Motor mounting for geared coreless motors

10 September 2021

I read through some articles on constructing Peter Rake's mini RC models on outerzone and found that he designed the motor mount either vertically with a hole to fit the motor or horizontally with a slot to receive the motor and one builder used Goop so that the thrust line can be adjusted.

Maybe I can use UHU or epoxy to glue the motor cylinder to my mount.

What a simple idea and I didn't think of it.

29 March 2021

The cheapest geared coreless motor unit does not have a horizontal flange to mount the on the model. I have a few ideas to mount the geared coreless motors:

• Bulkhead
• aluminium bracket
• square section rod

Bulkhead

Make a hole in a thick slab of foam or 2 pieces of ply to fit the nylon housing. Enlarge hole to clear propeller bearing. 

If the block shall also be the nose block, such as is possible with blue foam slab, then the hole will be at 2 angles and not perpendicular to the block, to cater for side-thrust and nose-thrust. The big propeller gear will be exposed. The motor unit slips in from the front with the propeller already pressed fitted.

If the bulkhead shall only be to mount the motor unit, then the hole can either be perpendicular with the sides of the block bulkhead sanded to the thrust line or in 2 bulkheads system, by positioning the holes differently or as per the first option of single slab bulkhead, to have the sides squared and the hole at the tilted angles. The motor unit slips in from the front.

Either way, the motor unit is glued to the bulkhead/s.

Aluminium bracket

Cut strip of aluminium from an aluminium can. Coil strip around diameter of nylon housing then bend 2 tabs so it is a half bracket.

Internal flat bulkhead to support bracket will be needed.

Since the aluminium is so pliable, it can be twisted to the thrust line many times by hands.

The aluminium half bracket will be glued to the nylon housing. Roughening the contact surfaces may also allow hot glue to be used.

Square section rod

Each housing has a small 2x2 or 2.5x2.5mm square hole.

If I can find a stiff enough square rod, then I could have this as a single beam across 2 perpendicular bulkheads.

There will be minimal contact area at the bulkheads, so an alternative is to glue it to a horizontal bulkhead.

If the square rod can be bent by hands, then it can be bent to the thrust line many times too.

A further option is to glue the square rod to a flat strip and use that instead.