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Heat Sink For M03m Chassis

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Does anyone run one of these alloy heat sinks? If so, do you notice the improvement in motor temperature?

The only part of my car that gets hot is the motor. The ESC and battery barely room temp.

I am running a Super Stock RZ motor. Maybe the 20t pinion and 1/10 scale wheels means its over geared, but its doesn't appear to be.

I have some ball bearings coming for it, so that may help.

Also do these heatsinks work buy dissapating the heat down the screws?

If anyone has tried anything else out then let me know.

Cheers all.

P.S out of curiosity whats the lower turns anyone runs in a M chassis car?

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Anything that draws any heat from the motor is always good. Since the motor is jammed up in the chassis the heatsink is the only means of really helping it stay sort of cool. Not sure how much heat is really taken down the screws but it has to work somehow. I've not ran my 2 mini's with the same set ups so I can say yes or no really. Just buy it, it looks good.

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I've raced mine with and without, and can honestly say it doesn't make an ounce of difference. The only factor maybe that it is stock motors and 5 minute long races...

Look cool though eh!?

And i can't say the extra weight will make any noticable difference either

RYan

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I'd have been surprised if it worked tbh.

I think for any motor heat sink to work there must be air flow of some sort to carry the heat away. Most electric RC, openings are not made on the body like nitro so very little or no air flow gets inside. With Nitro some chasis is metal and does help the motor cool down due to large surface area and air gets under the body to cool the chassis.

Found with the hard plastic body like MU on the XC one can drill holes in the front, the grill covers these holes and place a small compute fan inside cools off the motor and ESC.

Some of the hop ups are more bling than function

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Some of the hop ups are more bling than function

Does "some"= "most"?!

E-maxx/ T-maxx is the biggest culprit...

Love shiny stuff though :)

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You could do similar with the Mini, by cutting out the grille area, and fitting some fine mesh in it's place (to stop stones from fouling things up.).

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I've seen some M03 drivers around here put a thin, clip-on style heat sink on the exposed end of the motor. It's also made by Tamiya, but I don't know which car it is designed for. That should work better than the official M03 motor heat sink, which from what I've heard, is more about strengthening the chassis then about heat dissipation.

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Yeah, to me the heat sink needs to touch the motor with a wide surface area. I am sure I can adapt something if it becomes an issue. I can just touch the motor for 3 secs, but only just.

I'll fit my motor bearings and experiment with the gearing.

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As I've told many many people on various forums...and as stated on our site.

The Tamiya M03 heatsink does NOTHING... The only heat transfer is through the screws, its so small as to be unmeasurable.

Clip on heatsinks are OK, they work better, but it all depends on what motor you're running. I wouldnt bother with anything. Its just added weight for no gain.

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...and as stated on our site.

Having a click around now...nice site.

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I have used the heatsink for some time now and am amazed at how effective it is. It works brilliantly. Given the only material to conduct the heat from motor to sink is the screws, it's incredible how much heat is conducted to the heatsink. Personally, with my setup, I would not run without one now. With Bugsy, Volksrod, Moosey, Zakspeed and Wild Willy all racing Minis and giving them more abuse that anyone I have ever seen we have some comparitive knowledge.

With Bugsy, Moosey and me all running the short can Acto-M special motor we raced around. Both Moosey and Bugsy's motors burned out after time, Bugsy's even melting his chassis...! Mine had the heatsink and is still going strong. It's a low torque motor though which doesn't help and is marginal on gearing.

How about this...? After racing at Sherburn (5 mins on carpet) with the Acto M, my heatsink was so hot you could not hold your hand onto it for very long. Again, marginal gearing but I can't cog it any lower with that small motor. The heatsink in that application definitely works, absolutely 100%. For a really torquey motor like a Silver Can or the Super Stocks it's much less important. At the moment I have a SS RZ in my Mini but haven't had chance to test the heatsink much as the first time I ran it was on tarmac with super sticky slick and the combination or grip and high torque stripped the splines off my ball diff...! ;):blink::)

What I would say is if you plan on using anything other than a silver can or high torque motor or where gearing might be marginal, it's worth it. The heat sink is a good little investment given they cost peants. Bugsy had to replace the chassis on his as well as the motor after it melted...! Plus it's all ally and weighs nothing.

if you have the little Acto M, don't run without it and don't run the 20t pinion. The motors are getting more hard to find now and it'd be a shame to kill it for the sake of a 5 heasink.

