Warm motor, warm lipo
 

Hey guys, sorry if this goes on a bit but I'm going to try and give as much details as possible.
so I'm in need of some advice.
I have recently started upgrading an ics m4, I'm using a merf 3.2 wired in advanced mode with an nano-tech 11.1V 1200 mah stick battery. Stock 18:1 gears ( shimmed twice just to be sure so I'm pretty sure that's not it) and an ics turbo 3000 motor which I am going to upgrade to a lonex A1 within a few weeks. All of the upgrade parts were purchased new from airsoftstore.ca
The problem is that the motor and battery are getting warm after only 10-15 trigger pulls. The upper gearbox isn't even in play so it's not like it's struggling to pull the spring or anything. Now I know motors can get warm with an AB MOSFET but I'm pretty sure a lipo warming up is bad news all over. After enough pulls it stops working which I assume is the fuse being tripped. I have checked the resistance of the wiring and all seems well. The only resistance I find In The whole system the from one end of the merf to the other but only on one side ( positive I think).
That's all the prudent info I can think of, any and all help would be appreciated.

bad motor most likely, drawing too much amperage.
What's the C rating on the lipo?
And throw that battery out since it's already damaged

25C, it's this one here : http://www.airsoftstore.ca/index.php...roducts_id=270

Motor was fine on a non lipo battery before I swapped everything out, is it possible that it wouldn't show this problem until a lipo is hooked up?

Are you checking shimming with all the gearbox screws in?

Yup, all turn freely with no scraping

yes
NiMH mini batteries don't supply amperage anything close to what your lipo does.
Not to mention with the higher voltage, I wouldn't surprised if you're now running at 4x the wattage you were before.

problems like this do occur with airsoft motors, 90% of the motors out there are pretty junky construction.
Most likely you've got a short between the two brush hoods. Looking at pics of the ICS turbo 3000 now, they used metal screws on the brush hoods. If they have a metal retention plate or the screws are touching the magnets, that's your short right there. It'll pretty much draw as much amperage as that short will handle, which is definitely more than your lipo can supply.

Well it sounds weird to say but I do hope that's the problem, as I planned on grabbing a new one anyway. I'm trying to figure out exactly what you mean and you lost me on a few things, don't all motors use metal screws? And what would cause them to touch or get close enough to arc to the magnets? Just shoddy construction?
Also as soon as a lipo gets warm it need to be disposed of?
I wouldn't say it got hot, but definitely noticeably warm.

did you start your shimming from the pinion & bevel?

Started at spur, the motor height has been adjusted and sounds good.
Although I didn't start at the pinion / bevel they seem to be meshing fine, certainly well enough that it wouldn't be causing this drastic of a problem. At least I don't think so lol it can be hard to tell with a V2

If pinion bevel meshing was THAT bad you'd hear it very audibly.

Have you checked your motor brushes? I've had this happen once when a brush wire snapped.

all intelligently built motors use plastic screws to fasten down the brush housings to ensure they don't short
if the screws go deep enough, they'll touch the top of the magnets inside the motor
what holds the end bell on the motor is a retention ring, sometimes it's plastic, sometimes it's metal.

That's what I was thinking about the pinion / bevel.
Yup, brushes are like new. The motor hasn't seen a lot of use.

if you have a multimeter, take the brushes out and test for continuity on the brush hoods

there's your problem. doesn't matter if you think it sounds "good", it's just not.

a quick search of ASM or youtube for "bevel shimming" will yield an actual boatload of information on the subject, why you should do it that way and how to do it. (I'm trying to find the video that I used to use to show people but I lost the link somewhere)

compare for yourself what your gearbox sounds like to what a properly shimmed gearbox sounds like and then you can decide.

everybody else is giving you perfectly good advice on how to treat the symptoms you've described, but this is how you treat the disease.

I've been shimming gears from the spur for 8 years, I've never run into excessive amp draw from any guns I've built. I've only ever noticed the condition from bad motors.
If you were holding the gear train up enough to cause an amp draw in excess of 40A, you'd be able to hear it for sure and your ROF would go up by an audible amount if you backed the motor off

you can hold your toothbrush via the bristles brush your teeth with the rubbery end for 8 years and not get a cavity, yer still doing it not quite right and you won't get the best results.

Hi, I am dumb and do not read postings fully before I respond to them.

