Hey John, I sounds like trouble in the brush area for sure. We are pretty rough on our motors, we push 12V thru a 6V motor, then we power retrieve for the next launch. This puts a lot of electrical as well as mechanical wear on the brushes and commutator. I change out brushes every season, same time I swap out the solenoids. There are 2 bare brushes, (grounded) and 2 insulated brushes (12V+) in your motor. Check to see which one got toasted. I recently repaired a club winch that had the brushes worn down so much that the brush spring that holds the brush in contact with the commutator had bottomed out and the brush was free to rattle around. This winch was seriously bogging down, and even sparking in that area. In fact, the brushes had unevenly worn down SO much at an angle that one had worn down to a point. The commutator was scarred up from the arcing. This arcing also can ruin the brush spring's temper, and they can then snap in half. (bad thing) To get this winch back up and working right, I replaced the brushes and brush springs.I replaced the armature as well. Now everything is good as new.
Now the bad part... Sometimes the field coils can have a short in them, and this is really hard to find. The fix for that is to remove the motor body and have the coils changed out. I don't even mess with removing the field coils. They are torqued in by this big guy called MONGO, and they use a special square end tool that fits the pole shoe screws. You will see that some of them show attempts of removal, and they get pretty ugly. 8^( Here's what I want you to do: take a couple of digital snaps of the affected area and shoot them off to me, I will see if there is anything else going on. Most likely, you can get away with just changing out the brushes and springs, if the arcing and frying did not go too far. ****WARNING SHAMELESS PLUG FOLLOWS**** I have the brushes available, $10 a set. I also have a tune up kit that includes the brushes, new brush springs, and a special tool to align the brush holders for $25. Doc > Doc , > I've got a sick winch . To date I've never had a problem with it other > than brush changes and the like. I put that down to regular maintenance . > Yesterday, On launch, The winch started to bog . (it never bogs !!) I put > it down to maybe a low battery / bad battery connection. On the next launch > ... Same thing . I looked at the winch and it had smoke coming from the > brush/commutator area . On inspection, I found the wires that attach to one > of the bushes fried through . What I think happened is that it shorted > against the case , But then I've been known to be wrong before ;0 Should I > take it to a repair shop to be sure. > Or is there anything I can check myself ? All the best , John > McCloskey > > RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
