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WL Toys 144001 Upgrade: The best motor cooling for less than $2

23/12/2020

14 Comments

 
The WL Toys 144001 is a very fast little 1/14 scale RC car thanks to it's massive 550 brushless motor that powers it with some rather tall gearing. The downside to this is the heat that it generates. Over time this heat can damage electronics and cause a decrease in performance and indeed motor failure. This is a quick and dirty guide to significantly improve motor cooling for less than $2 which should only take 5-10 minutes to do with simple tools.
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A little bit of theory
Stock motor overheating has long been in an issue in the 144001. Recently I found in my review of the new 124019 (same car, longer wheelbase) that they had come up with a simple and clever way to improve motor cooling that was super effective - A thermally conductive paste that connects the motor to the aluminium chassis which makes it act as a massive heatsink. In use it is really effective - heat energy transfers to the hot motor to the cool chassis as a heatsink first and then with the airflow past the chassis, the heat is effectively removed by transferring it to the environment. Since the performance of a heatsink is directly proportional to its mass, the heavy chassis is a perfect candidate, compared to the motor heatsinks we've seen like the ones below... just compare the weight. Furthermore a fan is not needed since there is good airflow against the chassis. Simple, effective passive cooling.
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This 550 motor heatsink weighs maybe 15g?
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This heatsink which is already conveniently installed on your car weighs well over 100g
Guide
First you'll need some thermal grease. This is a highly conductive semi solid paste that will thermally connect the motor to the chassis. This is commonly used by computer builders between chipsets and heatsinks. If you cannot buy locally then Banggood have heaps of options here or these are some specific options below around the $3 mark. Don't worry about the having the best stuff like the computer guys use, it won't make much difference for what we are using it for. Just having something is important. BTW 5g is plenty but get a bigger tube if you don't feel confident.
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30g Heat Sink Thermal Grease Compound Paste Syringe Tube is (about $3)
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STARS-922 CPU GPU Thermal Compound Paste Grease for Fan Heat Sink is less than $2
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5g Grey Thermal Paste Grease Compound Silicone For Graphics CPU Heat Sink is less than $3
Check your car first because if you have taken deliver in the last couple of months you may already have some there - I've heard the some of the more recently ordered cars may already have grease present. Grease present looks like the image below. Stop here if that is the case, you are already sorted. If not, carry on!
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Next, remove the top deck and unscrew the motor mount from the chassis.
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Remove the circled screws to release the top plate
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Unplug the servo and motor and remove the whole assembly
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Remove the plastic motor cover and it should look like thi
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Remove the circled screws at the rear of the car from the motor mount
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Like so..
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The mounted motor should come out like this after you rotate it around the driveshaft bearing.
Squirt the paste out of the tube in a line along the bottom of the motor where it comes closest to the chassis. When you reinstall the motor the paste will squeeze and smoosh out between the motor and chassis. This is good - increases the (thermal) contact area.
Reinstall the top plate and make sure your screws are all snugged. That's it, go out and enjoy. You can tell the thermal great is working properly because the heat transfers effectively to the chassis - in short that means your chassis will get warm/hot quickly (same as motor temp) but in doing so it shares the unwanted heat energy which then gets removed when air rushes by. The faster the better so drive fast!
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This lot should only take 15 minutes
Thanks for checking out my article and please let me know on my facebook page or in the 144001 group if it worked out for you. I've created a reference page below for all of the 144001 articles I've published here:
144001 UPGRADES - EVERY ONE OF MY GUIDES HERE.
​Thanks for reading, if you found this article useful please feel free to like or share, the facebook links below directly link/like this article. I don't believe in asking for money by patreon nor by paypal but if you do wish to help me, the affiliated links in these articles help me buy the bits and services I need to produce this type of content. If you are looking for RC ​cars, quads or parts check out my coupons and discounts page which I keep updated with only the RC cars, parts and quads I like at a proper discount
14 Comments
Hugo Silva
11/1/2021 07:07:59 am

I have some thermal paste laying around, when my 144001's arrive, I'll give them some thermal treatment .

Reply
QuadifyRC
11/1/2021 09:10:00 am

Do it! works much better than the little motor heatsinks and fans.

Reply
Happy ?
11/11/2021 05:39:31 am

What about esc any cheap method?

Racer
6/2/2021 03:33:16 pm

Good tip from you.
But wouldn`t thermal pads (you can cut them to the dimensions needed) be a better and more clean solution?

Reply
QuadifyRC
15/3/2021 01:36:35 pm

Sorry for the late response. Yep, they'd be a good option too

Reply
Jack Sampson
11/2/2021 03:57:04 am

Thank you for this very informative tip and site. I just ordered a 144001. Can't wait for it to arrive. I'm already thinking of all the upgrades I can do. This site will surely come in handy!!!

