Author Topic: Shout out for Lucien Miller, President & CEO, Innov8tive Designs, Inc. (Read 3245 times)

Jim Hoffman · « **on:** April 07, 2020, 02:15:32 PM »

I’d like to let the E power community know of the superb customer service I received from Innov8tive Designs.

I recently suffered a failed motor cross mount part. I sent Innov8tive a photo and described the failure. Both Lucien and I agreed it was a design weakness in the mount; Lucien showed me their new mount that fixed the problem with thicker walls and improved material strength. Lucien also provided 3 new parts gratis, without me asking.

The new parts arrived in a few days and look fine; I’m confident they will correct the problem.

As a side note, I found the failed part while doing a motor swap. I recently learned that the Innov8tive Designs BadAss motors are drop-in replacements for the Cobra motors but are designed with superior magnetic materials and improved bearings. This should and did result in a significant and measurable improvement in efficiency. The battery voltage remaining at the end of the flight is the difference between long lasting and short battery life

Test flights with identical RPM, Lap time, run time, prop, battery, etc. and showed this result (I did change the KVA setting in the ESC):
Motors have the same number of poles (14) and stator slots (12).

Cobra 2826/12 760 KVA 171 grams 15% Battery voltage post flight
BADASS 2826 690 KVA 180 grams 31% Battery voltage post flight

Inflight performance was the same near as I could detect.

Crist Rigotti · « **Reply #1 on:** April 07, 2020, 02:44:58 PM »

Yep, he's a good guy. Thanks for the comparison on the 2 motors.

Chris Cox · « **Reply #2 on:** April 07, 2020, 07:33:24 PM »

Wow, 15% vs 31%! That is quite a difference. Glad it worked out so well. Now let’s see how long the bearings last.

Crist Rigotti · « **Reply #3 on:** April 07, 2020, 08:05:37 PM »

Yesterday I sent Lucien an email asking why the Bad Ass motors only use 2 ball bearing, while the Cobra uses 3? I haven't heard back yet. I was asking about the BA 3515-710 vs the 3515/18 Cobra. I'll post his response when I get it.

William DeMauro · « **Reply #4 on:** April 07, 2020, 08:14:21 PM »

Met Lucian at a WRAM show a few years ago and talked to him on the phone a few times, always treated me great always took the time to listen to my concerns. I have the Badass 2826 690 KV in my son Kevin's Genesis Extreme and its working great so far. I believe it uses the same bearings as the Cobra motor, and similar magnets and winding's of the Scorpion Motor, giving us the best of both those motors in one. Its no Plettenburg, but it should be a good reliable motor for most peoples uses. If it's like the Cobra the bearings are not very expensive and easy to change. How long they last? Time will tell

William DeMauro · « **Reply #5 on:** April 07, 2020, 08:19:04 PM »

Quote from: Crist Rigotti on April 07, 2020, 08:05:37 PM

Yesterday I sent Lucien an email asking why the Bad Ass motors only use 2 ball bearing, while the Cobra uses 3? I haven't heard back yet. I was asking about the BA 3515-710 vs the 3515/18 Cobra. I'll post his response when I get it.

I might be wrong on this but I think the second version Cobra's only use 2 bearings. The original version had 3. I'll watch for your response.

Jim Hoffman · « **Reply #6 on:** April 07, 2020, 09:44:41 PM »

Two points -

1)The Cobra motors I've used had two bearings, as did the BadASS

2) The BadAss motors use ABEC-5 bearings. The Cobra motors use a lesser ABEC grade. ABEC is an internationally recognized bearing rating system which grades bearings on the precision of their manufacturing tolerances, and perhaps other things. Two bearings may look identical but be of different ABEC classes. The higher the ABEC number, the more precise the tolerances. This precision will improve the friction and life of the bearings. Lucien recognizes that CL stunt application puts huge loads on motor bearings due to the square corner maneuvers and asymmetrical loads associated with circular flight

Crist Rigotti · « **Reply #7 on:** April 08, 2020, 09:05:41 AM »

I have to admit that it's been awhile since I changed bearing on my Cobra motors. Where I got the 3 vs 2 is on the RCdude website, if you look at bearing sets for the cobra 35 series motors, they show 3 bearings in the set, while the BA set has 2.

Jim Hoffman · « **Reply #8 on:** April 08, 2020, 02:20:26 PM »

I have not opened up the Cobra motor in a long time, there may be some uncertainty if it is 2 or 3 bearings. My best recollection is 2

Igor Burger · « **Reply #9 on:** April 20, 2020, 08:02:14 AM »

Quote from: Jim Hoffman on April 07, 2020, 02:15:32 PM

Cobra 2826/12 760 KVA 171 grams 15% Battery voltage post flight
BADASS 2826 690 KVA 180 grams 31% Battery voltage post flight

that is exactly what we did back in 2008 with AXI 2826/12 and we developed AXI 2826/13 with exactly same result

... and we use it sucessfully til now

Rogerio Fiorotti · « **Reply #10 on:** April 29, 2020, 06:39:52 AM »

Hi all,

For illustration only, one of the differences between them is the magnets.

