3573 replies to this topic

[Champion 507]

Robert,

I remember that can design from my brief racing days in 1980 & 81. The "historians" (PdL & others) here will be able to pinpoint the years for us. Although I'm still a Champion fan, I WILL NOT turn down a good Mura! They could really crank out the horsepower and rpm's.

Please let me make this very clear. I was planning (still am) many many motor builds but some priorities came along this year that FORCED me to put my wants and desires aside. I'm finally starting to see the light at the tunnel and for the first time, it's not an oncoming train!!! I actually drove a slot car for the first time in a year a couple of weeks ago, so things are starting to look up.

[havlicek]

Hi Doug,

Glad to hear that things are easing up a little...there's motors to be rebuilt!

Hi Robert,

The can looks really nice and should be able to breathe easier with the added vent hole space. I like those old Muras too...actually all the Muras all the way back as they always seemed to be at least a step ahead of what others were doing. They are definitely heavy motors, but they can produce good torque so, in a car that's geared right, they can run like the dickens. An awful lot of races have been won with those motors and in relatively heavy cars too, so the proof is in the pudding! On the hole size, people spent a lot of time figuring out can designs to optimize the field produced by the magnets. I guess that with ceramics, they needed to get every last little bit out of them...even maybe at the expense of motor heat buildup. I've wondered for a while whether opening up the can will produce more revs and less torque...but also a little less heat since I've gotten a bunch of cut-up Muras so it seems that lots of people were doing this??? Nice work!

-john

[Bill from NH]

Many of the first Int. 15 racers used Mura c-cans cut up in one way or another, going back to the two-hole Green can. I have an old one built by someone in OK that came off ebay.

[Robert V.]

Hi Bill

When i first started racing in the early 1980's just a few years out of high school i started with group 12 and 15 wing cars most of us had to build our own brass and wire chassis because the factory stuff costed a little more, the motors were a different story most of us had no idea how to make them any faster but they shore were a lot of fun.

Hi Doug

I to am glad to hear you may be getting back into racing as well as building, maybe for the new year we will see some of your work.

Hi John

I thought it might be a trade off with the cooling and loss of magnetic field but i went with cooling to hope make the motor live a little longer, i have a feeling that this motor will end up being a test bed for my future high performance winds but we will see.

[Victor Poulin]

Robert,
I'm excited to see how this project turns out !!

Doug,
Great to hear things are turning around for you, I missed your building projects as I learned a lot from them. Poor John has had to pick up the slack and doing a fine job of it I might add, but gee,, the guy needs a break He's covered your butt long enough

Vic

[Champion 507]

John, Robert, Vic:

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement. I think Motor Shop is buried so far down by now there are dinosaur remains and undiscovered oil on top of it.

The closed sign will still be up for the remainder of this year and possibly the first month or 2 of next near but the smoke is beginning to clear. In the meantime I will continue to watch everyone's progress on their projects here. I know John and I applaud Robert, Vic and others for trying their hands at (what I think) is one of the "funnest" parts of the hobby. It can be one of the most frustrating too when one grenades or all the smoke leaks out. But that's what real car racers go thru too. Our big advantage is that ours is a whole lot cheaper!

Carry on gentlemen. I will be watching, reading and enjoying.

[Kim Lander]

Hey John,
Such a thrill to see the motor building growing again....I do love a good slot motor....and on that subject...I was looking for some thing tonight and found (not what I was looking for) a box of magnets , I will send them to you this weekend if I can, you should be able to use quite a few of these.....cya in the funny papers...............Kim

[Victor Poulin]

John, Robert, Vic:

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement. I think Motor Shop is buried so far down by now there are dinosaur remains and undiscovered oil on top of it.

The closed sign will still be up for the remainder of this year and possibly the first month or 2 of next near but the smoke is beginning to clear. In the meantime I will continue to watch everyone's progress on their projects here. I know John and I applaud Robert, Vic and others for trying their hands at (what I think) is one of the "funnest" parts of the hobby. It can be one of the most frustrating too when one grenades or all the smoke leaks out. But that's what real car racers go thru too. Our big advantage is that ours is a whole lot cheaper!

