How common are motor bearing failures?

[Thalios]

I've run my motor for over 125 flights without issues.

The bearings must be lubricated every 20 flights or so, depending on many factors. Humidity, temperature, how hard you fly them, how long you fly them, if you fly back to back batteries without letting it cool down in hot days, if you crash, blade strikes, etc.

I don't think the motor has a flaw. The way people use them is usually what kills the bearings and or motor.

[FuntanaS]

Originally Posted by Thalios

I've run my motor for over 125 flights without issues.

The bearings must be lubricated every 20 flights or so, depending on many factors. Humidity, temperature, how hard you fly them, how long you fly them, if you fly back to back batteries without letting it cool down in hot days, if you crash, blade strikes, etc.

I don't think the motor has a flaw. The way people use them is usually what kills the bearings and or motor.

I think it has a lot to do with the luck of the draw. I do that between so-so bearings and a soft shaft this motor is problem prone. I have several RC trucks and the bearings and shaft never did what this motor does. And they go through a lot crap.

[Thalios]

Originally Posted by FuntanaS

I have several RC trucks and the bearings and shaft never did what this motor does. And they go through a lot crap.

That's a whole different world (I have several RC trucks, cars, etc). The motors in on/off-road vehicules are not running at 80%+ for the whole battery. they accelerate and brake a lot, which puts strain on magnets from heat, the motor winding itself more than it does to the bearings / shaft.

If the motor was really flawed, we'd see way more issues than we've seen so far. Out of the very large pool of HF users that have B450 3D, Not everyone has complained that the motor has gone bad.

As I said before, there's many many factors to take into consideration.

Humidity, temperature, how hard you fly them, how long you fly them, if you fly back to back batteries without letting it cool down in hot days, if you crash, blade strikes, etc.

[kerusso924]

That may be true; or a lot more heli pilots are having the problem but not posting. Just figured that's the cost of flying a Blade 450 3d. I'm on my 3rd 440H since Christmas 2010. All I do is sport flying. I've talked to HH and they have one of my 440H motors now. The shaft are wearing out and the bearing blowing up. Anyway that's my $.02 worth...

[D.LYON]

Yep count me in on the bad motor,no 3d flying but I have run back to back batts alot but not every time.

[jackate11]

I wonder if allot of people are running their motors to slowly, the motors run cooler and hotter at different power levels I have read. I'm still on my original 420 and it runs cool as ice at 90 to 100 percent throttle. I have only changed my bearings once, and the shaft is fine. I just bought a align mx450 3400kv that I will be installing soon just to play around with more power.
No complaints with the 420, I will be selling it soon in the classified section when I install the mx450 if anyone is looking for a good motor cheap.