The Fan or lack there of....
A local machine shop fabricated up a blank disk to replace the fan in the Motenergy ME0913 motor.
This is the original fan in the motor. Note the blades spin fairly close to the motor housing, which works well when the rotates counterclockwise (CCW, to the left). In Jane the motor spins clockwise (CW) from the fan-end and thus the blades move no air and only serve to frustrate (restrict) any air that is trying to be pulled through the motor, from the shaft end, which is the direction the original fan attempts to move air..
This is the original fan out of the motor. The central hub is riveted on and the timing (magnetic) ring is bolted on. There are no markings on the timing ring, so I marked its position relative to the key slot on the hub. It took a little persuasion to get the fan off the motor shaft. There is a 2.5 mm set screw holding the key and hub in place.
The blank aluminum disk is now mounted to the hub using #8 bolts and the timing ring mounted to it with the original bolts.
The disks is now on the motor. A little high temperature grease was put on the shaft which eased the mounting process and hopefully removal if that is ever necessary in the future. You will see there is now a nice gap between the disk and the vent holes in the motor housing. The theory is air will move more freely through the motor and around the spinning disk to the exhaust fan. The exhaust fan was able to cool the motor quickly when the motor was not spinning but when it was operating, the cooling efficiency really seemed to drop.
Good Results
Hill driving is the best test since it forces the highest current through the motor for an extended time. I took Jane over to the steepest hill in town and attempted a climb at 20 MPH in 3rd gear. The motor was already warmed to about 60C. In the past the temperature would rocket up to 120C about half-way up the hill. This time under a good load (15KW) it only got to 105C about the time Jane crested the top. The second test was whether the cooling fan would be able to cool the motor while moving. This was something that did not happen in the past. The next 3-4 minutes were driven at lower power (3KW) and the temperature dropped quickly to 85C. Just the fact the temperature dropped is a vast improvement. In the past, the only way to see a decrease in temperature was to stop and let the cooling fan run for a few minutes. Tomorrow, I'll try a more extended run to see if there is a steady-state temperature under normal driving conditions. Also, the next enhancement is to connect the Arduino that reports the temperature from the Kelly controller to the original Mini engine temperature gauge.
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