Carry on gentlemen. I will be watching, reading and enjoying.

Well I have to tell you Doug, Once I dug in and decided I wanted to build something totally different and did, I really got the fever big time!! When you think about it, the sky's the limit. Who says you can't stuff a huge arm in a tiny motor? or you cant fit this into that ect, ect I beg to differ. This thread, and yours has proven that anything can be done if you apply yourself and have a bunch of motors and supplies kicking around. Although I haven't wound an arm yet,[ and I will by the way] theirs so so much that can be done with what you have on hand.
I'm having more fun than I've had in years !! I've become an addict Jennie and Joe cant keep me out of the man cave long enough to eat dinner!! Sure, I,ve destroyed a couple of donor cans, but that's how you learn. I'm working on a new build as we speak.
I owe it to you guys for sharing your builds and all the info you have learned with me.

Keep it coming guys,, I'm just gettin started !!
Vic

[havlicek]

Hi Kim,

Thanks as always. I've been working on a little side project for you that might be fun. I'm not sure if it's "ready for primetime", but will keep you posted.

Hi Vic,

That's the spirit! The best way to find out what works and even more importantly...why, is to just do what you're doing. Rip 'em apart, swap parts, stick 'em back together, turn on the power and stand back! Robert seems to have a bad (good!) case also, and the things he's doing are just what I did too! The best thing of all is that there are still all kinds of potential projects with current motors so you don't have to scrounge for old (and maybe valuable) motors. D-motors, C motors, Hawks, SCX RX42, and parts from the TSR/S7 etc. mini motors are all candidates!

-john

[Victor Poulin]

That's what I'm using John. Motors/parts/ect that I would have normally thrown away. This way if I ruin something [ and I have ] it's not the end of the world. Grab another one and try it again. That's the best part about trying all these different projects, all you really have invested is time. I feel like a mad professor

Vic

[Robert V.]

Hi guys

So now we have to call you guys Doctor Vic, Doctor John, Doctor Kim, soon to be Doctor Doug , and of course me Doctor Rob, my mother will be so proud of me she always wanted a doctor in the family.

[Victor Poulin]

Hi guys

So now we have to call you guys Doctor Vic, Doctor John, Doctor Kim, soon to be Doctor Doug , and of course me Doctor Rob, my mother will be so proud of me she always wanted a doctor in the family.

Hahahaha!!! I don't think I'd go quite that far Rob, at least not on my end of things lol. I'm more like the junior high kid in shop class and you guys are the teachers.

Vic

[Robert V.]

Hi guys

A continuation of my build in the first pic you see the arm rewound and it looks pretty good it could be a little neater but not bad for my first real high performance rewind with heavy guage wire wright to bad it doesn't work,
It's been a while since i had a failure and it is the arm because i tried another old group 15 arm i know to be good and it spins very hard so that eliminates everything else. I rewond this arm 5 times the first 2 were to check my patterns and to see if 19 turns of 24 gauge would work it turns out that 17 is the number and after that 3 failures.
Now i must figure out what i did wrong, first i did a visual check and did not see any thing wrong than i tore down the third and fourth attempts and found nothing, next step i would like to test the arm with my meter that is why i took the second pic i am shore i asked this question before but didn't understand the correct way of testing it, if some one could tell me what to set the dial to and and what parts of the arm to check and what i should be seeing on the meter for a good arm vs a bad one it would be a big help.

[Kim Lander]

Robert,
The wind looks nice...dont down grade yourself...if you could compair the esthetics of your wind it looks like an old Champion wind of old...and they were hot...loved those motors, check your balance and see what she does, some times they can be real BEARS and wind out real good.....try getting some matched magnets for it...that is a big key in a motor turning well......Kim

[Robert V.]

