How hot is to hot?

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really hot is a no go warm is ok for motor esc I've never liked any heat in them.. servo should be whatever outside temp is... get a temp gun learn to use it .. take a glass of ice fill with water then use temp gun to take surfaces temp should be 32 degrees.. just like a pot of boiling water 212 degrees F..
 
Doing temp check with out gun. If you can touch and hold finger on MOTOR /ESC then you should be good. If you touch the motor or esc and you CAN NOT hold finger on it then your way to hot. It's all about throttle control. And air flow to keep your electronics cool
 
You really need a temp gun, even a cheap $16 dollar one from amazon. You can get your motor to 160F and thats ok but you wont be able to hold your finger on it so without a temp gun its really hard to say when you're "too hot" which is anything over about 160-170F. and about 150F for your ESC. you're ESC is more susceptible to failure from heat than your motor is. I mean if you can hold your finger on it then you know you're not too hot but theres gonna be a range of probably 30-40F where you wont really be able to tell if its technically to hot or not.
 
Perfect. Exactly what I was asking. I'll be picking 1 up today. My big rock seems to heat up kinda fast . motor after 20ish min is "not too hot" to make me take finger off but plenty warm enough to have asked.
if I turn the pinion, when it was disassembled from mount etc, should that feel smooth? Or bumpy? Meaning smooth like a bearing feels or no?
 
I try to gear mine so I'm peaking at 160F which gives me a bit of grace room for days that are hot and/or the grass is a bit taller than I'd like. Motor's don't like being hotter than 180F.

I got a 4074 2050kv motor to 259F once... it fried it's magnets. I can easily spin the shaft with my fingers now and barely feel any of the magnetic field in it. My fan died and I didn't know it, so now I only run dual fan coolers if I can, then if one fan dies, there's still a fan in there trying to do something.

When it got that hot, I didn't have a clue as it drove fine, right up until it didn't. When it didn't, it acted like one of the motor wires got unplugged and chattered at me. I took the body off and could feel the heat coming off the motor on my face.

For my delicate skin... 130F+ feels uncomfortably hot to the touch, so having a temp gun is a must. Guess that's what I get for typing for a living. :)

I do what I can to keep my esc's below 160F as well. It's not great for them to repeatedly get so warm that they thermal shut down on their own. Gearing them so that you can make it through a set of packs without having a thermal shut down is a good idea.
 
Perfect. Exactly what I was asking. I'll be picking 1 up today. My big rock seems to heat up kinda fast . motor after 20ish min is "not too hot" to make me take finger off but plenty warm enough to have asked.
if I turn the pinion, when it was disassembled from mount etc, should that feel smooth? Or bumpy? Meaning smooth like a bearing feels or no?
When you spin a motor shaft by hand with the motor out of the car then no, its not going to feel like a bearing even though the shaft is riding on bearings. It will actually feel like a bunch of "clicks" (for a lack of a better term) because as you spin the shaft the motors magnets are still pulling on the rotor. So each "click" you feel is the rotor turning past the magnets field if that makes sense.
 
When you spin a motor shaft by hand with the motor out of the car then no, its not going to feel like a bearing even though the shaft is riding on bearings. It will actually feel like a bunch of "clicks" (for a lack of a better term) because as you spin the shaft the motors magnets are still pulling on the rotor. So each "click" you feel is the rotor turning past the magnets field if that makes sense.
Yep, if it feels "smooth", that means it's dead. Kind of like the blx2050kv of mine that got up to 259F. I barely feel the magnetic field at all when spinning the shaft by hand. Prior to that, I almost couldn't rotate the motor without a pinion on it or using pliers on the shaft.
 
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