DDMC Racing

 

 

Break-In Procedure

For G2 that has the weaker magnets.

The first thing I do to a motor when I get it is break-in the bushings. When the motor gets hot towards the end of the race the bushings contract and squeezes the shaft on the motor. I use Chemico grinding paste, also known as valve grinding paste, and some motor spray to break them in. Firstly, I take one of my old 540 motors and connect the shafts together so that I am not putting any voltage into the new motor. I take the valve grinding paste, using the fine side of the container, and motor spray (brake cleaner I use) and mix them together to make a small diluted amount inside an old spray paint top. Use just enough til its watery to pour over the bushing, paying attention not to put too much so it pours all over the back of the motor. The bushing is recessed a little bit so try to keep it just in there. I then connect 2 cells to the other motor and run it for about 10-15 minutes. When the motor cleaner and paste dry out pour a little bit of the mixture on the bushing again. Eventually there will be a lot of paste gathering around the shaft so just drip motor cleaner onto the bushing to dilute it again. Sometimes I even press with my finger to push the paste into the bushing while it is running. I have read that you could loosen up the bushing too much but I have yet to encounter this with all the motors that I have owned.

Once I have done all the above I remove the G2 motor from the other motor. I then spray out the new motor with motor cleaner and then connect it up to a 2 cell NIMH battery. Connect the positive lead of the motor to the positive lead of the battery and negative to negative. I always break-in my brushes this way as I have read that it some how advances the timing on the motor a tiny bit because the leading edge of the commutator's poles get chared. That means when you run your motor in reverse you will have slightly advanced timing. So when ever cleaning your motors or breaking them in run them pos to pos and neg to neg.

Now it's time to break-in the brushes on the motor. When looking into the motor you will see that the brushes are cerrated. I break-in the brushes all the way down til the cerrations are completely gone. Removing the cerrations creates a larger contact patch between the brushes and commutator creating better efficiency. I do this by getting some hot tap water in a plastic or glass container, like a large mayonaise jar. With the motor running I start dipping the motor into the water. I start with one minute increments and then check the brushes. If it needs more I just repeat (30 seconds). Now, I have had brushes break-in really fast and other times kinda slow so keep a watchful eye. You will notice the water in the container start to get quite dirty but don't worry. This shows you that the brushes are breaking-in. Once the brushes are broken in and I see that the cerrations are gone in I rinse the motor, still running, with warm water coming out of the tap. I then clean the motor out with motor spray, also still running, and let it dry.

When I connect my motor into my car I directly solder my motor. Overall better efficiancy they say. Once my motor is in my car I place the car sideways on its wheels and apply "Parma International T.Q. Bushing Oil #740" to which ever bushing is facing up. I put just a few drops, spin the wheels a bit and then let it sit for a few hours or sometimes over night leaving the car on it's side. It's just to make sure it soaked all the way down. You do not need to put to much. The reason I use bushing oil is that supposidly it holds up better to high temperatures than bearing oil.

And that's it. Your motor is broke in.

Some of this stuff I have said is already out there on the internet but to find it all in one place I hope it helps a few.

I have a few newer stronger magnet G2 Motors coming in and will try the same procedure as above. I have heard that you just need to put it on 3 volts for 15 minutes and to keep it cool during this period.

Motor Maintenance

This is very easy. After each race I spray motor cleaner onto a bent tip of a Q-tip. Bend the Q-tip first. If you spray the Q-tip then bend it, there is a good chance it will break so spray after. What you want to do is is use the angle of the Q-tip to access the commutator inside the motor. It is very easy to do, and I do this about 4 times. Just spin the rear wheels whilst holding the tip of the Q-tip on the commutator. The Q-tip will still come out dirty after the 4th go but it will be much cleaner than the initial swab. For assistance in doing this anyone can pretty much help you out here. If the person you ask can't answer your question or help you I can almost guarantee the person you are talking to will know someone who can, that's Mardave racing at it's best. That's also my experience at Leamington. So, 4th swab and you're ready for the next race. After the last final I do not clean it anymore until I do the next step below.

