Water Proofing Tehniques?

[Mike.L]

Hey guys i was wondering is anyone knows any water proofing ideas or tehniques for water proofing esc, motors.....(ill get back to that in a sec.) recivers, batterys?

About the motors, Is a brushed motor broken in, In water? or is it just the brushes? would a normal brushed motor be ok if it was covered in water snow...ect?What about brushles?

The ballon idea? Any good using zipties and grese (or sillicone)?

And be free to tell me what you guys do, or have seen. Last but not least anyone have any articles on this?

Greatly apreaciated,
MIKE

[Sylvester]

Brushed motors are ok in water, as for brushless i dont think there would be a problem, apart from bearings, bearings hate water.

Id balloon the receiver and use Plasti-Dip for the servo.

Id get a LRP waterproof esc.

[sjcrss]

you can use die-electric grease, which can be found at any autoparts store in the electrical section....

[Mike.L]

thanks guys any other suggestions? do you just dip the stuff in the electrical stuff..

i was also thinking of the water proof esc.

[sjcrss]

you actually have to take the housing off of the esc, and coat averything with a nice layer of die-electric grease...ie the heatsink area, where wires ect are or any area you think water can get in.....then close it back up, and your good to go

[Mike.L]

have you done this?

[sjcrss]

yes, I did it to a rooster reversable that I had way back in the day....and shortly after i did it...my oldest son dropped it into a sink full of water, cause I left it out on the table for a few minutes.....well after retreiving it from the sink full of water..I shook it out....ran a blow dyer over it and plugged it all in and it worked flawlessly

[sjcrss]

you can do the same thing with servo's as well.....bl controllers, im not to sure of.....I was never gutsy enough to try it on one of them

[Mike.L]

i dont know why no one one really goes bashing in water and snow then?

ill give that a try. But first want to try the ballon before i do anything to the electronics.. Thanks!

does anyone else know anything?And does anyone bash in snow or water(or am i too hard core for yall:p)

[jollyjumper]

i have bashed in snow, quite fun actually.:D

[Mike.L]

yeah! I want to seriously try it and have some fun scince we have some snow down here:D

[bdebde]

I had an old Kyosho Outlaw Ultima truck many years ago, it had a lexan inner body that kept the snow/water out pretty well. I used to bash it in the snow, well, the rare times we get snow here in the northwest. It was a real blast, throwin big snow rooster tails and sliding around on the ice! I wish more rigs were sealed up, like the old electric RS4 MT. Pretty hard to get things wet with an inner shell that hugs the chassis like that.

[Sedri]

I've had great luck with actually coating the esc circuit board completely with a high quality/high temerature clear silicone sealant that normal people would use to seal around windows or around the bathtub.

You can buy a squeeze tube at the local hardware store, strip the esc down to the circuit board, and carefully coat the board top and bottom (sqeezing the tube and squishing the silicone down bewteen and around everything - wear latex gloves!), being careful to also seal around the ends of all the wires where they are soldered to the board. Don't cover the heat sink, of course, just get the silicone underneath to seal the connections there. If you beat on your car pretty hard, ESC temps might possibly be higher, but I don't know from experience because I always undergear my cars a couple of teeth just to remove the worry of overheating.

Batteries? Fine Design (just for example) sells "marine" Lipo packs (3700maH, 4S1P packs) that are fully waterproofed from the factory, but why not just slip your pack into a "balloon" and zip tie around the wires?

Servos? I run Futaba S9304 coreless servos, which Futaba lists as "water resistant", but I routinely wash mine off under running water with soap in the kitchen sink, and I have never had one leak a drop. Four years old, and they work like new - an excellent investment and peace of mind, even when driving in the rain, which I've done a few times!

As for the motor itself, I haven't figured out the best way. Some people just make sure the rear endbell is clean, then cut a square piece of good quality electrical tape (which is rubberized, by the way) and put the square of tape over the rear bearing area. That way, you can EASILY and very cheaply check and replace this "cover", and it's foolproof for a quick romp in the snow. As for where the wires go into/through the motor (if you don't have a Lehner with the brass tubes, that is) RTV sealant, just enough to seal that area, seems to work great. The only problem left is the front endbell/output shaft if you use an endbell mount. I use canclamp mounts, so this is no problem for my motor. Simply another trip to the hardware store, ask where the plastic table-leg/chair-leg end caps are, and look for one that will slide snugly over the end of your motor (typically 36mm for "540" sized motors)

You will only need to drill a hole in the center for the output shaft, and the plastic caps conveniently have a dimple right in the center already, so it's super easy to put a hole in the center. This won't be 100% waterproof - you can't drive it underwater - BUT, in my Landmax Rally, which I've driven in the rain, through puddles, in the snow and generally everywhere, my only contamination problems have been with seizing and/or rusting wheelbearings - and those were rubber-sealed bearings, no less! Water was running off of everything after my most fun drive in the snow; you'd think that I had driven my car through the car wash!

Good luck!

[Mike.L]

thanks for all suggestions!

[jhautz]

For a winter snow bashing setup I am using a Mtronics ESC. They are waterproof out of the box. For the batteries I just use saran wrap and do a good job wrapping the lipos up. The servos are listed as ''water resistant'' so I just dont worry about it. I'm not driving it under water. It just get splashed. For the receiver the old fashioned balloon works the best IMO. I just dont worry about the motor. But when Im done running I give it a shot of motor cleaner to get the water out and then a drop of light oil on the bearings.

I have a friend who uses dip sealant on the servo also. Works well, but it looks like a PITA if you want to clean it up.