# High voltage motor prep



## DIYguy (Sep 18, 2008)

Is your brush timing advanced? This is the first and fundamental requirement for higher voltage.

Also, I plan to insulate the entire brush holder assembly. Just have to be careful with the brushes and other areas requiring conduction...and what is covered/not covered when you spray or apply insulation.

I saw one post, I believe I copied it on the motor thread somewhere, that showed a guy who uses liquid electric tape. It's pretty messy, but is flexible to coat the brush springs also. I may use spray for everything except the springs... and use something more flexible for them... not sure yet. Insulating all these surfaces cant hurt.


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## electricmini (Oct 21, 2008)

DIYguy said:


> Is your brush timing advanced? This is the first and fundamental requirement for higher voltage.


Yes the brush timing is advanced (Warp motors come pre-advanced)
But it's a good point - I'll make a note to double-check it!



DIYguy said:


> Also, I plan to insulate the entire brush holder assembly. Just have to be careful with the brushes and other areas requiring conduction...and what is covered/not covered when you spray or apply insulation.
> 
> I saw one post, I believe I copied it on the motor thread somewhere, that showed a guy who uses liquid electric tape. It's pretty messy, but is flexible to coat the brush springs also. I may use spray for everything except the springs... and use something more flexible for them... not sure yet. Insulating all these surfaces cant hurt.


Not sure if I'd go as far as that, some of the brushgear can get pretty hot, what this might do to coatings... who knows?
Plus parts that are conducting current will need all the air-cooling they can get, covering them in something with poor thermal conductivity will make them run hotter.

When I did the Electric Mini's motor, I replaced the wires linking the brush sets with heavier gage earthing straps, insulated with two layers of the highest temperature heatshrink I could find (military 270 deg C PTFE-based stuff). I also tried a silicone-based anti-tracking paint intended for high-voltage stuff, but it was junk (wouldn't adhere to anything). This was on an old 48V forklift motor, which I abused running on 120V with a Raptor600 in direct drive. It got hot - so hot I could smell it!

This all worked ok, but taking a Warp11 to 240 + Volts with a Z2K is a different matter entirely...

Richard


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

We've been collecting some ways to modify the motors in a list on this thread...

http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forum...dc-motor-performance-tips-tricks-26862p3.html

We got to add that spary you mentioned that john wayland talked about...

also, please find that EVDL post you are talking about, where john mentions his motor building advice...that would be great!


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## DIYguy (Sep 18, 2008)

electricmini said:


> Not sure if I'd go as far as that, some of the brushgear can get pretty hot, what this might do to coatings... who knows?
> Plus parts that are conducting current will need all the air-cooling they can get, covering them in something with poor thermal conductivity will make them run hotter.
> Richard


This is a good point Richard. I hadn't considered that the coating would be heavy enough to adversly affect cooling. I have motor insulation spray, the same stuff for coating the coils. These coils are similar conductors that need to disipate heat and they are also coated. I am planning to add a blower motor to force air cool the motor....even though it does have it's own fan. This will help cool when the motor is not spinning the it's own fan at the most efficient rpm for cooling. The conductors on my brush holder are all bus bars. The only wire are the brush leads which are double and have covers also. I would definitely like to know what they guys running really high (over 170 motor volts) actually do for protection of flashover.

Thanks for the reply.

Gary


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## Bowser330 (Jun 15, 2008)

DIYguy said:


> This is a good point Richard. I hadn't considered that the coating would be heavy enough to adversly affect cooling. I have motor insulation spray, the same stuff for coating the coils. These coils are similar conductors that need to disipate heat and they are also coated. I am planning to add a blower motor to force air cool the motor....even though it does have it's own fan. This will help cool when the motor is not spinning the it's own fan at the most efficient rpm for cooling. The conductors on my brush holder are all bus bars. The only wire are the brush leads which are double and have covers also. I would definitely like to know what they guys running really high (over 170 motor volts) actually do for protection of flashover.
> 
> Thanks for the reply.
> 
> Gary


me too...besides the interpoled motors, I really would like to know what makes the siamese 8 in the white zombie withstand over 300 volts....

I know that they may not experience that much for very long...its only during the "second gear" ( meaning the series to parallel shift) that the motors see that much voltage...


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