After every race day I unsolder the motor out of my car and spray it with motor cleaner. I let it sit a minute or two and again connect it up to a 2 cell NIMH battery. While it is spinning I pour diluted dishsoap directly inside the motor. The dilution is about 1/4 inch of dish soap to the rest of the bottle filled with water. I then dip the motor into a container with warm water again. For some reason, the brushes don't wear down as quickly. I think the heat of the motor changes the way the brushes wear or maybe it's the dish soap. After about 30 seconds in the water I then rinse the motor under the tap. I then clean with motor spray, let it dry, pop the motor back in and repeat the process of lubing the bushings by putting my car on it's sides.

Now I'm ready for the next meet!

 

Simple Battery Care

I am in no way a Battery Wizzard here but I try to just keep things simple and again, this is just what has worked for me.

First thing I do when you get a new set of batteries is to ONLY put about 1000mAh into them at 3 amps. This preps the cells before taking on a full charge. Do this initial charge and then discharge them back down. Now, for the first full charge, charge again at 3 amps. Remember, this is just to break-in the cells for the 'full on' charge you will be wanting to do for the races. Occassionally, I have had a false peak on this initial charge. I just click the charger back on. After this charge, either drain the battery pack down by doing a few races or discharge it. The next charge, depending on the type of cells, 4 amps is a good al'rounder to start with in my rule book. Rule of thumb is if your battery pack is a 3300mAh battery then you will want to charge it at 3.3 amps and same goes if your battery is a 4600mAh battery you will want to charge at 4.6 amps. So, there yah have it, that is how I get my batteries prep'd for racing.

On race day I arrive 1 hour early to help out with the track and to get my Team Orion 4600SHO batteries on charge. I arrive with all my cells discharged to .9 volts per cell which I did earlier that day plus I have one emergency battery fully charged in case of a mishap. I place my batteries on charge at 5.0 - 6.0 amps. After about an hour all the batteries are ready for racing. I usually race in race 4 so when race 2 ends I kick on the charger to repeak. It usually kicks off after a few minutes and the battery is warm and not too hot to touch. I have my delta peak set on 15 per contact with Team Orion. (This setting is different for all cells and I recommend contacting the company who makes your cells to get the exact number.) If your charger has not kicked off in time for you to get to the starting line then just end the charge, put the battery in your car and get your car on the track.

I then repeat the above for the each battery pack. They are all charged up and ready to be repeaked on race 2, race 3 and race 4. Just one thing though, LABEL your batteries. I cannot tell you how many times I forgot which battery was which. I have 4 batteries packs each with a red star on a different cell.

If you only have two battery packs I would either charge them prior to arriving or do what I do which is from the point that I arrive at 6pm. After race 1 let battery pack 1 cool to room temp and get it back on the charger ready for race 3. Again, repeak before your race if need be. Battery 2 you will use in race 2 and again when it cools to room temp get it back on the charger for race 4. Some say the second charge is the best. Always make sure your batteries have cooled before charging the second time as charging them when still hot/warm can damage them.

****A little note on repeaking very recently fully charged packs. I have read that this isn't always the best thing for them. If your battery is warm to touch after a recent charge and it's time to repeak, skip the repeak and prepare your car for the race. It's not worth damaging your good cells for one race.****

After the race I get back to my table and get the motor cooling under a fan immediately. To me heat is the enemy of the G2 motor so I get it cooling as fast as possible. Next week I will be testing out a motor cooler. I see some of the others using it so I'm going to give it a try to see if there is a difference. I will keep you posted.

After the last race I get my motor cooling again but at the same time start packing up. I just don't like the thought of all that heat sitting in the motor for any bit of time. The last thing I do is pack up the car.