If the accuracy mattered that much, you wouldn't have a free floating motor lol
All you're guaranteeing is that the pinion is in the proper range of adjustment.
This isn't like a PTW where the motor is at an exact fixed height and the shimming legitimately needs to be perfect.
As long as you're within the adjustment range of the bevel, all that's left is to adjust the motor height. If you really wanted to be exact about it, the motor wouldn't be free to adjust up and down and it especially wouldn't have any twisting play (like on a V2), and you'd properly shim the armatures in the motors.
Even if the bevel is shimmed out of adjustment range of the motor; if it was too close the sound is distinctly grindy, you can't miss it unless you're deaf. And if it was too far away, you wouldn't have excessive current draw at all, you'd just have a whining or a stripped pinion.

And AB or not, the lipo shouldn't be getting warm, and the fet shouldn't be tripping after just 15 shots. That's systema magnum kind of motor problems.

I will test the continuity of the motor hoods when I can, unfortunately I don't have access to the gun right now as I don't live where I work on my guns. So I have purchased a lonex A1 motor. It should be here tomorrow. Hopefully I pop it in and everything is fine.
However in the off chance that the motor isn't the problem is there any chance that the new motor is Damaged by whatever the problem is?

When you test your shim job do you assemble the gear box with screws and try and spin all 3 gears at once?

They should have zero drag if done right.

Second is how much "float" did you leave the bevel gear for play.

You get both of these wrong you WILL heat the motor and the lipo.

I have done exactly this a couple years ago. Often people test the shim without fully tightening the GB. They will close and hold with hands. Not good enough.

The Bevel is the same. If the bevel is in an absolute fixed position, meaning no ability to float, it will not be able to find its home with the motor.

btw the issue I had with overheat WAS an ICS M4. Was too tight. When I mean spin freely it has to be like 20 rotations on a "coast", not ya I can spin it with my finger.

It must glide effortlessly.

Yes I close and tighten the shell and test each gear individually and then all three together, I'm pretty methodical with shimming. When I spin all three there is definitely no drag, but it doesn't take off for twenty rotations either. The only thing I feel is the weight of all three gears spinning if you know what I mean, sort of like there is momentum behind the spin. If I get them going pretty good by spinning with my finger they keep going for probably 10 plus rotations. Maybe it's worth mentioning that I'm using metal bushings and not bearing bushings. With the bevel there is very little play, but it does move slightly. Which is correct as far as I know.
So once my new motor gets here I think il re shim again ( from the bevel just to be sure) and pop the motor in. I'm pretty confident in the shim job and I'm thinking the motor is the problem.

shimming from the bevel gives drastically different results as to where you end up putting your shims. don't even bother with the new motor, just give the new school way a try and see what what happens.

The motor is already purchased, I was going to get one soon anyways.
I understand what your saying, that shimming from the bevel is the right way to do it and I'm not disagreeing with that, I am sceptical that it's causing this excess power draw. But it's either the bevel shimming or the motor at this point and I'm absolutely going to try both. How much play do you typically allow on your bevel?

Shimming from the bevel is a better way to do things, but there is no way that a poorly meshing bevel and pinion is causing what you are describing without an audible grinding sound.

That's what I'm thinking, I think if ANYWHERE in the gearbox was that tight it would make itself pretty known. But I have to try everything.

Well like Trev said, if your gears spin freely with the mechbox shell closed and tight, then no amount of side to side shimming on the bevel would be causing this issue.
And like I said, if the bevel was shimmed to close to the motor, you'd definitely be able to hear it, and if it was shimmed too far away, it wouldn't be causing extra amp draw.
I could see a spur or especially a tightly shimmed sector gear causing extra amp draw, but not the pinion to bevel engagement.

I am with you on the motor now.

As I was chasing my tail fixing my buddies god damn ICS M4 going through hell, I believe the motor had to be changed too. Was the ICS turbo.

That was after the shimming education on that GB.

As another note. Make sure you DONT change the nozzle or hop up on that gun if its the same M4. It will be a shit show of jamming, misfeed you name it. The m4 stuff like nozzles look VERY interchangeable but they aren't.


Stay with the stock shit or you will be spending quality time opening and closing that gun.

And when you finally bend the guard plate for the wires in the mag well (front wired) and accidentally nick the wires-then you will be shopping for a new VFC as this becomes your back up.

sorry---touched a nerve.

.

When I first put the motor in it definitely had an audible noise, but it was a height adjustment problem and was fixed quickly.
I just had to replace the hop up as it had a hairline crack, and now funny enough the nozzle is indeed broken, as I already had an order that hadn't shipped I added the ZCI nozzle to it ( lonex nozzle is sold out). The nozzle actually isn't a proprietary part, but It can for sure be a pain to get non ics ones to work. If it's too much of a pain il just replace it with an ics.

