SV27 Motor Smoke

[domp444]

Today was interesting. On my first run, my boat suddenly stopped, and wouldn't move. After getting a boat ready to go get the SV, it powered back on. I brought it to shore, and while taking the tape off smoke started coming out.

The reason: the rudder water intake was clogged. Surprisingly, I've been running the boat like this for a while now. The motor would get hot and I couldn't figure out why. So now, time for that transom water pickup!

The motor should be okay since it did work coming back to shore. There was no fire, just smoke so probably just got too hot.

[Fluid]

The motor should be okay since it did work coming back to shore. There was no fire, just smoke so probably just got too hot.

It is not safe to make that assumption. If the motor got hot enough to damage the magnets - somewhere over 160F - the motor will still run but its efficiency will be bad. Now it will run hotter and will over-stress the ESC.

This happened to me once, I had overheated a motor (185*F on the can) but thought it was okay. I then lost three ESCs in short order (a Hacker and two BKs), finally narrowing it down to the motor as the common factor. I sent the motor (a Hacker) back for service and found that the magnets were shot. A new rotor fixed the motor - but it didn't bring back those ESCs!


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[johnf]

GREAT info Jay!

[domp444]

Oh I see. What can I do, if anything, to check if the motor is okay?