Reply
Jason
18/2/2021 06:43:22 pm

Was going to do this, but instead have ordered a thermal pad instead... Went with 1mm thick which may be a bit too much, but it'll squish down (and will contact a wider area of the motor), and didn't wanna go 0.5mm and have it wind up not touching the motor...

The pad I've ordered are spec'd at 3.2w/m-k, which is that same (or not much below) cheap pastes, which will also likely end up glooping out everywhere overtime & end up a mess...

Did pick up a couple of the finned Heatsinks cheap, which I'll pop on as well with a small amount of thermal paste & probably a drop of superglue to hold it in place (tends to slide itself forward otherwise).

Might gently sand or polish the outside of the motor where it'll be contacting both to remove some oxidization on the stock body of it for a better heat transfer too...

Shame I don't have a way to measure temperature difference before/after... Wonder if the cheap temperature guns on eBay are any good..

Reply
Vincent
15/3/2021 11:51:31 am

Jason - good idea! I run my 144001 in sand a lot. Also please let me know if you are happy with the thickness.
Best,
- V

Reply
David Giles
30/3/2021 10:42:43 am

Is there any risk of this heating up the battery as it sits on the chassis?

Reply
QuadifyRC
30/3/2021 11:14:18 pm

It's fine - the chassis is a decent sized mass with a large surface area that it dissipates heat fairly quickly

Reply
Isaac
14/4/2021 07:42:45 am

Great post, very interesting! Who would have thought that WL toys would be the first ones to think of this! I wonder if big name brands will do this too.

I would do this to my 144001, but I currently have stuff on the bottom of the chassis. Here's all the stuff on the bottom of my chassis:

I have one TBR front bumper (I plan to buy a rear bumper from TBR eventually), some tape on the bottom (to prevent me from scrapping the chassis and ruining the bolt heads on the bottom), and a homemade wooden rear bumper that's secured with Gorilla tape.

The rear bumper also doubles as a skid plate (I need to get thicker shock oil, you might remember me from the wt conversation from another post) for when I bottom out.

My question is, would the heatsink you linked to help with motor cooling a little bit? I want to keep my motor as cool as possible, to help extend the life of fit. I do plan to go brushless after the 550 motor dies. I mostly drive at 1/4 - 1/3 throttle off road, but rarely on grass. The motor gets warm after driving, but I can keep my hand on it for a long time, it's not hot at all.

Should I use the heatsink, or would I be wasting money and adding weight? Also, does the heatsink you linked to fit under the stock shell (it says it does, but the 144001 shell sits very low , and the clearance is small)?

Reply
QuadifyRC
15/4/2021 11:59:55 am

Hey again Isaac
Yes, a clever little solution. A heatsink will help for sure but at the temperatures you are talking about, it is not an issue - just run it and enjoy.

Reply
Mike S
11/1/2022 10:51:11 pm

I added thermal paste as suggested, and although it noticeably increased the heat dissipation to the chassis, it wasn't enough. The motor overheated and failed when bashing on grass.
I removed and dismantled the motor, with some surprising observations:
The motor's plastic internal radial cooling fan had melted and disintegrated, with only fragments remaining.
The plastic brushes holders had also partially melted.
One of the brushes had come off the holder, and the other brush was almost completely worn out.

The motor appears to be designed to have cooling airflow through it, drawing air in mainly through motor housing slots in the flat face of the front (output shaft end), and smaller holes in the opposite end flat face which has some air gap from the PCB for connection wires. Airflow is exhausted out through two slots in the motor housing barrel.
However, the front slots are completely covered by the motor mounting plate, blocking airflow through the motor to cool the stator and in particular, the rotor (which has the cooling fan attached to it).

In my opinion based on experience of how hot the motor can get (depending on usage), adding thermal paste or heatsink cooling fins might not be enough to cool the rotor, because the rotor is not in conductive contact with the rest of the motor. The rotor relies on airflow over it. The alternative is to reduce the (heat input) load on the motor, but the car's tall gearing doesn't help it.

A related issue that I have found is the ESC getting very hot. I measured over 90 degrees C in the middle of the ESC heatsink fins, on a day with ambient temperature of 27 degrees C. I added a small fan onto the ESC, which lowered the temperature by about 20 degrees C. However, I suspect that the ESC heat problem is compounded by the limited volume but very hot airflow exiting the motor close to the ESC!

It was never my intention to upgrade to a brushless motor. The original motor had enough performance, was very responsive to throttle, and never had cogging. Now though, the upgrade path is the best solution for me, so I will be prioritising a setup that doesn't get hot.

Reply
Mike S
11/1/2022 11:20:22 pm

This post refers to a WLToys 144001. It has the ESC mounted on the top deck.

Reply



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