Where do I start here. It’s been a while since my last login and a lot has happened in the last 5 or 6 weeks, so for now I’m going to just breeze by stuff. As most know the event at Joliet, Ill. was cancelled the day before it was to happen, I still had a great time and met tons of EV’ers and in fact could / might write a book on my adventures with Plasma Boy and his Electric Monkey AKA Tim brehm. It took me a solid 2 weeks to re-coup from the trip (no joke), and I learned one thing, that I’m not 20 no more, lmao. I came home to a ton of “big” family events, my sons 18th Bday, 10 year wedding anni, then Graduation, etc., so I’ve been busy with personal stuff on top of playing catch-up while feeling like the walking dead!
Moving to whats happened shop wise there have been a number of new birth’s and rebirth’s. This is a good thing as it seems that EV’s are dropping like fly’s these days 8^ ( I was able to get Marko’s ADC9 finished for Baby Blue, which sports an adjustable brush ring and beefed up brush rigging and leads. I was also able to finish up John Benson’s ADC9 he had sent in for repair. John was setting his RPM limiter when he heard ticking just as he set it. He contacted me and we met at a Wayland breakfast. I was hoping I might be able to dip ad bake the arm and lock the lifted bar down but found 3 cracks running from the bore hole (shaft) to the bars, OUCH, it’s always a bummer to have to call someone with bad news. From this terrible event we do learn that 7000 rpm’s is the blow-out point on an ADC9. Having seen 5 or 6 blown comms and being I’m becoming good friends with Dan the airplane man next door he told me he’d get me some Kevlar and resin. Well it took weeks for the stuff to get to me and poor John Benson waited as he was damned and determined to have his comm Kevlar Banded! You can have a look here
Now you’d think cutting 3 little grooves into the comm would be an easy enough task now wouldn’t you, lmao! Being every motor is a bit different I have to first assemble the motor and run it and mark the areas to be grooved (the ares between the brushes on the ADC is the important one to have to the Gnats ass, hehe. I then have to disassemble everything 8^ ( Machining the V’s into the comm. is the fun part, but just barely above applying the pre-soaked Kevlar thread without filling the mica slots up with resin. After a cure of 12 to 24 hours I bake the armature and thermally set the resin. I have to trim it all down and finese everything up before the final install.
This leads me to talk about Jay Donnaway’s Gamera 9 motor. Jay is actually the first motor sale I got after the Siamese 8 unveiled last year. Yes I’ve been working on and off (mostly off) on this motor for the last 9 months or so. First off I want to say that this is not all my fault. I soon found out that Jay changes ideas like most people change thier underwear, lmao! This is a man who has 4 or 5 adaptor plates to chose for his single motor, hehehe. To top it all off he requested some dry fit time which added a couple of months where he touchy feelied everything to death on top of the horrific jack scrap on the powder coating. So now enough time has gone by that I’ve added a few tricks to the old motor mod bag. Well Jay just has to have what all the Jones have so I keep having to go back and redo shit! With Jay’s baby due soon the need to get his EV up and running is drawing near. Well after completing the last couple of “keep up with the Jones” upgrades as well as Jays latest changes in shaft length I have finished the Gamera 9. So on top of being my first EV customer, Jay has managed to get all the bells and whistles to boot. Hands down the most modified single motor I’ve done to date! Much love goes out to Jay (even though I might roast him from time to time) for his patients and his trust on this project. I will admit there was a pucker factor when installing the Kevlar banded armature into the adjustable brush rigging awaiting the outcome of my measurements, lmao. I guess a lot had to do with the ending of a big chapter with the finishing of this motor and the need for it to be perfect! All I got to say is, Jay you hurt my motor and me and you are gonna have words! I haven’t posted any pics yet on Jays motor but will try to get them up soon.
On other fronts I’ve been working on some new projects I can’t unviel yet, so I’ve been a busy boy. The down side here has been the lack of time to post both here and at the EVDL. I’ve posted some pics of the Joliet road trip (hey better late than never) and they can be seen here