[Raptor Dual] One motor starts breaking. (short in windings) Solution found

Well the jiggling the wires around causes the same thing in the bench and the wire is burnt inside the motor. Also smells kinda funny when doing so. Pretty sure that’s the problem. No other VESC available at this time unfortunately.

Yeah, actually I was on my way to try and fix it today but lacked the tool required to get the small screws out of the motor. Probably should be possible but it’s not like I wanna risk fixing it crappy myself vs. getting a good working one.

It seems several of us are having the same or similar problems. I went 4 months without any issues, so I guess I’ve been lucky, but the brakes slamming on expectedly is not something I ever want a repeat of.

I have not yet taken my motor apart, but it appears the issue was my slave VESC. I disconnected the slave VESC side motor and powered the board up and the slave VESC sparked and caught fire. I removed slave VESC and powered the board up and the master VESC and motor are working fine.

Has anyone experienced this issue on the master VESC…or is it always the slave vesc/motor…and if so, why?

Btw be carefull when you try to undo those, with the small allen key and the threadlocker on there they get twisted over easily. Do it by hand if you can. I had to drill one over at each motor because of this, but I had spare bolts at home for those…

There have been lots of issues regarding the VESC and 63** motors, They are actually at the limit. If you want to read more, head over to the VESC 6.0 thread :

http://www.electric-skateboard.builders/t/vedders-vesc-6-0/

I’m running my personally built board (not raptor, 1 VESC only, more info here) so no slave VESC here and as mentioned, short in motor is confirmed (although not 100% the braking was caused by this). As you can see in my previous picture the wires are slightly black where they touch the most, might as well just have one motor connector instead of 3 LOL.

Is this a recurring issue with the Raptor Dual? Getting my Raptor soon so I want to be pre-cautious.

The new motors I’ve got only leave like a cm of copper exposed when they go in. So they aknowledged that production issue. I would however advice you to stiffen the cables anyway so they can barely move. Burning DRV chips on the VESC is also a common problem with those big motors.

Another hint for you guys, if you lost confidence in the board. Stop keeping the throttle always on, if you’re not accellerating. Just let it coast, give some extra when your about to slow down. It will keep the motor from shorting and braking and a bit of extra range if you use it wisely

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Hmm, sounds like I’ll have to put some Velcro on the wires so that it’ll stick to the board. I wonder if this is a known issue for Raptors.

You could pot or do a conformal coating on the windings with high heat epoxy. Most motors come with enough on there that wires aren’t moving around and rubbing and shorting. J and b weld is filled with metal and conductive and not a good choice. Omega 100 high heat epoxy for 10$.

Hi guys.

Just a reminder.

Your raptors are all under warranty. Email [email protected] with photos and video of your problems.

There was a batch of about 80 motors made with excess copper inside. This problem has been resolved now.

If you have a motor with excess copper and you have not got over heating problems or any obvious issues yet I recommend securing the wires internally with epoxy.

Spare parts will be sent for free. We also will have ample stock of vesc to send for replacing failed vesc.

Replacing parts on raptor is fairly straight forward. If you get stuck we can help with instructions or find a repair agent nearby to assist…

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Not having a complete Raptor (got many parts though) but seem to have motor with the same issue. Opened a ticket July 4th on the website, no answer yet, should I still email?

Mail them a kind reminder, they have always replied me… He even came to the topic this time :wink:

Do you know who got the motors that have this problem? Just want to check before taking any remedial steps.

I would say batch 1 and 2 from the raptors. You could check your stator for excessive copper wire exposed

Thanks Skitzor. How do I tell if it’s excessive or not?

That’s excessive

and not excessive would mean there’s no winding at the top?

Till this day I don’t know how a motor works. And how it “shorts” to tell you the truth. I’ve made longer shrink tubing on 2 of the 3 leads and seems to have fixed it because on the bench I can wiggle where the 3 wires meet by the aluminum can and it doesn’t short anymore so I’m assuming it has fixed it. The funny thing is that if you touch any of the phase wires on its end, the motor will be hard to turn. But seeing those phase wires within the motor are already touching each other and don’t seem to have that effect. Strange indeed.

@guyguy, exactly, they should be insulated all the way to where they enter the copper coils. (in other words, as far as you could push the shrink tubing till the end)

@c4Lvin The copper inside is treated with some enamel (which insulates the bare copper) but due to the vibrations they have to withstand, this rubs off and makes the copper short. Exactly the same way as you would short the bullet connectors a the end. If this happens at full speed when you hit a bump, bad things could (read: will) happen. Hope this explains it a little for you.

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