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View Full Version : Making Your Own Motor Mounts?


LBMiller5
02-05-2005, 05:20 AM
Hi Everyone,

I just finished making my first motor mount, and I wanted to share my findings. I made a couple bearing tubes a couple weeks ago, but this is the first one that is an integral mount.

I had seen some photos that others had done, as well as the new one available from Steve on the GB site, and based on this, I designed one for myself. I had received some nice stators that had an outside diameter of 23.6mm, a 9mm center hole, and are 3mm thick. I wanted to make a mount that would hold these. I picked up a 12" long piece of 1" diameter 6061-T6 aluminum and cut it up into little pieces 1", and 1-1/4" long. I got 5 of each from the piece.

Today I got my first order of motor parts from GoBrushless. One of the parts I ordered was one of Steve's new motor mounts. Here is a picture of one of these beauties:

http://www.gobrushless.com/ccp51/media/images/product_detail/prod_GBxFWM1.gif

I wanted to make a mount that would hold 4 of stators I received together in a stack 12mm thick. I started with one of the 1-1/4" long pieces of 1" bar stock, and chucked it up in my mini lathe.

http://innov8tivedesigns.com/rcgroups/Mount1.jpg


After about 3 hours of drilling, boring, and turning I had a mount. Here is a shot showing the finished mount next to one of the blank pieces.

http://innov8tivedesigns.com/rcgroups/Mount3.jpg


Here is another photo showing my mount next to the one I got today from Steve for a size comparison.

http://innov8tivedesigns.com/rcgroups/Mount2.jpg

This mount is about the biggest thing I can make with this tiny lathe. Because it only has about a 1/10th HP motor, you cannot take much material off with each pass without stalling or over-heating the motor. 10 thousands of an inch (about 1/4th of a millimeter) at a time is the max it will do. Half that much is a comfortable amount. Because of this, you have to make about 100 passes to turn down 1/2 of an inch! Needless to say, this process produces a LOT of shavings. Here is a picture of the mount sitting next to the pile of shavings that was produced, not counting the stuff I vacuumed up off the floor!

http://innov8tivedesigns.com/rcgroups/Mount4.jpg

It sort of looks like a giant Brillo pad the size of a basketball!! I had the pile of shavings in the trash can next to my work table. I was test fitting one of the bearings into the mount and I dropped it. The bearing proceded to roll off the end of the table and landed right into the trash can! DOOAAHH! I got the bearing back after sifting through stuff for about 5 minutes! What a pain!

The mount finished out pretty nice. I still need to drill the lightening holes and mounting holes in the back plate. I will have to wait until I go back to work, since I don't have a drill press at home.

The mount is 25mm in diameter at the back plate, and the back plate is 3.5mm thick. The middle part of the mount is 11mm in diameter and 10mm long, and the end, where the stators will go, is 8.96mm in diameter and 13mm long. Just a tad under 9mm to leave room for a film of epoxy when I mount the stator stack. The bore down the center of the mount is 5.5mm, and the bearing holes are 7mm by 3mm deep. I am going to use some 3x7x3mm bearings in this one. The overall length of the mount is 26.5mm.

If anybody else has made their own mounts, please share your design with the rest of us. I always enjoy admiring other people's work, so lets see what you got!

Well that is enough for tonight. Time for bed.

See you all next time.

Lucien

***UPDATE***

Here is the finished mount. It turned out pretty good!

http://innov8tivedesigns.com/rcgroups/Mount5.jpg

Later!

Lucien

ScubaSteve
02-07-2005, 09:24 PM
Nice job. :D

Just FYI the reason our GBx mounts don't fit past a double is because they were designed as a helicopter mount, but we kept in mind that it'd be nice if it were to double as a firewall mount. Most helis rarely need over a GBx2 (you need speed, not raw power). For customers wanting to mount a GBx3, we will have mounts for those in the coming weeks - the kind that you mount to the firewall and then just slide your alum bearing tube in and tighten down a grub screw...