franchi

Hi Gang.

In the past year, I have had two Sullivan starters fail to operate. These starters have the same symptoms: There is a large amount on drag on the shaft leading to no torque.

The only engine that I had used them on was an O.S. LA .40 with a Davis Diesel head. Would this engine be too large of a load for this the standard High Torq starter causing it to "burn out?" I never got the starter warm let alone hot as the engine would start immediately with the starter.

I now have three Sullivan starters that do not work! How good are the Tower Hobby starters? Customer service at Sullivan is about nill! Perhaps, I should consider changing brands.

Oh yes, I use a car battery to power the starters so they are not starved for current. The wires are 14 ga. copper rated at 20 amps so that should not be a problem.

I disassembled the starters and cleaned and lubed the bearings but to no avail, The brushes looked great.

Any suggestions as to what to do?

TIA,

Franchi

coriolan

I have a 20 years old Sullivan used to start .21 and .45 size boats engines, the only engine it could not swing without loosening the glow plug was a .80 Picco. For small diesel engines(plane)I use a home made starter made from a 775 Mabuchi/12V and its ok for up to 1.5cc. The Sullivan are very well made and I am surprised about your problem. Mine was also used to start C/L engines up to .45 but then again they were glow type.

AMB

mine start my irvine 53s and MVVS 61 both davis heads, and my 4 strk 52 glows with no issues maybe 5 years or longer. my sullivan 1/2 size easily turns my smaller engines
thru .15 size all diesels or davis conversions. Juice to starters provided by a 14Amp 12V wet cell for lawnmowers about 1/3 the size of car battery martin

fiery

My Feedback: (2)

My Sullivan Dynatron on 2 x 12 V 7ah hobby batteries (in series - 24 V) easily started G-62's and like back when I was in to petrol large scale. Putting 24 V through a Tower Starter smoked it in short order [:@].

It now sits gathering dust.

My other Sullivan starter is a wee "hornet", made for 1/2 A engines. Very dinky. It is powered (somewhat questionably) by an 11.1 V LiPo pack but it won't turn over my Enya U11CXD or MVVS 2.5 ccD. I am not sure if it should. Maybe a lead-acid 12 V battery would deliver the necessary juice.

I have found all Sullivan products well made and durable. I'd say that your problem is very much an exception. Have you talked to customer service at the factory?

AMB

Fiery the sullivan likes amps, the 14 amp lead acid will do it, my sealed cell 7 amp 12v lead acid looks like brick not up to it ok for the min starter, My CX11 D is an easy hand flipper never used
a starter, also my Irvine 40 diesels hand start in no more than 4 or 5 flips no nasty kicks , do use a chicken stick martin

mike109

G'day

My Saito 100 has always needed a good shove to get it to start and last Sunday it was just not going to play as I could not get it wet enough to back flip. It had not run for several months.

so ...

my mate Dave has a Sullivan connected to a box with two 7.2 Amp Hour batteries which can be connected in parallel or serial. We connected it for serial (24V) and the Saito burst into life almost immediately. It really is a heart starter.

What really causes me some grief is that I had a Sullivan and did not know how good they were and I gave it away a couple of years ago to a newbi. AAAAAAAGH!

MetallicaJunkie

sullivan probably makes the best starters overall.. in terms of longevity, and quality....i had to throw my dynatron after about 15 years...the case wore out...the terminal would stick sometimes...and it need new bushings/bearings ..shaft would wobble

Hobbsy

My Feedback: (102)

I have an 18 year old DynaTron that has been dropped on concrete, rolled around in my battery box and pickup bed and still works perfectly. It just doesn't look so good. I also have aHobbico 180 that can't start my Saito 1.50. My DynaTron starts the 1.50 easily and used to start a Zenoah G45 and a Mustang 50 quite easily. The DynaTron also spins my SuperTigre 4500 and Saito 2.20 quite easily. With a 300 amp garden tractor battery of course. I use the 7.2 amp battery for a weight to hold down freshly glued parts.

Recycled Flyer

Idon't think that anyone has touched upon the 'drag on the shaft' issue and after years of working on 12 volt electric engines an armature that won't spin freely is usually one of two things - brushes or bearings.

The brushes I would replace even if they 'look' good and align the hoods so that they are dead 90 degrees to the commutator, clean the comm with some 1200 wet an dry and check for roundness whilst doing so.
If the segments on the comm are gapped then clean out those last of all with a piece of plastic card.

Now the bearings, are they installed so that the armature when energized spins within the centre of the magnetic field? Sometimes the arm. can throw hard against one bearing if it is not centred upon installation.
How did you lube those bearings? Grease and electrical contacts do not a good pair make.

