My students and I are fairly new to Electrathon and we are in the process of building a new vehicle. Our goal is to run it at the Emerald Coast Electrathon. That race is run on a half-mile oval with a bank.
With that being said, my question is: Is there an advantage to running an Etek motor over other motors? I currently have one from a solar boat competition my students used to do, so availability is not an issue.
Not sure what you have but the Etek is one of the best for electrathons. A few years ago when it came out it did not take long for most teams to switch to them.
Next question regarding the Etek. Is there anyone out there that repairs/modifies them? One of my motors works, but the terminal where the wire connects was sheered off by an over zealous student at a competition a few years ago. In addition to that, the Eteks my program own all have shafts that are 1.5 inches long. We purchased an Aerocoup from Blue Sky and they sell an Etek adapter for it. However, the adapter requires a 3 inch shaft.
Ed,
There is not a cure I know of for the lack of the 3" shaft. You might see if anyone wants to trade you for your short one. On some tight cars the short shaft is better.
Any electric motor repair place can fix the connection terminal. All they need to do is take the old one out and solder a new stud to the wires. The brush cap comes off easily with the three bolts. Should be a simple and fairly inexpensive repair. I'v fixed a few myself in the lab.
Good luck
