Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Gamera gets back into the game..

When we last saw the Gamera Nine motor, it was winging it's way back to Jim Husted's custom motor shop on the Wayland Express: a free motor delivery service courtesy of Plasma Boy's good graces. Note to self- when taking advantage of the generous services of a fellow finickey hobbyist, make sure to brief him on any pre-existing conditions present on the package. You see, I forgot to tell John that I had put a nasty scratch in the motor's fresh finish when my jack slipped during a test installation. When Plasma Boy noticed this mark a day later, he about let his own smoke out, and confessed his apparent crime to Jim, who knew about the scratch and had a good laugh at John's expense! John, I owe you one.

Since the body was not expected back anytime soon, Jimbo had full clearance to keep this project on the back burner, and sure enough, between then and now, he's refined his art even further, having seen several other suicidal EV'ers torture their motors before me. So this time, the Gamera comes back with not just the planned high-speed balancing job, but also a kevlar-wrapped commutator! After seeing the disastrous impact of involuntarily high rpms on com bars (they try to fly), Jim came up with a great technique to tie them down by machining a groove in-between the brush contact areas, and wrapping in some super-duty kevlar thread. (So the com gets baked, again.)
I finally consented to cutting off all that extra tailshaft, so now Gamera's stinger is no more than standard ADC spec. However, besides the aforementioned, additional extra touches include zilla green powdercoated springs, teflon-insulated heavy duty brush leads, and the Gen III Variable Brush Ring Assembly (now with fewer conductive components!). Instead of a wrapped steel handle and pointer, the Gamera now sticks out it's tongue, a fine red resin paddle, which will much more easily accept a control cable in the future.

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