ICS nozzle IS proprietary.

Take a ICS nozzle and an regular M4 nozzle.

Stand them up on a flat surface and look. You will see about 1mm in height difference. (shorter on the ICS)

That 1mm is the difference between !@## and ahhhhh....

Clearance to allow the bb enter the hop up chamber or not. Mis-feed/Jam.

They are proprietary to ics cylinder heads for sure, but if you have a non stock cylinder head obviously that's not a problem. The question is if reaches far enough into the hop up, if not I'm SOL and out 6 bucks lol

If the nozzle is not the right length just sand it down, no biggy.

Assuming it's too long and not too short. Lol

Haha-- I hear you on the heavy investment. (funny)

But I was referring to the clearance on the nozzle. I found this out the hard way as even the ICS dealer did not know the nozzle on the M4 was specific to the M4. It was only when we were trouble shooting (so to speak) at the store we actually did a comparison.

ICS
Another M4 upgraded nozzle.

The upgraded made the gun misfeed and jam. Then we swapped to stock...boom....perfect feed.

Then we looked at the m4 nozzles and surprise surprise....the ics is shorter.

Like TM they have there own spin on things.

All I am trying to say is that gun is not something that you can mix and match easy at all.

Either way, sound like you are closing in on the warm motor lipo draw for sure.

Hope to hear how it turned out.


Trev

Not enough material to sand down.

The end that goes on the nozzle you sand that down you are into the groove that the tappet plate seats in.

The nozzle end where you meet the BB is not a good idea as that is part of the design.

Again, we are talking close to a mm not a slight difference.

I will report back as soon as I try the motor, hopefully with good news... I'm Well aware of ICS compatibility pain lol
Thanks for all the help.
appreciate it!

Nope sanding that end of the nozzle is fairly normal. A lot of the time the chamfer on the nozzle is excessive anyway.

Just have to make sure it's sanded evenly and has a smooth finish.

Alright so I re shimmed from the bevel/ pinion, leaving a very slight amount of play ( less than .10 for sure). Put in a new lonex A1 motor. The battery, motor, and lipo are still getting warm. And I when I take the motor out I would go as far as to say its hot.
I'm out of ideas so anything you guys can think of that I can check or re-do I'm all ears. Or if you can think of any little stupid thing I may have overlooked.... Is it possible I have a short somewhere? I do have a multimeter and there is no excess resistance through any of my wiring/ joints.

Try a use a different lipo since yours is probably damaged internally.
The motor normally gets hot during operation, but you shouldn't find that it's hot on the pistol grip.
Otherwise check the wiring.
The lonex also uses metal brush hood screws, but I think it has a plastic retaining ring, so that shouldn't be an issue.

And check the resistance on the wiring when the mechbox is in the gun, I've had shorts ground through the receiver before.

Il have to buy another lipo, I had planned to anyways but my hesitation is that If it's not the battery I don't want to keep feeding this problem fresh lipo batteries to destroy. The battery charges and stays completely cold through the whole charge, could it still be damaged even though it charges without heating up? I have been checking the resistance with the gearbox in the receiver and it's all at 0. Would a short show up through checking resistance?

If it's not heating up during the charging process then that's good lol
The short may show up, check it between wire and receiver as well.

I'm going to go over all the wiring again, how small of a break or hole in the wiring casing could cause a short?

even pinholes can cause problems

I still maintain you have load in the motor that is causing the heat.

Be it shim or even the track the piston is traveling in.

The upper gearbox isn't attached so it's not the piston lol
I shimmed from the bevel / pinion, leaving less than .10 movement on all gears, and there are no noticeable noises coming from the gearbox, It would actually be nice if it were something like that, but it can't see it.
Maybe I will take a shim off the top of the bevel so it accepts the pinion a bit better?

This little tool has been imperative in determining if my setup is overdrawing on amperage.

I've been able to quantify if I've got the best shimming and motor height adjustment possible. You can't always rely on "sound" and wiggle of the gears.

John

http://www.airsoftstore.ca/images/T-wattmeter.jpg

Stealth I was actually talking about picking one of those today, so much for my plan to go a whole week without ordering from airsoftstore lol
Is it wired to deans? And if not can it be wired to deans for me? I'm currently out of connectors.

Are you on bushings or bearings??

Bushings