3573 replies to this topic

[havlicek]

Hi Rocky,

I just lost a Pcan arm playing around and knowing what it takes to build the thing, I am a little annoyed.

...welcome to my world

Justin,

Anything you put the motor in will do me proud. The biggest kick for me is knowing they're out there being run...or "detonated" depending on how warm they are

-john

[Mr. Frank]

Hey John; My first motor you did for me is STILL SCREAMING. Runs a little warm but no problems, if I do recall it was a pertty hot wind. You just got to let them coool down a while before you run the pissout of them. Like I said before;
YOU BE THE MOTOR MAN. Thanks John, You put the THING in THINGIES.... P S I'm still searching for those arms....





Mr. Frank

[Slotgeezer]

Correct, John....
You'd find Mabuchi motor cans w/ ARCO magnets and the one-piece shim, & Versitec magnets marked as Muras w/ the folded 'can in a can' shim...
I remember seeing a few 26-27's in early C-cans, & was amazed they held together... Of course, this was the advent of the glue era, so brakes were often over-looked in motor building!
Take care, John! ... Keep 'em comin', buddy!


Jeff Easterly

[havlicek]

Hey John; My first motor you did for me is STILL SCREAMING. Runs a little warm but no problems, if I do recall it was a pertty hot wind. You just got to let them coool down a while before you run the pissout of them. Like I said before;
YOU BE THE MOTOR MAN. Thanks John, You put the THING in THINGIES.... P S I'm still searching for those arms....

Thanks Frank and for sure, you just gotta pay attention to these old motors...especially when they're souped-up! A lot of them didn't last very long back then, but now we can enjoy them and make them last by giving them a break every so often. No problem on the arms Frank. If you find any, I'll take 'em for sure!

Correct, John....
You'd find Mabuchi motor cans w/ ARCO magnets and the one-piece shim, & Versitec magnets marked as Muras w/ the folded 'can in a can' shim...
I remember seeing a few 26-27's in early C-cans, & was amazed they held together... Of course, this was the advent of the glue era, so brakes were often over-looked in motor building!
Take care, John! ... Keep 'em comin', buddy!

Yikes Jeff...a 26/27 is awfully scarey, even for me...but then again a C can (even the early ones) is a whole different animal from any Mabuchi. I hear you on the brake thing, I can see how some of those things probably would wind like crazy...but needed a little "help" stopping

-john

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

This particular arm was a "motor rules are stupid" arm. In that it was in a p can, 125 shorter than any stock can and tagged "Group 12".

Fate

[BoomerDog]

Well, John,

Finally did my first arm and I have to say that after weeks of following this string, it was almost (repeat almost) easy. I have an abundance of dead or near dead modern 16D arms. I now appreciate even more the work you put in to just get an arm ready for new windings......wow. I prepped up 3 that looked pretty decent (for being almost dead) I figured if I messed them up, who cares!! I did come up with a special "tool" though. I made a interior stack cleaner with a small wooden dowel and glued 220 grit sand paper to it to smooth out and prep the inside of the stacks prior to applying any epoxy or furnace goop. It worked fairly well and allowed me to not have to duck the flying wire from the Dremel wheel.

It seems throughout this string that 50 turns of #29 is a very popular wind so I went with that. Once again, figuring if it didn't work, no harm no foul. Now, I haven't wound an arm since 1967.....soooooooo, it's been a while. Surprisingly, though, by just following the steps that have been laid out on this string, the deed was done in about 15 minutes! No loss of count, no nicking of insulation on the stack....just nice and slow and easy (kind of like the beginning of Tina Turner's "Proud Mary")

I sat back and just couldn't believe the arm was almost ready to go back into a setup! I finished up the deal with soldering the tabs very carefully and wrapped the comm with dental floss. I used the dental floss so when it blows up it will give off that nice minty smell.....I used Gorilla Glue's Super Glue on the dental floss only and brought it on over to the comm cutter. Even that went well.....(I think I'm going to buy a lottery ticket tonight)

The little jewel was plugged into a setup and let run at 4 volts for about 20 minutes......I did not epoxy the stack or winds, just the drops of super glue on the comm wrap. Well, let me tell you.....this thing is a runner! The winds stayed nice and tight and it was spinning very freely in the setup. I couldn't be prouder. Ran it up to 8 volts (probably prematurely) and it draws about 2.35 amps and was making quite a nice whistling sound. Thank you, John!!!

Next step for me is to get some pictures for this string and maybe delve into static balancing a little. I'm going in for another couple of shots at the same combination, but with better comms. More to come and pics to follow..... I felt like I was 13 years old again when it was done.....very satisfying indeed and can't wait to give it some more of my time.

[havlicek]

Wow Steve...that's just excellent! Dental floss (the unwaxed kind) is fine for a com wrap...as well as 100% cotton thread. The motor would be long gone before the fibers actually burned Super Glue isn't very heat tolerant and it may off-gas cyanide fumes when heated so it's probably OK to experiment with, but even Devcon epoxy would be a better choice. Still, you did great to have a strong runner right off the bat. I know what you mean about ther effort just to prep an arm for rewinding too. There's a whole lotta work involved before you get to even start winding.

