3573 replies to this topic

[don.siegel]

Hi John,

I'll have to go into the Bat Library and see if I can find that again... not sure where it was... I did just run into an instruction sheet somewhere that seemed to say it was only the direction that was different, but I thought there was something extra - a loop the loop?

Maybe Rocky or somebody will contribute in the meantime, and I've also got a couple of the Strombecker hemi kits, which definitely have some instructions, right from the horse's mouth so to speak...

D

[don.siegel]

John, I decided to not be so darn lazy, and went and got out the Hemi instructions from a motor that was practically in front of my eyes! I really should have ironed it first, since it was folded up to fit in a little tube, but here it is - doesn't look much different from usual, except for the CCW winding... Let me know if you want some more info. (I never did actually wind a Hemi myself, but one of these days, before I turn 80...)

Don





PS: now comes the hard part: folding up that page to fit back in the tube!

[Alchemist]

Hi John,

Both motors are "gems" but the red mabuchi is like a gem "ruby" - absolutely gorgeous!

Hi Don,

It is fortunate for us that you are such a collector! Thanks for sharing the Hemi Motor Diagram. The Hemi motor with the red endbell is still my most favorite motor. I wish I could find one!

Thank you!

Ernie

[havlicek]

Hi Ernie...and thanks

Don...it seems that it IS just the direction that makes a "hemi" a "hemi". I seemed to have remembered that there was something about the way the last turn came back up to the com or something...probably just having a senior moment!? Thanks for the information and taking the time to copy/share it

-john

[Marty N]

Don the paper doesn't say what gauge the wire is. Do you know what was supplied with the kit? Thanks.

[havlicek]

Not the same old same old, so I figured I'd post them up. A pair of FT36D #29 double winds. I can't measure the resistance (my meter crapped-out on me), but it should be pretty low. Coms by Bill Bugenis, reamed out to fit the larger shaft (I hate doing that), and they both balanced out very easily as is usually the case with 36Ds:



-john

[tonyp]

The only difference between a hemi and a mabuchi wind I'd the hemi winds drop straight down from the comm tab instead of crossing over the top of the stack befor going around the pole. The drawing in the instructions is pretty clear.

[don.siegel]

Don the paper doesn't say what gauge the wire is. Do you know what was supplied with the kit? Thanks.

Marty, I took that from a Hemi 400 kit and the wire is 31, it might be the same on the 300 (16D size), or next size up, but 32 seems a bit small... I'll try to find my 300 kit to see.

John, I may have been getting Hemi and star winds confused, which is why I was expecting something more exotic...

Don

[havlicek]

...gotcha Don. I may have gotten it confused with another wind too. Like Tony says, the wire doesn't cross over the top of the stack is all.

-john

[tonyp]

John have you ever got a star wind to work? We never could in rc and I remember trying one on a Russkit 23 with no success.

[havlicek]

I never tried one Tony. That one was among the diagrams included in the article Don Siegel had sent me a few years back...that I now can't find If I can get it diagrammed again, I'll do one for you....IF it works!?

-john

[tonyp]

Star wind is easy. You wind each pole with a separate piece of wire. The other end of all 3 wires are soldered together and tucked any place you can find a spot to put them. The only one I heard of ever being run was by Phil ingles, at the first arco nationals back in 1968 which he won the canam race with.

[havlicek]

Then I'll do one up...we'll see!

-john

[James Wendel]

So wouldn't the current have to pass through the windings of two poles to complete a circuit?

If so, how could that be an advantage? Twice the resistance too.

[tonyp]

James no idea. Like I said we never got one to run really well. If I remember they draw a lot of amps. It was a wind that was talked about maybe in rod and custom magazine in a motor building article early on.

[havlicek]

So wouldn't the current have to pass through the windings of two poles to complete a circuit?

If so, how could that be an advantage? Twice the resistance too.

That "may" be true ...or not . After trying one straight up as described by Tony, I have an idea for an alternate version of a star-wind that may provide a way around this and have some benefit over a conventional wind. I have to diagram it out and then do a little googling around the WWW to see if it might work...OR...(as they say in the Nike ads, "just do it").

-john

[Jim Lange]

John, my 36D's look great. Cant wait to try them out. Thank's for getting them done so fast. Jim

[havlicek]

Hey thanks Jim. In the right setup, such a hot wind should move with zest. Enjoy!

