[Silberpfeil_pt]

How to run a motor for the first time? I think everybody does this in a diferent manner

In my case, I put the motor fully immersed in a mix of petroleum (96%) and fine lubrificating oil (4%). The I use 1.5V for an hour, 3V for 3 hours, 6V for 1 hour and 9V for 1 hour. Every time I change the voltage I change the turnning direction of the motor in a way in the 9V sessions the motor run in the final direction. When finished i run the motor (2 or 3 minutes) in the air to let the mix come out of the can. Before mount the motor in chassis I lubrificate it with oil.

And you, Reader? What is your way of running the motors for the first time?

 

[Mecoprop]

A very interesting post.
Incredibly dangerous to use flammable liquids!
This can be done in water, much more safely.
But it's a generally held belief that, for the average S can motor, all it does is shorten the life of the already poor 'brushes' and they are not replaceable.
So I would choose to do none of this, but to sparingly lube the bushings and run fairly gently on a track, where I could check out the rest of the car's behaviour as well as bed in the motor.

A different story for high end 16D cans etc, for which the water method would be a good deal safer.

 

[MK2-Escort]

I just thrash mine out of the box

 

[Tropi]

Good point on safety!
Lots of guys have used Naphtha with success, but there are no statistics on how many of them burned their workshops to the ground in the process!
Mr Penrose, BWAMinispeed, usually has an interesting slant on these things.
The exact degree of slant depends on how far you prolong the
BWA Method

 

[Wankel Ickx]

Oh, yeah. Underwater, backwards, forwards, low voltage, high voltage, in my lady's chambers. I've tried it all. My only conclusion is that these little toy motors we play with are too variable for one "method" to work consistently.

Only thing I do now is give 'em a gentle run in at low voltage for an hour or two and then use the buggers as nature and the great Slot God intended, i.e. in a car, on the track and in a race. Sweet.

I tried using something called "Carbon Bush Buster" once, I think it was carbon particles in a suspension. Didn't seem to do much other than make a damn mess as far as I could tell. Anyone else used this stuff?

 

[Intergrali]

take out of box, put on track on longest stright and.. GO! see what happens!

Rob.

 

[Larry LS]

When I bother to break in a new motor I use water (safer) and maybe add a bit of Marvel Mystery oil to the mix to help lube the bearings and prevent a lot of rust from forming after.

I never allow them to run at more than 4 volts for more than 30 seconds. You can see the carbon coming off the brushes, and that means the life has been shortned somewhat.

After running in, I then blow all the moisture out I can, with an air hose. Then re-lube the bearings with a good lubricant. Ready to fly now.

But most just get run in on the track.

 

[steve123]

Howdy ,
I was looking through the posts 'till I saw this one.
I am a newby,but I ask you gentle sirs, Is all this really nessesary?
The little motors only cost a few $/ pounds /euro.
I have wondered about breaking in slot motors for quite a while,but these methods seem drastic/ overkill to me.

steve

 

[bwaminispeed]

Just drive em Steve.while these guys have thier cars under water for several hours,you will be havin fun running yours.

 

[Dickie]

Here's what I do.................

Take car out of box...
Place on track...
Pull trigger....

Works for me

I will admit that after around 50 or so laps, I open the car to make sure everythings lubed, and do put a couple of drops of light oil on the motor bushings.
This is when I do any tuning to fit the car into one of our racing classes. Once I'm satisfied, it's quite a while before it's opened again (more new cars keep getting in the way

)

But "breaking" in a motor? Nah, run it

 

[Coopdevil]

I usually deliberately crash a new car a few times in pre-race practice just to shake the crud out of the motor can....

Coop

 

[RichD]

I get the impression that 1/32nd racers don't work on their motors very much and the motors that I have seen don't look like they lend themselves to a lot of tinkering. Here in the US most people that race 1/24th cars do so on commercial raceways. The tracks are mostly in the 100-155ft range with one long straight that ends in a high banked corner. On many of the tracks all of the corners are banked at least a little bit. The upshot of that is that power counts at least as much as handling and one had better pay attention to his motors. The same thing holds true for HO racing where there is usually at least a 12ft straight. I have rebuilt hundreds of motors and I can tell you that a proper breakin will definitely lengthen the life of a motor. Before the motor brushes are worn in they exert a lot of pressure on the commutator, which work hardens it to the extent that it will not conduct as well as it should. I often recondition old armatures and find damage that goes right through the commutator. I run in my motors at about 3 volts, followed by another thirty minutes at six volts. I keep lubricating the motor bearings, the ones that are oilites (sintered bronze) will take up a lot of oil when they are new. After the brushes are run in I flush the motor with contact cleaner and lubricate the bearings one more time before I run it on the track. You need to treat all new motors as if they are going to be winners, if you don't it will be too late to undo the damage. If you run on a short twisty track all of this is unlikely to reduce your lap times, but at least your motors will last longer.

 

[Tropi]

QUOTE But it's a generally held belief that, for the average S can motor, all it does is shorten the life of the already poor 'brushes' and they are not replaceable.
This is the problem, Rich. basically these very cheap motors are sealed and treated as disposable, throwaway items - really not worth spending much time on. The SCX motors are a different story - they do have replaceable brushes, though I haven't pulled one apart to see if they have enough life in them that they might be worth running in.

 

[GRAH1]

The scx motor is quite a tunable unit and can be improved imensly by carefull running in but suffers from a very poorly made com .I have rewound many of these and they can deliver very high levels of perforrmance.but I always replace the com with either a mabuchi one or a parma one prior to winding.The nc 2 motor will also improve with runnining in but I do feel that the varios s can motors that are about are usualy better with a minimal amount of running in as the brush tension seems to dissapear quickly in these motors amd the best performance is often found early in their life.
Graham