I felt like I was 13 years old again when it was done.....very satisfying indeed and can't wait to give it some more of my time.

...that right there is what caused me to get hooked again on all this, the root of my "problem" you might say Again...congrats!

-john

[BoomerDog]

Thanks, John! I couldn't have done it without you, Captain! Well, maybe I could have, but it wouldn't have worked!!!

Below are some very poor quality pictures of a recent scratch built for the Retro GT class.....apparently, I need a better camera, but the frame is great and has been cleaned up since these shots of the initial build.

[BoomerDog]

Wow....those really ARE bad pictures.....I gotta work on that.

[havlicek]

bad pictures of Rita Heyworth are still MUCH better than great pictures of Madonna!

-john

[Champion 507]

It is said that a picture is worth 1000 words. Maybe these are only worth 500-750 words each???

[chaparrAL]

John I used to dig those videos of Madonna when she would put those cone things on. I was breast fed.

[havlicek]

...you're bad Al...very very bad

-john

[chaparrAL]

C'mon John, like you didn't like them videos too! This is what I dream about now at night!

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[havlicek]

Now that's what I call a "pinup" Al, although Rita Hayworth still works better for me I remember seeing her for the first time as a kid and thinking to myself..."wow, maybe girls aren't so bad after all!"...but I digress!


While we have yellow Mabuchis on our minds (howzat for a segue' ?) I started my next little project yesterday. I got a package in the mail yesterday from Don Siegel in France with a bunch of Mabuchi 13UO stuff in it, including my favorite brand...K&B...I was partial to yellow as a kid What was cool about this was that I haven't seen a 13UO in person in probably 40 years Some details I had forgotten about these little critters, especially just how small they actually were/are. They're a bit smaller in height and width than the SCX RX42 motors and significantly shorter due to the SCX endbell being so blasted long. Next thing I forgot was that on the 13UO, the motor brushes actuall ran on metal on top and bottom unlike the earlier 16-sized Mabuchis that, before the FT16D had the brushes sitting right on the plastic of the endbell like the Russkit "22". There was a system of brush hoods made of formed metal not unlike a super cheap version of the later Mura design, but held by a single screw. The last thing I either forgot or never knew in the first place was that some of the 13UO's had a fixed can bushing (see the red example in the picture below). I thought they all had the caged or floating bushing like the FT16D motors. Like I said to Don, it goes to prove that what I don't know...or forgot...or both... about vintage motors would fill a very large stadium. Anyway, here's what the smallest of the Mabuchis look like:


Don was kind enough to send me plenty of spares and parts to be able to experiment with in order to hopefully get a stronger rewound version of one of these that can live without vaporizing Because I want to stay within the realm of "vaguely period correct", I'm not going to use a modern endbell even though there are probably some that would fit-up without too much difficulty. I'm also not going to use Mura hoods or really anything externally that purists might howl about since they came later on. This will naturally limit the wind, but with the right magnets, this little motor should be able to go up to where say a typical early 16D rewind was at...I think The result will hopefully be a motor that can fit easily in the skinniest chassis/body and will also have a respectable power-to-weight ratio because the 13UO is pretty darned scrawney. I think this motor was really intended for home tracks (???), but we ran them as a kid on commercial tracks all the time. Hey...they were cheap, just like us!

To start, I turned my attention to the can. The anemic magnets had to go of course because they barely would hold a note on a refridgerator The can itself needed some TLC, so I stripped it and smoothed it a little and cleaned up the bushing carrier. Then I epoxied-in a set of magnets of unknown origin from a box of assorted "stuff" I've accumulated. I have no clue where they came from originally, but they are ceramics so they are at least not of a soooper modern material. They needed trimming top and bottom and at their tips and are a bit thicker than the Mabuchi magnets, but the stack of the new arm can be polished-down a little to open up the airgap so I wasn't too worried about that. Anyway, after a first coat of yellow and with the new magnets installed, the little guy looks like this:



The new magnets read somewhere around 900 on my meter. They won't pull nails from oak, but that's several orders of magnitude stronger (at least!) than what was in there for sure. I'll slightly rough-up the paint and give it a final coat before assembly, but at least for now, one piece of the 13UO puzzle is in place.

Next up, I have to figure out what to do with the endbell. Real estate is really limited on these things, but some quick and dirty eyeballing makes me think that FT26D brush tubes with some sort of FT16D hoods modified might just work. The 13UO endbell itself is on two levels to make the bizarre-o brush hardware work, so I have to first file the surface of the endbell down flat and then groove both sides for the FT26D brush tubes to sit down in...but I'm getting ahead of myself and the "plan" (such as it is anyway ) could change when I sctually start wrecking...er..."modifying" things. Thank goodness Don sent extra stuff!

