I have just had a blade motor fail on my LB2150 at 920 hours. I know that it has been said that the new motor is a vendor change and that there has not been any improvements from the old one. But the new Fise motor is a 120 Watt motor and the old transtecno motor is a 82 Watt motor. In my book upping the power by 50 percent is a improvement. I want to be clear that I am not saying I think that the motor will be more reliable I am just saying I see it as an improvement and even if they claimed that it is a better motor I would not get my hopes up until we saw good results(example even though the motor is more powerful the vendor could make poorer quality motors then the previous company). I think a possible scenario is that KA thinks that these motors are going to be a better motor than old ones but they do not want to get anyone’s hopes up. Of coarse better quality products is always a reason companies consider doing a vendor change and the other reason is lower cost for the part(of coarse if the quality is poor the upfront low cost could be wiped out and the overall cost could be a lot higher) and of coarse the best reason would be to have a combination of higher quality and lower price for the product. Also it is possible I was sent a new 3510 blade motor. I have read that the trasntecno 3510 motor is 110 watts and I know the other models have a 82 Watt transtecno that is why I thought it could be a possibility.
Another thing I am not blaming this on anyone but for some reason when new models came out(LB2150) I thought that they had improved all of the motors not just the wheel motors(which I learned here recently that is not the case). What I am very surprised with is that they seem to keep trying to improve the wheel motors but this could be the first change for the blade motor and it is supposed to just be a vendor change. For example I know the wheel motors have had multiple changes since 2006 first they where changed from I think the company was called Dunker motors to IMS motors that where originally IMS35 motors, then they went to the more powerful and different drive shaft configuration IMS40 motors this required the larger cassis for the 2100 and 3200 series and they are the same motors as the 3500 series, now they have IMS42 motors out and do not know what is different about them.
One more thing the new blade motors seem to be completely sealed design and may not be user serviceable. I hope this is not the case because that would be a step in the wrong direction.
