Cheap Gau motor worth it?

[Jasong911]

Is it worth the risk to get the Gaui GM-504 BL Motor (1200W, 1400Kv) motor from Hobby Lobby just to get a 425 in the air? No 3d, just want long flight times...

--Jason

[ukgroucho]

Yes. I had a 1400Kv with my 425 FBL kit and was very impressed with it until it started to vibrate... which turned out to be because it had not been put together properly in the factory. Read back on some of my posts.. basically they missed the 'dimple' with the grub screw when they secured the can on.

If it had been assembled correctly I'm sure it would still be running just fine right now - and it delivered great power and came down cool. Was kinda sad when I had to retire it but it was unusable because the vibes were upsetting teh flybarless controller (and it would have taken itself to bits eventually).

[Jasong911]

Thanks grouch, I looked through about 10 pages worth of your posts and found a lot of great info, but could not locate those particular entries. Could I disassemble one of the misconfigured motors and spot the problem right away? If I save some green on this part I can apply it to some decent blades.

[KRYPTO316]

Originally Posted by Jasong911

Is it worth the risk to get the Gaui GM-504 BL Motor (1200W, 1400Kv) motor from Hobby Lobby just to get a 425 in the air? No 3d, just want long flight times...

--Jason

I ordred one and it should be here monday. I hope it will work out ok, I have heard its a good motor.

[fusionsx00]

I have that same motor, from hobby lobby too

It works great, no problems yet

There's nothing wrong( like defective, or returned items) with them, and its not a" cheap" motor

Local hobby store sells them for 90, newer stock gaui motor.

Hobby lobby is no longer selling gaui, that's why the sale price is so low.
I got alot of stuff from them, stocked up on spare parts, really cheap.

[ukgroucho]

Jason.. sorry I've been away on vacation and not checking in here.
If you disassembled it and then reassembled carefully you would 'fix' the issue anyway.
There is a dimple in the 'top' of the shaft . When the can is pushed onto the shaft over the windings there is a hole in the top of the can for a grub screw that secures the can to the shaft - the grub screw needs to seat in the dimple..
On mine they had not pushed the can on far enough so the grub screw was sitting on the shaft instead of in the dimple... the motor worked fine for 10 or 12 flights and would probably have lasted a bit longer if I had not done 3 back to back setup flights so it got a chance to get a little warm.
With the warmth and metal expansion etc. the can started rotating on the shaft and that wore the hole in the top of the can a tiny bit so it opened up a few fractions of a millimeter.
So even when I worked out the problem and seated the can and grub screw properly the can could 'wobble' a bit on the top of the shaft - and that made it rub on the windings at the bottom of the can ever so slightly...enough to cause vibrations.It would have all ended badly if I had carried on using it anyway.

FWIW I ordered one of the motors for myself

[Jasong911]

Thanks, always enjoy hearing how the mechanical stuff conspires with the monkeys to fail in some odd way. I got my order in but the motor was out of stock when they went to ship so I ended up with a nice skorpion from my lhs. Gotta find a deal on a 550 stretch motor one of these days. Cheers!