ok my motor is acting up and im getting fed up.

[trw]

I'm running a Trinity Chameleon Pro 2 19 spec in my TC3 right now with manual recommened gearing, well actually it doesnt state 19-turn in the manual but it does state to run a 26-tooth pinion with a 16-turn and a 26-tooth for a 36 degree stock motor so 19-turn is between there so it must be the same, but my motor is going so slow all of a sudden. Saturday it was running real fast, fast enough to outrun a Speed Gems 16x2 motor, then Sunday, i put a new body on my car (HPI Porsche 911 Turbo) but it was rubbing the ground, plus i was trying to find a way to gain better handling, so i raised the front end of the car by about 1 or 2cm, and i loosened my rear differential so i wouldnt slid out around corners so much, and then i charged my battery and all of a sudden my car must have lost atleast 5 mph in top speed, and its acceleration felt very weak.

So today i installed some brand new Reedy 769 brushes, there was no change in performance, it felt as if it had lost even more performance. I've rebuilt the darn motor 3 times and cant seem to figure out whats going on, the comm is perfectly cut, brushes brand new, i even took out the motor and rolled the chassis across a hard floor, it cant get any smoother.

im so...lost :confused:

[trw]

Saturday morning i also installed an Anti-roll bar in the rear.

[TC3-MikeB]

How much did you loosen the diff?

[trw]

i loosened it to the point where it was almost as loose as the front but not quite as loose.

[Animeboy123]

i would just set the car back up to how it was before all of this happened and run the car, if that doesnt work try taking it to your LHS abd see what they think.

[Cain]

Have you tried dynoing the motor at all? if you had a previous dyno number and the current numbers on the same dyno, at least you could get an idea of what the motor is putting out?

Is it possible that you hoods are miss aligned?

Did you make sure and check the actual tension on the brushes using something like the fiddlestick? ( don't trust the colors of the springs, the tension can change as the brush wears as well as when the spring heats up ).

When was the last time you had the magnets zapped? Trinity uses low grade magnets in there motors, when they are new the motors will rip great but you have to zap them every so often unlike the Reedy Magnets in there newer motors ( I think orion also uses reedy style magnets as well ).

You should try all of these things and I think you will get your motor back to at least close to top form.

[trw]

how do u zap a magnet?

[rocknbil]

With a specialized machine that remagnetizes them.

<dons flame suit>

I've been at this for 10 or 15 years. Dynoing motors, cutting comms (and over-cutting them,) and zapping magnets are esoteric things that are not only over-rated, are only good for a slight increase in power, nothing major like you mentioned.

I have my own lathe and have cut hundreds of motors, and have been through 5 diamond bits over the years. One thing everyone seems to ignore is that as you cut the comm you decrease it's diameter. As the diameter decreases, you advance the timing, and you wind up actually losing power over the original comm after the 4th or 5th cut. I do not agree with some of the comm-cutting "rules" I've seen. I cut a comm when it shows visible wear at the ends of the brush "track," not every 5 or 6 runs. That's just a waste, IMO.

While there's no doubt some magnets are stronger than others, again, the gain is small and **really** shows itself in motor torque rather than speed. If you have a stronger magnet, you have a stronger electrical field for the arm to push against. If the field is stronger, so is the motor - but this does not affect the overall RPM, that's determined by how fast the currrent moves through the arm, and that's determined by the length of wire.

If you're willing to throw bucks at a motor, by all means, doing all these little tweaks will gain you that nth more, but you're going to see a bigger increase in power by doing a regular comm cleaning, tweaking the springs, brushes, and timing than anything else.

As for your problem - You said "all of a sudden." The most likely solution is as AnimeBoy said, if you made a change and it lost power, it's probably because the diff might be slipping, giving you the impression it's lost motor power. Tighten it back up and see.

There is, however, another possibility. You said it was running "fast enough to outrun a Speed Gems 16x2 motor." Was this a RECENt increase? For example, if you're going along and it's going it's usual speed, then all of a sudden it SPEEDS up, like out of nowhere you have added RPM's, the insulation on the wire on the arm could have worn through, causing a short. It's like making a mod out of a stock - the wire length is suddenly shorter. The problem with this is it also causes heat, then other problems, and the short can actually turn to a short-circuit and go the other way, slowing you down or buring out the motor.

In any case, if tightening the diff doesn't work, slide out the brushes and give it a good comm cleaning.

One last thing of mention, your manual has recommendations for a 36 degree stock - I don't think they even make 36º stocks any more, do they? Trinity used to but everyone overgeared them and burned them up, I know Trinity stopped making them.

[trw]

yesterday i did tigheten up the differential and tried, no luck.

my best guess is that i cut the comm to many times. All i know is that whatever the problem is, its definitly the motor, BECAUSE, just a few moments ago, i wired up my old epic 19x1 motor, put new Brushes in it, and took it out...WOW the car raored right back to life.

And no the the motor has been running at that average speed ever since i took it out of the package.

[KTRTS]

Why not use the epic then?

[Animeboy123]

lol, that would be to easy

[R3VoLuTiOn]

how much comm have you cut on the motor? because if youve gone past the comm "things" then you would need a new motor. i use the compressed air at my school, but you can use any thing strong enough to clean your motor, i stuck the armature to the nozzle, let it spray for a sec, a cloud of black dust came roaring out of the air. pretty cool yet intoxicating:D

[R3VoLuTiOn]

Why not use the epic then?

-"cause it makes too much damn sense."


thats right, i made that up :p

[trw]

i did use the epic, found out the motor had far more potentail when tuned right then the chameleon Pro 2 ever would have.

[highroller]

I've enountered that same problems when using Chamleon2 and it seems to occur after 3-8 runs on a motor even with the tuned ones from Fantom, Putnam and KS racing. The normal things done (truing comm, replacing brushes, replacing armature, zapping) that brings back the power on other motors only worked for a short while, sometimes it didn't. It seems the short fall of this motor is it's magnets. Tried other 19 turn motors (Reedy 19T silver can, Orion 19T spec) all ran longer, and more consistantly than the Chameleon2s. Gearing up will help for awhile, but as magnets get weaker you run the risk of burning motor up. While motors do work best with a certain comm diameter (.288 to .275) when trying to tune the C2s it may not have shown any change as magnets got weaker.

Had this discussion on another site, when racing oval (going from 6cell to 4cell) guys were constantly breaking the track records using Chameleon motors then after a month or two guys were running 1-3 laps off the pace. It seems as magnets get weaker, motors produced more rpm (if you only looked at the rpm output) so the normal thing to do was to gear down causing even slower speeds. But if you were to look at the full power curve you see an increase in rpm, sharper drop in power, shorter spool up duration, efficiency usually dropped, watts may drop in the same duration by .3 points. While the Fantom is a good tool, but when testing at only 5volts results can be misleading while racing with 6cells produces different track results. That's one reason I still liked the slave motor dynos, testing closer to actual loads and voltage may (I stress the work may) show changes in power output which will indicate a drastic change in motor's actual condition.

[Cain]

That is pretty much what guys here have experienced with the magnets. When they rezapped them, it brought the motor back. This and the chance of actually getting a good chameleon were some of the reasons I went with the dynasty / element . I ran that motor very hard and it worked quite well.