massenb203

8.4.2.4 Modification of approved motors from their approved configuration and materials by manufacturers, importers or competitors is not permitted. No part of the motor may be replaced, altered or omitted except as noted below; this includes alterations to increase timing capability, addition of epoxy or other coatings, rewinding or shortening of wires, etc. No hybrid motors (mixing of parts between approved brushless motors) allowed.
Motors may be rebuilt as follows:
Revised October 31, 2017

- Fasteners may be replaced with other fasteners of similar type and size - Bearings may be replaced with any bearing of the same size as originally used. - Sensor assemblies, end caps, sleeves, stators may be replaced with components identical in construction and function to that used in the original motor approval - Rotors may be replaced with any rotor approved for the motor in question. Rotors from other motors or which have not been approved may not be used.

Scottrik

iTrader: (261)

The thing to check is the resistance across any two poles, then check a known legal 25.5 motor. A Novak WILL have more resistance than any motor from the last 3 years or so.

I'll bet one of two things is happening:

1) Anyone who can align and re-solder sensors can EASILY pull a few winds off the stator and re-solder that. I look at aligning the sensors as "blueprinting" and wouldn't have a problem with it if that's ALL that's going on... especially on such an obsolete motor. Sensor alignment has NOTHING to do with resistance.

2) A not uncommon cheat with those motors was that they color-coded the stator based on what spec wind it was. From memory, the 17.5 was yellow, the 13.5 was red, etc. Well...the 25.5 was black. Guess what other Novak stators had the black tab...their Crawler motors which were (iir) available in 17.5, 19.5, and 21.5. These installed right in and looked just like a Novak 25.5 "spec" on-road motor, but with a lot more power.

There is NOTHING legal that can be done to a Novak motor that will make it run with a current 25.5 unless that motor is sick. If it's beating a 21.5 that's in any decent shape at all that's all you need to see...it's a cheater.

What's sad is someone who puts their racing friends in a position where one of them (or the group) has to be a Hammer and prove what's going on. Afaik we've been lucky as a club, but a neighboring club had a guy doing the aforementioned crawler stator cheat a few years ago.

roadkill

iTrader: (152)

i bet he is using and old crawler statot.18.5 turn if you can check the inductance on the motor.

Loco4G63T

iTrader: (27)

Scottrik

iTrader: (261)

What you want to do is leave him an "out". Start the discussion with "I read that a common modification for outlaw programs (or whatever) was installing these "Crawler" stators that are visually indistinguishable from a proper 25.5. I'm concerned that you may have inadvertently purchased a motor that had been so-modified".

Or something along that line...give him that chance to "Oh yeah, I bought it that way" (and he very well may have).

The end result, though, is that motor can't be allowed to continue racing. There is no question it's a "cheater" ("Outlaw") motor if it is performing as you say.

howardcano

iTrader: (37)

This is incorrect. The ROAR resistance rules were based on the Novak motor. My best Novak is within 1% of the limit.

There is, however, a large difference in rotor strength between my Novaks and newer motors.

Scottrik

iTrader: (261)

I do not believe this to be correct. ROAR issued an announcement July 20, 2017 identifying progress and intent of re-writing rules for brushless electric motors. I will paste the relevant portion of the announcement to the bottom of this message. I will not state "for fact" on this, I wasn't part of the process, but Rob King could probably weigh in with an authoritative position.

ROAR was NEVER married to the Novak motors as USVTA was (that said, I was a supporter of USVTA's "one motor" policy) and, as such, would not be compelled to use it as a baseline. FURTHER, why would anyone (or any organization) choose to use as a baseline a motor from a company that had been out of business for over thirteen months prior to this particular announcement? That just would not make sense. Heck, even USVTA had been off the "Novak or nothing" pony for quite some time prior to July, 2017 and were accepting any ROAR-approved motor, the demise of Novak having forced their hand.

