Moisture and Salt Proofing Motors

Nocteel

Nocteel

Member
I live on the coast and have had more than my fair share of motor failures. (See 6 Motor Failures. What is this noob doing wrong.) I have come to the conclusion that the salt and moisture in the air (along with plain bad luck) have been killing my motors. As I state in that thread, I try not to fly when the wind is blowing hard off the water but even still the salt in the air covers everything. It's a known fact around here that anything outside corrodes way faster than it should. I would like to protect my equipment and was wondering if there was any thing I can do to help keep my MR flying without having to baby it so much. If I have to wait for a low humidity day with no wind I'll never be able to fly this thing.

I was thinking some sort of high grade machine oil or an occasional rinse down with some sort of magic fluid that won't make my problem worse. Maybe I'm just dreaming. If that's the case I'm sure someone will let me know.
 

R

RuralFPV

COWS!!!!
I wonder if some of that NeverWet stuff would work for that. It would certainly repel the water but I'm not sure what it would do to protect against the salt. I have no idea if it conducts, test test test...
 


Nocteel

Nocteel

Member
I will defiantly look into those. I'm also planning on building an air boat with some of my spare motors that still work but I don't trust to fly. That would be a good test platform for these ideas. Any specific treatment for the bearings? The OpenROV site mentions just flushing the motors with fresh water. Would something faster drying be better? Say an alcohol of some sort?
 

ChrisViperM

ChrisViperM

Active Member
Just use 99% clean alcohol (don't use your good Chivas Reagal whiskey)....but flushing with alcohol is somwhere mentioned in the links I posted above.....dries super fast and doesn't leave anything behind.



Chris
 

Bartman

Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
there are sprays available for cleaning electrical parts. an electrical supply store wold probably have something you can try. make sure the can says "Plastic Safe". this stuff is used to spray directly onto electrical connections to displace moisture and dirt. i'd bet you can spray it right into the motors to flush them out but just try to avoid spraying directly onto the bearings.

also, you can try to replace the bearings with stainless bearings, that alone might reduce your problems by a big percentage.

whatever you do, give everything plenty of time to dry after being sprayed with anything as alcohol will conduct electricity and short stuff out if you're not careful.

Bart
 

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