Well, that was a little adventure...

I've spent so much time this past week on the Alpha Sport 450 since I got the wing back from John, that I have lost track of where and why I started on this last little adventure, but I ended up where I should have started... 

I share these misadventures because I want you to know we all have them in this hobby. For me, most are self induced thru laziness, lack of skill, or carelessness, often a combo of all three. "There is always something",  (I think the difference between nitro/gassers, heli pilots and electric pilots is how much "something" we are willing to deal with. I am at that level after a week of shenanigans where I am not going flying today because I am totally a shit magnet right now and I don't think I could emotionally handle a crash. I am totally up against my something limit).

The jist is that the original ESC, a 40A Hobbywing more than a decade old, just quit working the other day. One moment fine, the next a paperweight. Since I like to use what I have on hand (I am cheap), I used the closest thing I had, a 60A ESC. This works fine with the 450 sized motors, just a lot of reserve for a sport flyer, and not much weight difference. Tested the setup with all the electronics on rhe Alpha, awesome all worked fine the first time. Took a half an hour to tuck it all in and make it all pretty, went to fire it up, dead as a doormat. Nada. Checked everything, nothing wrong. Pulled it out, tested it again still nada. Fine, I have another one, also 60A but a smaller profile. Tested, works fine. Installed. Still works fine. 

But I felt a vibration and noticed that there was a wobble in the prop. Inspection revealed that the motor shaft at the prop end had bent in that crash, actually in the fall from the Ent from which it had impaled itself upon. Inspected the motor and there was an almost undetectable shaft bend, that magnified when the prop shift was in place. Easy peasy, I have changed out motor shafts, and I happen to have a baggy full of them. 

Its easy. Pull the mount X-plate off the back. On the back end of the motor, the shaft is secured with a c-clip. Slip that off, careful not to shoot it across the room. You can now pull the outrunner shell off the back. You are now holding the inner workings in one hand, and the outrunner shell with the connected shaft in the other. On the side of the top of the outrunner there are usually 1-2 lock screws. Remove them. You can now tap the shaft out. Simply reverse the process with your new shaft. Which I don't have... the ones in the baggy are a mm too small. WTF, I have never had a motor smaller than a 450 sized. So I just put it all back together.

Still trying to be cheap (there's my problem right there....), I have another motor, unlabeled, but looks a bit squatter and a bit wider than the 450 outrunner. Looks like maybe a little more powerful. Let's try that! 

This "new" motor has a mounting plate that is about 0.5mm off from the 450. Its really not that much bigger a motor. But this won't fit my firewall, which is that 450 sized. Here's a idea! Lets spend a lot of time and energy, let's build an adapter firewall out of ABS plastic, drill it so that both sets of mounting screws fit: the 450 ones off the firewall secured to the new firewall at the end of the extenders, and attach the new motor to that firewall. Took a while to fabricate: cut the ABS, drill the ABS, install the motor (works fine connected to the electronics in testing), install the firewall, attach the motor. Quick spin, all works! But the prop shaft is one of those that bolts to the outrunner shell, not attached to the motor shaft, and its a touch short. I happen to have a slightly bigger one that fits! Replace the old with the new. Attach the prop. Now I can't use the original aluminum spinner because the new prop shaft is not drilled for the center securing screw, but I have what is probably the original Alpha Sport red spinner NIB. I attach that. But the stock self-tapping screws that secure the cone to the base are crap and one head-strips just trying to screw it in. Spend a lot of time and cursing to remove said stripped screw, and replace with nice 2mm regular hex head. 

Looks great! Let's fire it up! All looks good, advancing throttle, and then the motor screams and slows down, so I shut it down. Try a couple times, same thing, won't reach full throttle without screaming and slowing down, and on the third try shuts itself down. Won't run now at all. No magic smoke, that's good... There was a time when I knew what this was that was happening, but not today*. Crap... did I burn out the ESC???  I removed the entire apparatus, motor, new firewall, extensions, and connected the original motor (fine, just bent shaft). Whew... everything works, ESC is fine. So its the motor. 

* I think it was ESC timing... The new motor has 14 poles so will need high timing setting. Will need to break out the programming card.

And here we are. I am where I should have started but I have been nickle and diming myself to death and was trying to save money and maybe upgrade the motor that didn't need upgrading just replacing. I bought the 880kv version of this little motor that produces about 243 watts (oddly specific) which would be great for this plane. I won't have time until maybe Sat night as I go back to work, but I hope this is the end of my Alpha Sport 450 adventure.