540 Motor Plate

[BigSteve]

Hi all this may seem a stupid question but should all motors have a fitting plate. My vintage grassbopper has a mabuchi 540 motor fitted to it. I bought a vintage hornet off ebay with a mabuchi 540 motor fitted but no motor plate. What is the rule. Steve.

[alfagta]

hi steve, do you mean the glass fibre motor plate? as in the gray thin plate that looks like its made of cardboard

if so then always use one if the motor has holes in the pinion end of the can which almost all brushed motors do , small debris can get sucked into the motor then work its way into the gearbox , i only discovered this when i went through 4 grear sets in couple of weeks on my M03 , its not such an issue with closed/sealed can motors .

[KEV THE REV]

The motor bolts directly to the gearcase , no mount plate needed . The GH had a plate to mount the 380 motor

[mr crispy]

If you're talking about the "cardboard" disc alfagta mentioned, I understood its there to help shield the plastic parts from the heat generated by the motor. Depending on how & where you drive along with what wheels you've fitted the motor can hear up a lot and melt the plastic it's bolted to. Just a slight misalignment can do a lot of damage so the disc helps to prevent the heat transferring to the plastic.

[alfagta]

If you're talking about the "cardboard" disc alfagta mentioned, I understood its there to help shield the plastic parts from the heat generated by the motor. Depending on how & where you drive along with what wheels you've fitted the motor can hear up a lot and melt the plastic it's bolted to. Just a slight misalignment can do a lot of damage so the disc helps to prevent the heat transferring to the plastic.

hi mr crispy ,ive been told that before too, however that little glass fibre disc does nothing to stop heat transfer beyond about 30 seconds at which point the disc runs as hot as the motor can , after i discovered this i stopped using it as it was easier to seat the motor without it , then i started eating gears from debris ingress which was evident from the small stones and grit that were embedded in the gears , with a sealed can brushless motor that gets just as hot as a brushed motor and running no disc i have had no issues ,

this all suggests that its there for sealing purposes and is quite essential , but, if steve was talking about the 380 motor adapter then this is all irelevant

[mr crispy]

Makes a lot of sence that. I've kept mine on and even made a few out of thin cardboard when I didn't have the proper part. Never noticed any scorch marks or had one burst into flames on me but then my motors don't usually get that hot!

I did get a 2nd hand Grasshopper that had a pretty mangled 380 adaptor. It looked just like it had warped with heat and then violently jolted, I assume the pinion became misaligned and once the gears jammed the motor was ejected!

[GregM]

I use the "cardboard" plate in every Tamiya R/C car I own for sealing purposes. Even retrofitted one of these on my Kyosho Sandmaster EZ buggy.

However strangely enough, the instructions for the DT-02 heat sink set and the DT-02MS buggy tell you to assemble the cardboard plate between motor and the supplied aluminium motor spacer plate. In my mind, this is pretty silly. To provide a better motor heat dissipation and sealing of the gearbox, I mounted them this way:

motor > aluminium spacer plate > cardboard plate > gearbox case.

[GregM]

When browsing Modellbau Seidel, I stumbled over the 540 motor plate. According to the article description, the plate is said to be actually designed for preventing gearbox grease making its way into the motor.

There's also a metal version (#4305570) of that plate for the 4x4 Bruiser and DF-03 buggies - although I have no idea if the metal one is the same thickness as the common cardboard one.