Piranha motor advice

[arroldn]

I ran one a few weeks ago to check RPMs it ran hot as well. I posted also asking if this was normal. I just got 3 in the mail this week and I will be testing them.

Anyone who has experience with this motor chime in please.

[btaylor]

Wish I could help you here, but the three I have all run cool and quiet. No problems so far.
Bob

[HomeRacingWorld]

It happens. We just get a bad one once in awhile.

Just about every brand I have has had a few issues. Slot.it/NSR/Enter Brand Here all come from the same place. I have had more orange endbell Slot.it motors fail than any other.
Sometimes a bad batch gets through...the key is customer service when it happens. I would imagine SCC would take care of you, especially if you purchased through them.

We ran a whole Sportsman Race with these motors and not one problem. I have 10 now and 2 of those have seen 4 to 5 hours non-stop running on my test bench. Put them into 2 of my Sportsman cars and they run great.

[HomeRacingWorld]

:text-yeahthat:

Thanks for posting the follow up sir.

[SlotCarCorner]

Hello Everyone,

Overall the Piranha motor has had very few problems (3 that I'm aware of). In the unlikely event you should have a problem:

1) Contact us directly (email, phone, smoke signals, morse code, etc.) - while we make it a point to frequent HRW, we don't always pick up these posts right away. We do our best to return phone calls and emails in a timely fashion. And for the record, we don't bite..

2) Please return the problem motor to us (this won't hold up getting a replacement in the mail to you). We'll explain how to do this when you contact us.

Thank you for your continued support!

:text-thankyouyellow:

[btaylor]

Cant get any better service than that!
The really important question has not been answered yet as far as I am concerned, That being....Do Dum-Dums come with that replacement motor?

just askin
Bob

[chappy]

Dum Dums eh,,, Up here we get a big bag of go fast jelly beans from Christian.
The more you eat the faster you get mmmmmmmmmm jeellllly beeeeaaannss in my Homer Simpson voice
As for the motors, I now have 4 or 5, nada problemos.
1 NSR Shark at double the price no brakes.
Like Harry says it happens to them all at some point.
It boils down to customer service .
Bob C

[Audi1]

A 3 Volt break-in should never be enough to damage a motor. After running-in my motors for 3-5 minutes at a 3V-12V ramp; in order to sort out the good ones from the not-so-good ones, I routinely run them in again at: 3V - 20 min, 4.5V 0- 20 min, 6.0V - 20 minutes, 7.5V - 5 min, 9V - 5 min, and 12V - 5 minutes. I've never seen a motor overheat using this sequence.

One thing that you may want to check is the amps that you're feeding into the motor from your power supply. High amps are more apt to burn out a motor than high volts. I would not go over 5 amps in breaking in a motor. Most motors in race form, on the track will draw less that one amp. So, check your amps.

Some of the mag racers that I know will run their track voltages up to 14V. After a long heat, you can usually smell some of the motors, but I haven't seen one burn out at these voltages, unless the magnet drag was just too much for the motor.

Who said magnuts....................??

And, yes, IMO you can't do better than SCC for products, customer service and slot car knowledge.

Allan

[RichD]

When you break a motor in dust from the brushes can get caught in the commutator slots and short out the commutator. If you break in the motor at a very low voltage it will be more likely that the commutator will get shorted because the dust will not tend to sling off as much. A shorted motor will draw a lot of amps, if you have a big power supply the motor can get very hot. I break in motors at 6 volts. It is a good idea to flush the commutator with contact cleaner when you finish a break-in and also from time to time after you start using the motor. Once a motor is fully broken in it is not as likely that you will have problems with the commutator being shorted, but I have seen it happen with well used motors from time to time.
If a motor seemed to be OK the first time you tried it, but is not now running properly the likelyhood of the commutator being shorted is very high. Very often flushing the commutator with contact cleaner while the motor is running will restore full performance, but sometimes the dust is hard to dislodge. I sometimes drill a hole through the endbbell on the bottom side of the motor so I can direct the spray to the right spot. If that does not work you can take the motor apart and scrape out the slots using a thin piece of plastic.
One reason for breaking in a motor at a low voltage is to avoid damage to the commutator from arcing, one way to avoid that entirely is to spin up the motor that you are breaking in with a second motor.

[Modlerbob]

My three Piranha motors all seem to run fine and are a match for the slot.it orange endbell motor.

[RichD]

The Shoreline Model Raceways Sportsman class has used the Slot.it 21.5K motor exclusivly since we started it, but now the Pirhana motor is also allowed.

[Mayberryman]

[ecr]

I too had a problem with a pioneer motor,running way to hot !
After it was replace by Jules (thanks) I took the motor apart and found the
resistance on one of the 3 stacks was much higher than the other 2.
I can only assume this was the cause. Maybe after getting your replacement motor you may want to do a check on the armature to see if it too
has a badly wound stack.
Maybe same problem??
ecr :character-oldtimer:

[RichD]

Having one pole with higher ohms would not make the motor run hot, chances are that one of the commutator slots was shorted causing a low reading on two of the poles. Actually there is only one length of wire, hopefully with the same amount on each pole. When you take a reading you will always be reading all three poles because what you actually have is a series/parallel circuit. What you actually see is one pole with the other two wired in series and connected in parallel. Like this:



Presuming that all three poles actually have the same length of wire the readings will be 2/3rds of what one pole would read if it was separated from the other two.

[Rleog]

Rich:

Pardon the basic questions, but,

1) what do you use for contact cleaner?

2). Drilling a hole in the end bell could be viewed as tampering by some race directors. What other method would you use to clean the commutator slots without taking the motor apart? Do you ever immerse a motor in fluid to clean it?

Thanks
Bob G