-john

[Horsepower]

I remember the biggest complaint on the star wind was high revs but no braking power. It needed the strongest magnets available.At that time, it was Arcos.

[Marty N]

John, remember the 65/30 Hawk winds you did for me on Bills stacks and com at 22* timing? I have a good deal of dyno and track info on that motor and it's still in the Red Roadster running as strong as ever. If you would like you could duplicate this arm in the Star wind and I'll load it in that set up, meter it and dyno the motor and report back to the group.

[havlicek]

Hi Marty,

That might be a cool thing to do at some point. I'm a little backed up over here, so maybe when I clear my bench a little

-john

[Marty N]

No rush John. Whenever you have the time.

[Leib]

Hi John,
I don't quite know where to begin, but firstly I want to thank you for your fantastic thread. I've spent the last couple of months reading your entire thread like a gripping novel.

I tried my hand a number of times back in the early 70's rewinding arms. Sometimes I was successful and the thrill of watching my freshly wound 24 awg powered Champion anglewinder launching off the track cause it was so fast was one of my most cherished and exulting failures. Nevertheless this is how I looked when it happened -> I came back to slot cars this spring after a nearly 40 year hiatus to create a fun bonding experience with my almost teen aged only child daughter. I want to impart to her the fun I had as a kid and hopefully she can also pick up some skills that surely couldn't hurt later in life.

Anywho... one thing I've seen is that there is a gaping hole in slot racing in that, except for you and a couple of others here, I haven't seen anyone else doing one of my favorite pastimes ie souping up motors. Many people can put parts together, but there are only so many combinations before everything has been done. What isn't being done much, and as has been said here before would be a big money saver, is for high consumption users of armatures to rewind their arms when they die or even just for the fun of it. Certainly those guys who race restricted cobalt motors like Cobalt12 and G27 and restricted C-can motors would save a bunch of bucks if they wound their own arms for practicing to the the same specs as their "store bought" marked arms,(obviously not rewinding their already epoxied and balanced dead arms) They could do this without having to unnecessarily burning up their expensive Koford, ProSlot etc arms while they were practicing or just out to have some fun.

I've gotten lucky and have picked up some pretty cheap used pieces including one .459 diam Koford cobalt 15t23 motor which I put into a used maybe somewhat dated perimeter chassis with a new wing body prepared by Kenny Piccola at Slots-A-Lot and tried out the other night for the first time. It is INSANELY fast and beyond my driving skills at the moment. I considered that when I first bought it and have wanted to build my own milder winds for the setup ever since I saw what you were doing with Bill Bugenis. His Eurosport motor builds look to be just the specs for this purpose. Some time ago you pointed someone his way to get blanks. Is he still willing to accommodate occasional purchasers of his blanks? I think I remember his motors were also using .459 or .456 arms. Can he supply arm blanks of other diameters and stack lengths like for C-can motors ? I would also like to try my hand at winding insane arms even for 16D motors. It seems their materials can withstand double 27 winds and single 24 winds nowadays, yet I've never heard of it being done.

One last question is that if Bill Bugenis IS willing to sell me blanks, would he be willing to balance them for me once I'm done winding them ? I just heard about the tragedy of his workspace and Lou Pirro's raceway, my heart and sympathies go out to them and am glad that the work of getting back on their feet is proceeding. In light of that, I can understand if he wouldn't be able to deal with my interests for some time. Heck I've waited around 40 years to get back into this I can wait some more if necessary>

Well thanks again for your great thread. I hope I can contribute here too soon.

[havlicek]

Hi Leib and thank you so much for the really nice introduction!

When I first started to peek around here and a few other forums as to what was going on today in slots, I was a little bummed out that slots today has changed significantly over the past decades. Many are older guys who have come back into the hobby and really don't want to go fast. In fact, if a new motor is introduced, many will be wary of the thing until they are sure it doesn't start a speed-war. Looking a little closer though, that's partly because there are inexpensive disposable Chinese motors available today that make for surprisingly fast and competitive racing. With an even field in the motor department, that leaves only chassis building, car prep and driving skills as competitive aspects. In some racing, even the chassis is taken out of the equation, so that the objective is to avoid winning being a function of how much money a person spends on his car. It's also at least partly true in some cases that the racers just don't want to go faster because they're racing as fast as they feel comfortable with the way things are. It all makes sense when you dig a little deeper into why things are the way they are.

