The other day while flying my Trojan T28D, I was coming into my landing flare, when all of the sudden the motor locked up. Luckily i was close enough to the ground that there was no damage to the plane, but the motor started smoking briefly, and now will not turn for more than about 2 sec. before locking up and whining. Im not to expierienced with electrics so thought someone may be able to answer what is going on. I wasnt sure if it was a bad motor or esc. I havent ever had any nose over landings or anything, its only been flown about 3 or 4 times, here's the link to the videow if you're interested, it happens at the very end as im coming in to land. Thanks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME9jctPA7_s

Did you ever reduce the throttle and fly it without having the stick full forward?

One thing we teach when working with a student is throttle control. Take off at full, then reduce the throttle to a point where the plane will fly without full, then adjust trim of the elevator and any other control so that you can fly straight and level with hands off the transmitter.

Operating an electric at full throttle all the time does two things: it will run the battery down post haste, and it will put an unnecessary load on the motor. It does not need to be run at wide open all the time, in fact, that is pretty much not the way you should fly.

That could have contributed to the engine seizing up like that, simply from overheating from running it under full load for pretty much 100% of your flight time.

CGr.

Hi,

Smoke from glo motor good. Smoke from electric motor not good[]. I would suggest you have one of the experienced electric gurus in your club check it out. Not the end of the world given the price of outrunners today if it needs replacing.

Merry Christmas,

Colin

Take a look inside the motor for a piece of unwanted metal. The magnets in the electrics will pick up a mac truck, so a small washer or nut will get sucked in in a heart beat. Don't know ifthat is your problem, but it is worth keeping in mind. Good luck with it.

Don

What size is your motor and prop?

I fried the motor on my 3-meter glider this fall due to over proping. And this was while running the engine intermittently.

Your symptoms sound like one or two sets of coils in the motor have burned out. Electric motors are 3-phase electric motors (that's why you have 3 wires coming off the ESC) When you burn out a coil you get the smoke from the wire insulation and the motor is now a two-phase motor with a "hole" in it, i.e. an area where there is no magnetic field being generated opposing the magnets in the motor. Coasting through this dead zone (or zones) is what is giving your motor the rough binding sensation.

I'll bet you a beer, your motor is fried and your esc is okay, although I would not recommend running your bad motor any more. Likely there is an internal short in one or more of the motor phases and this may damage the solid state circuitry in your esc. Check the manual for prop/engine size. Recommend a lighter pitch prop, but only the manual can tell you for sure. Also check for good airflow to and around the engine.

Hey jsngnn22, I also have had two or three motors seize on my t28 and Corsair; they use the same motors. If you look closely, you'll notice a set screw in the front bearing mount. The mount is PLASTIC, NOTMETAL and it fatigues and cracks. If you tighten the set screw, you will see these cracks open up. Once these cracks have expanded, carefully fill with CA and back off the screw to mend the stress cracks. I've saved a few PK motors this way. On a few of my PK models, I upgraded the motors with Turnigy. Good luck!

Put a Eflite Power 10 on it (bolts on in less than 6 minutes) and forget it.... you will love the performance!



Steve

Yea I was thinking about the Power 10 anyway before this happened. I know I would need a new ESC, but what else would I need to get to make it work on the trojan, and are there any other modifications I would have to make. I really don't want to dump alot of money into it, as I really only fly it when I don't have time to mess with my glow stuff, so I may just get another stock motor, but I don't know, that's why I'm here just to try and get some insight. Thanks