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I think Wireless and Tony need to have a fight, sort it out good and proper! :blink:

The general opinion seems to be to not bother if you're keeping it stock, but you will gain a little if you change the gearing/ motor.

For the sake of a fiver i'd give it a go.

Ryan

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I guess I'll have to try it. If the heatsink itself gets hot, then is must be working or at least doing something.

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I think Wireless and Tony need to have a fight, sort it out good and proper! :D

I am not sure a fight is the way forward, but I don't agree that the heatsink does "nothing". I fully appreciate that in many configurations and usage patterns, it is simply not required and is therefore nothing more than a few grams of bling, but that is not to say that there aren't some configurations and usage patterns where it will considerably improve performance and the longevity of the installed motor, ESC and chassis of the car.

As I mentioned, running the Acto M Special motor on a short, high grip circuit where loads are high, I have no doubt that the heatsink stopped my motor (and possibly chassis) from being damaged. I would speculate this is the case with any low-torque motor installation or where gearing and thus loads are high.

Since I installed my heatsink, Moosey has also added one and last time we spoke about it he was pleased with it's performance.

One thing that doesn't work brilliantly on the Mini is the ball diff. I have found zero performance benefit racing on any surface with this in place. I have a better turn in balance but this is completely lost through less traction on the way out of the corners. I have not yet tried thicker grease which might help. I will start another thread on this though...

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I guess I'll have to try it. If the heatsink itself gets hot, then is must be working or at least doing something.

Exactly...! Any dissipation of heat from the motor is a good thing. Heat = resistance = higher current draw = shorter run times + ESC working harder.

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One thing that doesn't work brilliantly on the Mini is the ball diff. I have found zero performance benefit racing on any surface with this in place. I have a better turn in balance but this is completely lost through less traction on the way out of the corners. I have not yet tried thicker grease which might help. I will start another thread on this though...

Please start a thread as I would like to discuss it. I have a ball diff on my list of future upgrades, because I am getting loads of spin on the inside wheel. Infact I would have ordered one from StellaModels this week, but its dissappeared off their website.

EDIT: IGNORE ME, JUST SEEN YOU HAVE ALREADY POSTED THE THREAD.

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I'm quite happy to stand by my contention that the heatsink does nothing. Because our data is based on 5 minute races with either silver can or Sport-tuned motors.

And in those situation we've done the tests... And the temp difference at the end of 5 minutes was....nothing. It didn't make any difference. Within a degree either way.

As for hotter motors over a longer period, well thats another thing altogther. And my original post did suggest that 'it depends on what motor you're running'

I agree with Wireless to some extent. Hot motors, high-drain tracks, mean a hotter (temp wise) motor and there will obviously be some heat transfer in that instance. Although I'd still suggest that the clip-on units are more effective.

What does make me laugh is people who put the fans above the motor to blow onto them. Somehow I think the draft through the car is going to be about 10 times as strong as that generated by the *******weak fan! :) Hee hee...

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What does make me laugh is people who put the fans above the motor to blow onto them. Somehow I think the draft through the car is going to be about 10 times as strong as that generated by the *******weak fan! :) Hee hee...

As for the fan blowing the motor and ESC...I have Pajero MTW. I run it in sand traps of a golf course after hour, so I am not going fast, and before I added the fan, the ESC would stop due to the temp but after I added the little fan the Pajero kept on going and we are talking about summer heat in Asia.

I would agree for racing around the air flow would be much better than a fan provided some sort of opennings are made to the body and the would be the same for hard body otherwise the fan is just circulating hot air. I gathered the electric fan just lower the temperature by a few degrees just enough so the ESC self protection shut down won't kick in.

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I'm purely referring to a fan in an M03. The 3 racing (I think?) kits place the fan about 10mm or so away blowing DOWN onto the motor.

And if the cars moving at all the airflow through it would completely overcome the fans feeble little output.

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