Of course, for those who want to go faster, there are the "higher" classes...but the money thing does start to become a BIG factor. There are lots of people in the restricted spec-motor classes using $300 controllers to race cars with $10 motors though...so some of this strikes me as a little unusual, but the money can really start to add-up running with the big dogs. You need deep pockets and a willingness to lose trying to be competitive "up there". With all that, Eurosports and the other open and semi-restricted classes still have their following. Eurosport racing in particular seems to be really popular around the world, running stoopid-fast cars on flat tracks seems like it wouild be incredibly challenging!

What seems to be lacking today are restricted classes that allow for motor building (including home-wound and factory replacement/upgrade arms). From what I gather, there are VERY few people winding arms for competitive racing like Eurosports, and not many more than that just winding arms regularly. I don't see why the concerns about being competitive becoming a money thing couldn't be addressed and the "Thingie" proxy races look like a good example of at least one way this could be done. Still, if enough people wanted this sort of thing, it stands to reason it would already exist. There's no reason either that harder to find vintage 60's-era motors and parts need to be used exclusively, that in itself would make it a non-starter for many people. It would be a shame to run the snot out of a lovely old Champion or Mura when there are lots of modern motors that could easily be used. Your example of the C and D motors are two likely candidates, but personally, the C can seems to me to be a MUCH better platform. The parts are relatively inexpensive and there isn't all the really unecessary weight and size of the D. The Hawk motor is another excellent motor for rewinding and "hot-rodding" and is cheap as chips, and then there are the many combinations of motor types and parts that can be cobbled together to make "one-off" bastard motors. In any case, even without sanctioned racing of any of these motors, there is a LOT of inexpensive fun to be had doing this stuff and just casual running!

As for parts, Bill Bugenis is in a tough spot after the flooding up there and I doubt he's doing any parts-sellling right now...but you can always ask him (he's a member here) by PM. However, that shouldn't stop you from trying any of this out. There are any number of nominal .500" to .510" non-epoxied and non-balanced arms out there that can be stripped and rewound with not too much trouble. Sometimes the tracks themselves will have a bunch of these in a drawer or a box somewhere that they've accumulated when people replace them and they'd be willing to let you have them for little or nothing. The motor manufacturers themselves aren't too willing to sell raw parts unfortunately, but I guess that's sort of understandable....I guess??? You could also try Mura, as I've gotten stuff from them in the past.

Anyway Leib, thanks for telling me a little about yourself and letting me know that there's at least one more guy out there (other than the few I know from here) interested in all this. Who knows, maybe over time there could be enough folks doing this to get a few more races going using home-brew motors at a couple of tracks!

[havlicek]

I'm finishing off building two Hawk motors for Ernie L. and this was pretty difficult to get sorted. The problem here was that both got the Emovendo neo magnets and it's very difficult to come up with a wind that can take advantage of all that field strength (it's difficult to even turn the arms by hand in the setup) and not get excessively hot. After a few tries, I wound up with two arms:

1)The first is an arm as long as I could fit in the short Hawk setup wound with #29 wire. As you would expect, the arm draws more current than normally for this wind because those magnets put one heck of a load on the arm. The wind does have a heckuva lot of torque and "natural braking" and seems like it's not going to get TOO HOT (remember that neos have less ability to handle heat than ceramics). On this arm, I used the stock commutator and was able to weld it, although I did screw up the first one I tried and came up with a safer way to do the weld and add more silver to the connection. The stock com seems pretty skinny for such large brushes (I think Mike Swiss did a neat brush mod to overcome this) and after seating/breaking them in, they look to me like they would basically almost always be shorting between two com segments. Still, the motor seems to run VERY well compared to stock and should be pretty interesting on the track.

2)The second arm I wound up keeping is basically a eurosports arm (.300" stack) with the stack and com spacing modified to fit the setup and with a Bugenis com (also welded of course). The larger com meant radiusing out the endbell hardware and shortening the brushes so they wouldn't stick out too far from the hoods to install the springs. I did a #27 wind using a special pattern I came up with in the past because it "fit" the blank for the number of turns I wanted to get on there. As expected, this one still has seemingly LOTS of torque and natural braking because of those magnets, but revs significantly higher. Only downside is that is gets warmer, drawing over 3 amps. I'm thinking things may settle down a bit after break-in and I may experiment some with spring tension as well.

I did a little body and fender work on both cans, soldering up the side seams, sanding them down and then painted them textured black for that "serious" look. I'll post up pictures later when I get a chance.

-john