Preventing motor burnout

[Jim Harbison]

It is important to monitor drive motor case temperature .If you have a VOM with thermisters(sp) attach them to the motor case using a hose clamp with a rubber pad between the sensor and clamp to reduce heat sink effect or rrig them up to your dashboard if you are into that .I dont know the mfgs max operating temp and if you can get that value .........but usually if you are near 200 deg F you may be flirting with burnout.If you dont have any fancy instrumentation take a soldering iron and drip hot crayon in a puddle on top of the motor .If it runs down the side during operation .......its BARBQ time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

The next tip has to do with DC motors you use to move arms and stuff.I see lots of bots with limit switches at the end of the stroke or arc.They can and will get out of adjustment .I stoped using limit switches in aircraft control actuators 10 years ago and here is how i did it.Determine the total stroke time ...........worst case...........device loaded and batt voltage at 10 volts.If it takes 10 seconds to complete an end to end cycle ........enter a line of code that disables the actuator in 14 seconds and enables/arms the opposite direction.

Good luck to everyone...................

Jim H