either. Those of you that mounted your ESC on the shock tower, how did you do that? I don't really want it up there, but with a fan, its about the only option.

What are fan/heatsink options and placement options for the motor? Its a fairly tight fit underneath the back of the buggy body.
I'd like to actually see some pictures, if you have them.
Thanks.

[Heffay]

Went to the hobby shop and spent waaaaay too much money.
Thank you mom for my xmas check.
Got a fan for the ESC and a heatsink/fan for the motor.
I had to fight some dude for the last black motor kit.

[Heffay]

I just resoldered the motor wires.
They were pretty damaged right near the solder joint.
Getting better power to the motor may help too... either way it looks a helluva lot better.

I got the smaller black Novak fan.
Once I got home I realized that the heat sink is "threaded" and the screws go right in and stay there... totally awesome!

The heatsink/fan I got does not fit between the motor and chassis (but it was still cheaper than the novak fan). I'll probably just mount the fan, by itself, off of the chassis and over the motor... problem is, the motor has no holes in the outer case, so I'm not sure how much a fan is going to help.

[PBR Allstar]

get a temp gun if you're gonna play with brushless stuff. I've never run brushless in a 10T so I don't have a final drive recommendation, but you have to be careful, if you thermal the motor a couple times odds are that you're going to damage it and it's not going to be 100% anymore.

if you're after raw speed why not get rid of the GTB system and get a castle system so you can run more battery? a castle setup with a 3 or 4 cell is going to be lightning fast compared to the Novak.

[Heffay]

Good points PBR.
I think I did nuke something.
Temps went sky high to the point of melting solder and shorted the battery wires along with melting heatshrink on the wires.
It was running faster than ever with all the new parts... then, chug, chug, clunk.
It gave up.
I'm not sure what happened... so many variables.

I've done a lot of testing and thought I had it narrowed down to the trans cap, but its testing fine too.
Once the solder melted, any number of things could have happened to cause this total melt down.

Its ok though... the disbelief and anger are gone now... after a couple days of staring at it.
I fully expected crap like this as I've been in the hobby previously.

I am going to redo the mechanical speed control today, since I have some extra parts.
But, it looks like I'm in the market for some more speed.
I just wish I had video of that midnight run... before the poof.

[Heffay]

As an aside... I found a great option for the motor fan, I'll post pics soon.

I'm just glad I don't have to spend more money right now to make it go.
Having an old brushed system to throw back in, makes the quest for speed a little more fun.

[Heffay]

New question...

I have the old mechanical speed control installed w/ new wires and a brand new resistor that had not been used in my kit until now. I've got the wiper tight up against the resistor, per the manual, but its still getting hot to the point that I'll burn my finger if I touch it.

Do they get ridiculously hot or is something wrong here too?

Everything is different from the system this thread was started for, so any bad electronics or possible shorts were removed.

Too much battery? I wouldn't think so... its a brand new 6 cell Tenergy NiMh 3800mah.

Its running well... but, I don't want to run it too long for fear it might turn into a fireball.

What do you guys think?

[uzzi]

Yes the resistors run very hot especially if you go at half speed alot of times. They are also not able to handle very hot motors e.g 12 turns etc.

[Heffay]

Took it out yesterday with my buddy's Tamiyas.
I've got fans on the motor and MSC... ran great!
The gear ratio was way to low, so we opted for a LHS run.
Now that I'm back into a gear ratio that a brushed motor can handle, its interesting to see the old style workings of these cars.
Much like my vintage motorcycles compared to the new plastic covered ones.

[Heffay]

Were the MSCs rated to a motor w/ a certain number of turns?
How about, say, a double wound 13 turn?

You can give me the usual advice telling me that I'll shred the tranny... but I probably won't care.
I've already had the 10.5 turn brushless system in there and the only thing it shredded was itself.
If the tranny goes, its all available at Tower.

I'm actually really liking the old MSC.
Its easy to fix and I'm not racing it, so all the know-it-alls at the track can't tell me how stupid I am.