Hi Kim

Thanks Kim sorry that i did not explain my self better, the problem is the arm does not turn at all when it's hooked up to the power and the power supply spikes all the way to the max on the gauge, i think this shows that there is a dead short that's why i want to find out what i did wrong.

[Victor Poulin]

Looks real good to me Rob Maybe John will chime in and can help you with the metering. I'm not sure myself, but would love to know.


Vic

[Bill from NH]

Robert, as others have said, the arms does look nice. Put that meter onto one of the higher resistance scales(those marked with a Omega on your lower left) & measure from a comm segment to the stack. If you have a short, it'll read zero ohms(same as for a closed circuit.) An open will read at the high end of the scale. Are you sure your comm connections are all tight?

[Champion 507]

Even after all these years I still haven't figured how to lay the windings in all nice and purty like John has. My arms aren't sloppy but I don't worry about it. I owned a genuine Pete Zimmerman #23 wire arm I got from a friend of mine a number of years ago who used to race in CA back around 1970. Granted the wire was about as big as coat hanger wire but it was FAR from being wound neatly. It screamed so "badly" that it made a dentist's drill sound like a bass tuba. Besides my interests are mostly during the years 1966 to 1968 or 1969 and most of that stuff was machine wound and wasn't perfect.

None of my vintage stuff will ever be raced as long as I'm alive. I just want the stuff to run and be reliable as well as looking like it came from the period. I'm kinda like the guy who has a train layout and puts all his trains on the track, turns the power on and sits back and enjoys seeing them run. I will probably never run my stuff (once I get it built) on the king track...too much volts and amps. The tri-oval will be just fine. 98% of my enjoyment will come with the actual building process.

Bottom line...if you're happy with the way your arms look and perform...that's all that really matters, particularly if you enjoyed the whole building process. The more you do, the better your results will be. Rock on dude...

[Robert V.]

Hi Bill

Thanks for your help i will recheck my connections and test the arm as you said thanks for the help. Just to let every body know i don't really mind when i have a failure as long as i can find the problem and fix it this way i learn something.

[Robert V.]

Hi Doug

Thanks Doug i will not give up as long as i am still breathing.

[havlicek]

Hi Robert,

You can set your meter to read "continuity" also (the little icon just right of direct bottom that has a "speaker" thing). Then touch one probe to a com plate and another to the shaft...if there's a short, you'll see a reading and hear a buzz. You can hear the sound before by touching the two probes together. Anyway, if you get a sound between any of the com plates/segments and the shaft or thge outside of the stack...you have a dead short. You also can set the meter to read the lowest scale of reisistance and then go around the com three times touch consecutive segments with each probe. If the com is fairly clean (gunk will increase the resistance), you should get verfy similar readings on all three readings. If any one of the readings is out of whack...you got a problem.

-john

[Victor Poulin]

Hmmmm I gotta get me one of them thar things Could come in very handy.

[Robert V.]

Hi guys

Ok guys i tryed testing the arm the way Bill said and i get a similar reading to an arm i know is good, i also did the test the same way John said and i do not get the noise so as the meter readings go the arm should be working but it don't work.

I am going to resolder my connections again and recheck the readings reassemble and try again, after that i am not shore what else to do but tear the arm apart and start again. Once again thanks for all the help guys.

[Kim Lander]

Hi Kim

Thanks Kim sorry that i did not explain my self better, the problem is the arm does not turn at all when it's hooked up to the power and the power supply spikes all the way to the max on the gauge, i think this shows that there is a dead short that's why i want to find out what i did wrong.

[Kim Lander]

Robert,
Yes you are correct in thinking there is a direct short, the power supply doesnt lie about that, butit still looks good, now if you could do a balance job the way we did in the sixties and seventies (early 70`s) with a grinder on the corners you could have a good copy of the old champion arms, I like the drill holes much better but for the nostalgic look thats it. Keep up the good work, I think you will find a screamer once you find the short.