-john

[Slotgeezer]

This outta be one interesting project, John...

(Oh, yeah... great photo.... My, my ... Nice hooters! )

PDL told me his favorite magnet for the 'stock' 13D armature was a pr. of magnets out of one of his TSRF - FK motors... Made sense to me... Oh, you forgot to mention that no amount of 'zap' can help those stock magnets... If the piece of paper going on the 'fridge is larger than a post-it note, it won't stay up long!

Onward, oh great motor-man!


Jeff Easterly

[Robert V.]

Hi John
That does look like an interesting project i will be watching this build as i just got my first 13D off ebay a few days ago an i am shore i will get some good ideas, i am very curious about the brush gear you will be using. Is there anything on these little motors that is the same as a 16D, maybe just the arm. Oh and that Rita picture is super hot even if she is a few years before my time.

[havlicek]

Hi guys and thanks for the lok-sees and comments

Oh and that Rita picture is super hot even if she is a few years before my time.

well Robert, she's before my time too...ever wish you had been born in a different time? I guess I may as well add some more "Rita" pix to keep interest in the thread from dropping off (even more than it already has!)...hmmm...lemme see...yep, this one oughtta do just fine

i am very curious about the brush gear you will be using.

What?, oh yeah...I forgot what I was doing for a moment I wound up using 26D brush tubes since the clearance cuts on the end of them came in handy here to give a bit more safe distance between the com and the brush hardware. I could have ground the same flats on FT16D brush tubes (or heatsinks...whatever the darned things are properly called ), but why bother when they're already there on the 26D ones? I also had to move the brush tubes inward so the long leg of the spring would pass them without bending around them to hook them on the spring retainer tabs. This made radiusing-out the brush tubes on the inside necessary for com clearance. It will also probably make it necessary to shorten the brushes so they aren't protruding too far...no biggie. Here's what it looks like on the inside:


On the outside, I wound up straightening a set of the flat style brush hoods and then re-bending them to form 13UO-sized "pentroof" style ones. Regular FT16D hoods wouldn't fit well for several reasons and it took two tries to get a pair that I could use, but it worked out pretty well...if not absolutely gorgeous Once done, I grooved the endbell underneath the brush tubes and opened up the sides of the endbell around the brush areas for a little more ventilation and soldered the whole mess together. What I wound up with is sort of what you might call an FT13UO-D kind of setup The spring posts that are molded into the endbell are of a smaller diameter than the FT16D/25D/36D ones which made regular post protectors a very sloppy fit. There's also precious little clearance between the posts and the newly larger brush hardware, so rather than just screw on the larger post protectors, I reamed out the nearest size brass tubing I could find until they had to be tapped-on to the molded spring posts. It all seemed to line up well as I used a piece of tubing to keep it in position while soldering the hoods to the heatsinks. Also as I had mentioned earlier, the parts of the endbell where the hardware screws sit, was originally raised so before doing all of the above, I took those down with a Dremel and then a small file to where they were about level with the parts that the spring post are on. It looks like this:


The almost completed setup looks like this (note the all-too-common crack in the endbell around the bushing boss, it won't affect performance):


...next, on to the arm. I took down the stack to .503" already because of the slightly thicker-than-stock magnets and it JUST clears and spins very nicely in the setup. I'll probably hack off a few thousandths more just to be sure that when spinning, nothing hits. I also pressed-in a drill blank shaft just "because". The com can be either something like a Tradeship or one from a new D motor; either will be plenty for the wind I have planned here.

I'm making progress, now where'd I put my Rita Hayworth photo album?

-john

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

It was a series of failures with this motor for 1/32 club racing that had me trying cobalts!

The stock magnets are proportional in strength to the stock 16d motors of 1965 by mass. Before cobalts, by cutting arcos and carful fitting and putting sinks all over the endbell, I had trouble getting a 31s to live. One of the first things I did with the first of Bob Green's "c"endbells was cutting that down to fit.

Fate

[chaparrAL]

Here's a book I strongly recommend, now out in softcover for about 20 bucks.

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[chaparrAL]

Here's my stock car. Over the summer I plan to refurbish the 26D motor and reafix the Champion sticker. I plan to pick up a new body on my next visit to BP May8th

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[chaparrAL]

Gotta get my 4 inch car on the track too. The arm is a 24 I have a McClaren M8 for I will paint red #11. John If you Pm me your address I got a crapload of X12 and Contender arms for ya you can at least use the comms off of.

[havlicek]

Hi Al,

If the Contender arms are the unbalanced ones, I can use the stack plates too PM sent.

-john

[Mr. Frank]

Hi Al,

If the Contender arms are the unbalanced ones, I can use the stack plates too PM sent.

-john

YO JOHN; Found a boat load of arms, Theres just one big problem, every stack has drill marks being they were all ballanced, But never fear, we will come across some more.. You never know what might walk in the door..



Mr. Frank

[BoomerDog]

Rita was way before my time as well, but I could look at those pictures very an extended period....bring 'em on, John.