Overheating Motors - 2022 Edition

VEX V5 General Discussion Technical Discussion
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I’m starting to see posts about teams with motors that overheat.

Before designing your robot, please read these two articles

You are going to find that you motors overheat for one of two reasons:

  1. Poor design – your design has overloaded the motor
  2. Poor build – friction is not your friend, good build techniques mean less friction, less friction mean less load, less load is less heat

A reminder that the “vents” on the motors are a style detail, they are not vents. Spraying the motors with a coolant spray seems like a great idea, until you remember that the motors are encased in plastic which is not a good conductor or thermal energy.

When asking “How do I fix the overheating problem” go back and look at #1 an #2 above and see if either one will fix your issue. In 101% of the cases it does.

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I’d also like to add that quick swap is very useful to combat overheating.

By removing the motor screws and using a zip tie/rubber band to keep the motor together, the overheating motor can be easily replaced to keep the robot at its peak performance.

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The real solution to motor overheating that most people with questions don’t want to hear. Stop the motors from getting hot in the first place before trying to cool them down. There is no quick simple external fix if your motors are overheating, as much as people like to portray compressed air as one.

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4

exactly!
if you constantly spin the motor like on a flywheel whether it is reving up or down, you are creating heat.
I guess teams forgot how to make a simple flywheel ratchet from the past shooting downs. :man_shrugging:

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I’d look at a soft start for a flywheel. Bring it up in stages or limit amps to 50% power.

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I’m currently working on a quadrupedal robot for an electrical company and I’m using VEX V5 electronics. The motors are setup so they are meeting all conditions for optimal use despite their heavy load. The robot will need to operate in buildings with low level fires. Is there any way I can remove the overheat cut-off sensor in the motor? The motors will not be used for any competition robots in the future.

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  1. This really belongs in a separate/new thread.
  2. I’d put some hole in the motor casing for ventilation.
  3. Attach a magnetic heatsink to the motor casing.
  4. Thermal paste
  5. Peltier cooler (this could be good as it will chill below freezing, could pre-cool the motors).
  6. Run motors in tandem to lower the load on each.

Switch to a different platform with larger, more robust motors/electronics/etc.

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Not super easily, unlike the 393 motors the temperature sensor is directly soldered on the surface of the motor’s PCB somewhere. It’s possible but difficult to remove, though honestly considering your operating environment perhaps an overall more robust control system is warranted…

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