Some people discharge their cells to .9 volts per cell pretty much right away. I don't do this. I just do it the day of the races. I see no harm and it's worked for me. And then I repeat the whole process over again Wednesday the following week.

Let the fun commence.

My Tyre Set Up

As read all over the internet tyres are one of the most important things on a Mardave. Have the wrong tyres and you are for sure not going to make it to the A-Main. To this day I am still learning about tyres and to me one of the most important things about the tyres is the size of them. I have found that on the rear or front Pink Meds can be just as grippy as SE Softs. It's the tyre height that makes or breaks the grip for almost all the tyres I have used. Example: Once Jap Meds on the front start to get very low profile the grip just isn't there but a Pink Med that is the same size might have the same grip as a Jap Med before it was worn down. Make sense?

This is what I have heard and tried at Leamington. Sorry, I did not do measurements of tyres from the get-go but I will do so in the near future.

Rear/Front
Pink Softs/Pink Med - I was grip rolling everywhere. If I trued them shorter my problem with these would have gone away. I was still a newbe when I used them. Solution could have been to run Jap Meds up front. They are a little harder than the Pink Med.

Pink Med/Jap Med - I think this is one of the more popular tyre choices run at Leamington. I ran these all last season with good results.

SE Softs/Pink Med - I am running this now. Seems to work very well once you put a little glue around the side wall of the front Pink Med tyres. Otherwise, I would grip roll very easily. I just measured a set I have ready to go and the SE's are 51mm and the Pink Meds are 47-48. SE Softs wear very quickly so having a spare set is a good idea.

SE Med Gold: Just got a few sets of these and will be testing them on the front and back with Pink Med's and Jap Med's on the front.

Jap 44's: Lets just say these are pretty hard tyres...harder than Jap Meds in my opinion. I am still learning what the numbers mean but if I am remembering correctly Jap 38's are softer and Jap 50's are harder.

One easy thing to do is to round off the tyre's edges. If you do not have a truer just use the rear axle of your car and some sand paper, have someone hit the throttle, and you round off the angled edges with the sandpaper. It can throw out quite a bit of smoke so do this in a ventilated area. This helps a lot with consistency in the corners...IE: Stopping grip roll.

The tyre additives I use are Nosram Traction Additive - Carpet #96010 and Team Corally - Jack the Gripper #13780. Both work very well at Leamington. The Nosram stuff offers just a tad less grip than the Corally stuff but I keep both in my pit box as it is still very easy to tune with both. As the carpet warms up so does the grip. So maybe try Corally for the first race and depending on grip go to Nosram. For the rear you do the whole width of the tyre and for the fronts just about a 1/3rd of the width starting from the inside. The basic rule of "my" thumb is that with SE Softs you only have to apply it once, maybe again for race 2, but with Pink Meds on the rear you might want to apply it before every race. Same thing for the Japs, some seem to apply before every race. Usually 15-30 minutes before the next race worked for me. I then wipe the tyres down very well with a cloth before going out on the track. This prevents me from having to dry my tyres off on the carpet by doing a lap or two and heating up my motor before the race. A quick burn out works too. That is holding your car up in the air and lightly letting the rear tyres touch the carpet. Some clubs do not like you doing this so ask your local club rep about this. Some clubs even have a burnout rug.

So there yah have it. Just some tyre stuff I have learned. Now, I must admit, is any of this stuff actually getting me in the A-Main week after week? I have no clue, and for all it's worth, all this stuff I do possibly might not do a dern thing but one thing I do know is that I really enjoy this hobby and I am always trying to do something different or make things better. Oh, and one more thing to mention. If a change that you make to your car makes it handle different or in a way that you do not like try to adapt to it. Being able to adapt to a poor handling car I think is what helped me do well last season. I never quit, took my car off the track and blamed the car. Just slow down, get a feel for what the car is actually doing and drive from there. Last season I even continued to race with one front wheel dangling, twice. Hey, why not?!

Full thottle does not win races....Accuracy does.