Will spinning an electric Motor without power damage it?

[Techtonic]

Hey gang, Just a quick question, will spinning an electric motor while it is not hooked up to anything damage the motor? As in towing, pulling that sort of thing. Will it heat up? What are the negative impacts if any. If the motor is not hooked up, ie. the leads are disconnected, will it generate power and disipate in the form of heat?

 

[SINister]

When you turn a motor like that it becomes a generator. I can't say what effects it would have if any on what it's hooked up to.

 

[B94Cast]

Hey gang, Just a quick question, will spinning an electric motor while it is not hooked up to anything damage the motor? As in towing, pulling that sort of thing. Will it heat up? What are the negative impacts if any. If the motor is not hooked up, ie. the leads are disconnected, will it generate power and disipate in the form of heat?

The short answer to this is that with a motor spinning open - I.e. no load or anything connected to the terminals of the motor - no work is being done, and therefore no heat generation because no work is being done. Short the motor leads together - that's s different story, it would essentially act as a brake.
The only generator of heat would be friction - and assuming bearings that is negligible.
However, if the motor is actually plugged into an esc, the motor will generate energy, actually enough to power up the esc with sufficient speed and potentially activate the drag brake etc... Fun example on this - take battery out of your truck that has drag brake active normally and run it around with your hand like a matchbox car - if you get it going fast enough, you will feel the drag brake activate due to the generation of energy from the motor, and if your lights are powered from your esc/bec, they will light up. But if you unplug the motor from the esc - it is open, and cannot do any work, and therefore the only wear on your motor is friction (*note - not 1000% correct, but for all practical purposes that we are concerned with this is true).
Hope that helps!


Edit: the above assumes brushed motor, realized I assumed brushed when I answered this.

 

[EddieO]

Your motor will be fine.....the ESC will swallow any voltage redirected back into....most newer ESC have a regen braking feature, so it actually is designed for it. The only wear on your motor will be brushes rubbing on the comm as normal....not a big issue.

Later EddieO

 

[Arctic Fire]

Just unhook the axles while towing.

 

[Techtonic]

Awesome, thanks for the answers guys. It gives me a scary idea for a very budget 2 speed build. Can anyone say deans quick motor connects? This will likely end in disaster. here's a hint.

I'm going to try it with two cheapo different turn motors first.