ROAR was quite clear on their process for determining minimum resistance for spec motors...samples of motors approved prior to September 1, 2017 were to be tested for resistance (in a lab using FAR more accurate equipment than the average racer's Harbor Freight volt-ohm meter...) and the minimum resistance for each spec would be the minimum number tested among those approved motors.

I don't have access to our club's IR meter just now or I would test my Novak "Boss" 25.5 and my current ROAR-approved R1 V16 25.5. As a quick-n-dirty test I will use my Fluke volt-ohm meter to measure resistance and report back, the IR meter reading will have to wait a couple weeks.

ROAR's announcement:

The key changes in this re-write include:

1 – Establishing a minimum resistance for approval purposes for each spec wind listed in the rules. These minimums are to be based on the best motor of each wind submitted and approved prior to September 1, 2017. Following that date, motors below the final published minimums will not be approved. Consideration was given to selecting a resistance for each motor which was higher than the best motors already approved in order to “roll back” performance levels to an earlier level. This would have resulted in motors already in the possession of members becoming illegal. Trying to turn back the clock is often appealing but seldom works well. In the end, we accepted that the minimum resistance would have to be a moving target to accommodate motors already in the manufacturing pipeline. Once the final numbers are established on September 1st we expect that future motor submissions will quickly converge on those numbers.

robk

iTrader: (22)

Howard and Scott are correct. I personally have seen a few Novak motors that were completely out of line performance wise. My suspicions were either a swapped stator or winds removed. I have taken Novaks apart, it's not very difficult. Rewinding would be harder.

robk

iTrader: (22)

Scott, Howard is the Roar motor inspector.

Also, former Roar president Steve Pond spend several days at Novak's facility measuring around 100 25.5 motors before developing the 25.5 rules around those stats. This was previous to the BL motor revision.

roadkill

iTrader: (152)

? for Howard, when or whats up with the r1 v21 25.5 not being on the list of approved motors.

fat500

iTrader: (51)

second on the r1 25.5 v21 what is the hold up please?

howardcano

iTrader: (37)

I wrote the original minimum-resistance rules for ROAR in August 2013 when I was technical director. It was an attempt to prevent future motor wars. Unfortunately I could not convince the excomm that it was a good idea, and as a result many racers spent a bunch of money for several years after that due to the rapid changes in motor design.

Now, thanks to the hard work by Chuck, Rob, and the other gentlemen at ROAR, we have minimum resistance rules for all spec motors.

The number I proposed in 2013 for minimum resistance of 25.5T motors was 102.1 milliohms at 25C, based on the Novak design. The value finally selected was 101 milliohms, after ROAR checked more motors, as Rob stated. It is the only spec motor whose resistance didn't drop precipitously during the Great Motor Wars.

howardcano

iTrader: (37)

We found an issue with the R1 V21 25.5T during inspection. There is no delay on the part of ROAR. R1 knows of the issue, but has not yet sent corrected motors for inspection.　

Don't read anything more into this. The issue was not performance related, and was not an attempt to cheat. In fact all of my business interactions with R1 have been cordial and productive.

Scottrik

iTrader: (261)

Apologies for questioning...perhaps you can understand the confusion caused by the ROAR announcement. So it sounds like the 25.5 spec motors were handled a little bit differently than ROAR had indicated (generally) would be the case with a lot of weight given to "historic performance levels"? Not a bad thing!

Will the revised motors be required to have some sort of exterior change to make identification easy in the field? There are quite a few of the V21 25.5T's out having been sold as "pending approval". I fully believe that if you state the discrepancy was not performance-enhancing then that's the fact, but it opens a door we'd probably rather not open if the original spec motor is allowed in competition.

I'm very glad to hear this. It was certainly an unfortunate chain of events in Europe, but I've been very pleased with the power of my V16 25.5 and V21 17.5 motors.

BadSign

iTrader: (15)

For those of you that may be using Trinity batteries: do you prefer the HV VTA, or the LCG?