Badass are curved following the stator.

Fiorotti

William DeMauro · « **Reply #11 on:** April 30, 2020, 06:58:49 AM »

Quote from: Motorman on April 29, 2020, 09:06:58 PM

Didn't those badass motors use to be really low priced or am I thinking of something else?

You must be thinking of something else. Badass motors were just released a less than a year ago.

Fred Underwood · « **Reply #12 on:** May 01, 2020, 12:25:12 PM »

Quote from: Crist Rigotti on April 07, 2020, 08:05:37 PM

Yesterday I sent Lucien an email asking why the Bad Ass motors only use 2 ball bearing, while the Cobra uses 3? I haven't heard back yet. I was asking about the BA 3515-710 vs the 3515/18 Cobra. I'll post his response when I get it.

Crist, any answer to this?

Igor Burger · « **Reply #13 on:** May 01, 2020, 01:08:31 PM »

Quote from: Fred Underwood on May 01, 2020, 12:25:12 PM

Crist, any answer to this?

May I?

because of efficiency, every ball bearing inside the stator (ball bearing cannot be laminated like stator) will heat and thus eat some power ( iron loses), that is reason why makers use small and few ball bearings. If you see motor with more and large bearings and having the same efficiency, it was done with better technology and materials. That is what makes price of motor.

When I wanted motor for indoors which will have "my" parameters (lamination, bearings, magnets - means life time weight and power), I got motor which costs 5x more that orriginal motor where we started

Fred Underwood · « **Reply #14 on:** May 01, 2020, 01:25:57 PM »

Igor, Thanks for the explanation.

The site is confusing about the Cobra bearings on the 3515. The bearing kit for the motor shows 3 bearings, and the wording in the 3515 only mentions one front and one rear, "the internal bearing." The bearing kit does fit several motors, so perhaps some of the longer motors use 3 and the kit mentions several motors that it fits.

The BA bearings also fit the Cobra, so if you get the kit with correct size and number you can "upgrade" Cobras.

In addition, I have a couple of older sets of Cobra bearings. At that time, the bearing pack for the 3520 also fit 3525 and 2826 and all were 3 bearing motors. The 3515 wasn't listed on the bearing pack then, likely because it has 2 bearings??

The Cobra bearings are front NMB R-1650HH 625 ZZ (5x16x5), Class P5. That P5 is equivalent to ABEC-5 from what I can tell. As Jim noted above, BA are apparently ABEC-5. I don't see a designation on the internal bearings.

Crist Rigotti · « **Reply #15 on:** May 01, 2020, 07:56:45 PM »

Quote from: Fred Underwood on May 01, 2020, 12:25:12 PM

Crist, any answer to this?

Crickets!

Crist Rigotti · « **Reply #16 on:** May 01, 2020, 08:08:30 PM »

I just sent another email to him.

Avaiojet · « **Reply #17 on:** May 27, 2020, 08:06:14 AM »

Quote from: Jim Hoffman on April 07, 2020, 02:15:32 PM

I’d like to let the E power community know of the superb customer service I received from Innov8tive Designs.

I recently suffered a failed motor cross mount part. I sent Innov8tive a photo and described the failure. Both Lucien and I agreed it was a design weakness in the mount; Lucien showed me their new mount that fixed the problem with thicker walls and improved material strength. Lucien also provided 3 new parts gratis, without me asking.

The new parts arrived in a few days and look fine; I’m confident they will correct the problem.

As a side note, I found the failed part while doing a motor swap. I recently learned that the Innov8tive Designs BadAss motors are drop-in replacements for the Cobra motors but are designed with superior magnetic materials and improved bearings. This should and did result in a significant and measurable improvement in efficiency. The battery voltage remaining at the end of the flight is the difference between long lasting and short battery life

Test flights with identical RPM, Lap time, run time, prop, battery, etc. and showed this result (I did change the KVA setting in the ESC):
Motors have the same number of poles (14) and stator slots (12).

Cobra 2826/12 760 KVA 171 grams 15% Battery voltage post flight
BADASS 2826 690 KVA 180 grams 31% Battery voltage post flight

Inflight performance was the same near as I could detect.

Jim,

I spent a bit of time looking over products on Innov8tive Website.

Unless I read it wrong, their 2826 is 1030 KV and not 690 KV as you have Posted.

Am I not reading their KV specs correctly on the 2826?

Charles

Jim Hoffman · « **Reply #18 on:** May 27, 2020, 08:21:15 AM »

Aviojet - you are misreading something

Here is the spec sheet

Avaiojet · « **Reply #19 on:** May 27, 2020, 09:34:31 AM »

Quote from: Jim Hoffman on May 27, 2020, 08:21:15 AM

Aviojet - you are misreading something

Here is the spec sheet

Jim,

I cannot open that file with my old PC.

Yes, I see I was reading this incorrectly.

Sorry.

Charles