Motor Repairs and Parts

[Jerry]

RoboLady, the question I have is are the gear boxes a lot more reliable because it seems like the gear box is by far the biggest problem with the prior wheel motors and what KA advertises is that the wheel motors are more powerful which of coarse should be less stress on the motors itself  because they do not have to work as hard since it is a more powerful motor so brushes should last longer but I have not seen anything to indicate the gearboxes are improved do you have any information on this?
I know part of this is going to be wait and see how well they hold up because the new motors have not been in service for very long, the one thing that worries me is that Oscar was still replacing plenty of the new type of motors and of coarse his very large yard shows the mowers weaknesses a lot sooner than most people will see them.

[RoyMercer]

I'm confident the RobotLady will know more about it than me but I had around 800 hours on my LB3500 and not a one wheel motor failure. However I did have several blade motor's fail. I have some areas that are fairly flat and others that are not. The front yard is pretty small but the majority of it is a 25 to 30 degree incline.  Did the older motors fail more often? 

[shep874]

jzawacki I am working on better and faster installations. Tell us about your burying the wire.  Equipment you used.  I have redone my yard several times as I have lots of yard ornaments to mow around. I am thinking burying is the best.  The last time I redid the yard I bought a sod stapler and found it works fast and I had no problems this spring with wire coming up. My thought is that burying protects the wire from mice and other varmints and should there be a grass fire (unlikely with green grass) it would be protected.

[jzawacki]

Burying the wire is actually pretty easy, specially if you have someone helping, just time consuming.  I don't know the name of the tool, but it is like a shovel/spade and is designed for burying that black plastic edging for around gardens.  It's strait and the blade is about about 4" long and maybe 6" wide.  You just cut into the grass, wiggle it a little bit and it'll create a space just big enough for the wire to fit into it.. stomp the ground back together and you are set.

But, it does making troubleshooting wire breaks a little harder.. and if you can believe this, I actually had a squirrel cut my wire when digging for nuts.. so I don't know if it helps with animals or not.

The good thing about pegging first and burying second is that you get to learn how the bot follows the wire, how close you can be to a fence, etc.  Then, you can easily move the wire around with the pegs.. once you have everything how you would like.. bury it.  The only places I have had issues with the wire coming unburied is where there is no grass (running it through a dirt patch) and for some reason, the wire seems to keep working it's way back to the top. 

[prb238]

Others can comment, too, but these new motors are WAY better than the old ones.  We have only seen brushes wear out with one customer so far.  Everyone else who has these new motors has not had a problem yet (upgrades and new units).  Note, it is only the wheel motors that are new.  The blade motor has not changed.

I purchased the upgrade to the 3200 and I can confirm that the new motors are a ton better.  Not only are the motors more powerful, but the way that the axle shaft connects to the wheel is so much better than an original 3200.  The original 3200 uses a d-shaped axle shaft with 2 set screws to secure the wheel to the motor axle.  With the upgrade, you get the same wheel to axle shaft connection as the 3500 models.  The motor axle is keyed and a large hex nut fits onto the axle shaft over the key.  The hex nut (about 17mm) fits into a hex shape in the wheel.  It is a much better drive mechanism.

And, it works a ton better for me since I have done the height modification.

[RobotLady]

Folks, stay tuned.  We are working hard on two things: 1) to make motor parts available for customers who feel they are skilled enough to repair their motor themselves and 2) to offer a motor rebuilding service that will (in some cases) make your rebuilt motor last as long as a new one.

Thank you very much for your patience with us.  If anyone has an urgent short term need, contact me privately and we'll see if we can help before the service is officially announced.  We have some parts available and may be able to offer low cost "tied you over" type repairs until we have the full service/parts availability up and running.  This will be determined on a case by case basis, note, we cannot commit since there is a dependency on the particular failure mode.

[jzawacki]

Wow.. couldn't have been better timing!  My left motor (rebuilt motor of 1 season) has just died.  I'll PM you.

[pellep]

After losing 2 blade motors in the last 3 months of mowing (LB3500), I really look forward to some sort of easy repair or prevention.  

Any updates on the rebuilding service?

I also thought I heard of a brushless motor in development.  Anyone hear anything recently?

Thanks for the help..

[RobotLady]

We are getting closer on the rebuild service.  As for brushless, there is a new model available in Europe that uses a brushless motor (I think maybe just for the blade motor, not sure).  It will not be available this year.  It will likely cost more (brushless motors are more expensive). 

It is not clear that you can drop a brushless motor in place of a motor that has brushes.  There could be different drive circuits, which would mean potentially a different motherboard is required (motor drive circuits are on the motherboard).  We just don't know, so we would not want to get your hopes up about this.  Although brushless motors are known to be more reliable because brushes won't be wearing out, don't forget the motor has gear mechanisms, bearings and other parts that can fail as well.  Maintaining the other parts is important, too, and is not always easy for a consumer to do (hence the reason we want to help by providing a rebuild service).

[jzawacki]

From my understanding, new speed controls are required for brush-less motors.. so the motherboard would need to be changed.  If you reference R/C Car motors, and look at brush-less versions, you will see they require brush-less speed controls as well.

[RobotLady]

Just found out that for sure there is a different software version for the models with brushless motors.  That goes along with what was said about different speed controls.  I still do not know if the motherboard itself is different, too.