Losi22

iTrader: (67)

So I turned down the timing to 10 on a friends Reedy Mach2 17.5 motor and it smoked. The esc also burned up. He is saying it burned up since there was so little timing in it. The motor was smelling hot and coming off at 180 to 190 many runs before. Help me out!!!!

Odin544

iTrader: (93)

No it won't burn up because of a lack of timing.

Losi22

iTrader: (67)

He runs a hobby shop and said he called reedy and they said no timing caused it to smoke.

old_dude

iTrader: (1)

Only way too much or + or - will burn it up. Something else was wrong.

ThePanda

iTrader: (68)

Wow, either he didn't call them, or he got one of the reps who didn't actually know or work with reedy products.

Bad gearing choice and not paying attention and regearing after that most likely caused it to smoke.

B.C.Ninja

You could smoke a motor from lowering the timing, but only in an extreme situation, it would require some ridiculous gearing to do so, would be like trying to drive a car on the highway in 1st gear sort of scenario. Most likely what happened was that the enamel coating insulating the wire had been degrading due to excess heat, then it just happened to finally give up and short the winding after the timing adjustment, I've had motors throw cold smoke before because of this, I had previously stressed the insulation, then it was just a waiting game for it to finally short over.

YoDog

iTrader: (28)

Sounds like sour grapes.
If he runs a hobby shop, he should know better. The motor was abused for a while and by coincidence the motor shorted after reducing the timing. the only way it would overheat is if the timing was so far in the negative it was just short of running backwards.

Pauly6401

iTrader: (53)

I was also going to point out that someone who runs a hobby shop should know a little bit about how the things they are selling work.

DesertRat

iTrader: (2)

Running a brushless motor with excessively retarded timing is not going to be good for performance, but I don't think it would cause it to burn. If the motor timing was so retarded to only 10 degrees of total timing, how was the motor getting so hot? Was it massively overgeared? No fan? Run for a half hour at race speed without a break?

oldenuff

iTrader: (2)

runs a hobby shop eh?
how is he still in business?

YoDog

iTrader: (28)

+1... It was just it's time.
Since the OP stated that it smelled and was hot many runs prior, the lamination finally broke down to the point where the stator shorted out and killed the ESC to boot. Oh yeah not to mention if a motor gets real hot frequently, the rotor will become degaussed and will cause the stator to draw too much current thus letting out the magic smoke.

DesertRat

iTrader: (2)

Yeah, I had one of those once. The only brushless motor I have gotten to smoke was a Revtech I ran to 200+ degrees in Touring Car more than a few times. Its rotor went bad and swapping it to a fresh high-torque woke it up, but the damage had been done. The lamination was damaged and when I put it in a buggy and gave it a few of the hits offroad racing gives your equipment it shorted itself out and it felt like the brakes were permanently on. Naturally it did this in the middle of an important qualifier when I was in 'screw it' mode, so I drove until it stopped on its own. Smoke.

Bubba244

? I am with the original poster.
I have a reedy 8.5T.
I turned my timing down to about 10... And it stared to get real hot within 2-3 minutes of race driving- no matter what gearing I tried!!!
I turned timing back up to about 23... And presto... Runs cool. And I can run basically any gearing I want, same track, and it doesn't get NEAR AS HOT as when I TURNED DOWN THE TIMING ON MY REEDY 8.5T

Maybe some of you need more rc education.

WheelNut

iTrader: (5)

Lower timing should result in lower temperatures due to higher efficiency. Perhaps you should read this little article from Novak as it covers some of the basics of motor timing: http://teamnovak.com/tech_info/view_article/20

It is highly likely that something else is causing your motor to overheat. Why not try an experiment with a different motor to see the effects of timing changes on heat production within the motor. Gear the car to run at 160F at 0 degrees timing then keep the same gearing and move your endbell 10 degrees from heat to heat at your next race and see what happens.

RedBullFiXX

iTrader: (34)

Never assume motor timing marks relate to anything close to actual timing
Having said that, driving well past the point of fade is most often the cause of smoke to escape electrical components