The only other thing that springs to mind here is a bent arm. and if thats the case then throw it in the bin.

To go any further on fixing am arm. that won't spin up we will need pics on this or the product itself, sorry to say.

P.S. Is the external rubber drive prop coupler jamming against the housing when pressing the starter against the engine? This gets back to the arm. being not centred and may need to be shimmed to keep it from rubbing.

Cheers.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

I have three Dynatrons and two of them are 23 years old. They work perfect and I used one of the old ones Saturday to start a Saito 220 with a lawn tractor battery.

But the guy that owns the Saito 220 got out his Hobbico 90 and with two 7 amp emergency light gel cells in series and also started his Saito 220 for the next flight.

I also have a couple of the small Tower starters like the Hobbico 90 and one longer Tower HD that is like the Hobbico 180.

Most of these I bought at swap meets the Towers around $5 and also a Sullivan Deluxe High Torq that was so old it just said Pylon on it and doesn't say Sullivan anywhere for $5.

The old Sullivan Dynatrons were $15 for one that had been in the sun so much that the label was faded out and $90 for the other old one with a Miller 4:1 reduction but it appeared unused and no sun damage.

The one old Dynatron, and the High Torque, I bought new front end plastic pieces, cords and switches from Sullivan. Sullivan was very accomodating. The Dynatron and High Torque look like new except for the old labels. They were like new on the inside. The cords and switches were replaced because of sun damage.

I was using the Miller unit this afternoon with two gell cells in series.

There's a store in town that has the gell cells for $5 each as many as you want. I was there today and there was well over a hundred of them on the shelf.

Sullivan will not sell you any internal parts of the motors but they have good prices on bare motors.

I can get brushes at the hardware store up the street but have not needed any for the Sullivans.

Cones and drums are available from Tower for the Sullivans and Hobbico starters.

Augie11

I'm really surprised to hear of someone having problems with 3 Sullivan starters. I've got a 17 year old High Tork operating off a 7amp gel cell and it turns over anything up to a 1.20 four stroke. For the 1.50 and 1.80 I use the Dynatron with the 14.4 volt attached pack. The Hobbico starters are poor quality by comparison.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

The Tower, Hobbico, and Hanger Nine starters all appear to be the same manufacturer.

If you look carefully on Tower's site you can find new cords for them in both the straight and coiled versions.

I personally have not had any trouble with any of the starters. The Sullivan High Torques/Dynatrons are much stronger than the Hobbico types.

The Sullivan's I've repaired were neglected when I bought them where they had been dropped or the cords butchered to install battery packs or just the plastic/rubber parts were rotted by the sun..

The Sullivan switch has little foam squares as separators between the contacts. These foam squares will deteriorate after several years. It is easy enough to come up with a foam substitute to repair the switches. Eventually the rubber cover goes. New switches are $4.86 + $4.00 shipping. I usually get a few other parts too while I'm at it to offset the shipping costs.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

The Sullivan Starter page

http://www.sullivanproducts.com/StartersContent.htm

There is another page with the rubber cones

http://www.sullivanproducts.com/Star...sMainFrame.htm

Sullivan will sell you direct the switch, cords, clamps, plugs, bare motrs, and end pieces.

The complete starters and rubber inserts may be another story?

The parts Sullivan generally does not sell direct are readily available from Tower or Sig or Advantage hobby and so on.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

IMHO The Sullivan High Torque spins too fast at 5400 rpm.

Seems like I remember Hobbsy having a Miller reducer on something besides a Sullivan? Seems like it was on a Hobbico 180? He changed the gear reduction from 4:1 to 2:1 so he could still use 12V.

The problem with the Miller besides costing too much is that a 4:1 reduction, you are forced to use 24V then it is just right.

If the Miller was 2:1, it would be just the right speed on 12V at around 2400 rpm on a Dynatron or a Hobbico.

earlwb

I don't know about your starter, but my 25 year old Sullivan starter is still working fine.  Maybe they made them better back then, but who knows.

scoobiedoo

I soldered two relay contacts on to the burnt out switch that I took out of a old relay that I scrounged from a friend of mine starts my 220 Zeus on a 4 or 5 cell lipo, you must stick your finger on the end of the exhaust and prime the engine! You must have a good 2 volt supply not one of them sub C 1.2 volt glow stick things their fine when the engine wants a re start, never use them myself.
Note it says 10amp on the plastic cover but they do work if you do burn them out just solder some new one’s back in.