VERY RARE Micromotors 2986 from the 90'

[whitswj]

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Edited December 3, 2021 by whitswj

[TechnicRCRacer]

@whitswjDidn’t know you were on here!

 

@ConchasI would like to see pictures as well!

[doug72]

What practical use did micro motors have ?

 

[JaBaCaDaBra]

2 hours ago, Doug72 said:

What practical use did micro motors have ?

 

FA opening solar panels on a satelite in Technic Discovery

[Conchas]

15 hours ago, whitswj said:

I would love to see pics! I primarily collect rare parts for my MOCS. Most people collect them to sell or to keep locked away. 

 

6 hours ago, TechnicRCRacer said:

 

@ConchasI would like to see pictures as well!

I might create a dedicated Flickr Album, once I get back at home in a few days.

[paul_delahaye]

I think it would be a lovely end to the story if Lego were to buy these back from you and put them on display in the Lego house for all to see with other prototype parts ;-)

So much "non work" happens in factories during overtime.......

Thank you for the interesting back story, 

 

Paul

[QQriQ]

On 6/27/2020 at 2:29 PM, paul_delahaye said:

I think it would be a lovely end to the story if Lego were to buy these back from you and put them on display in the Lego house for all to see with other prototype parts ;-)

So much "non work" happens in factories during overtime.......

Thank you for the interesting back story, 

 

Paul

I think it would be much more interesting to display this motor in Billund.
This is one Segmented micromotor.
The motor's all parts were cut and after it  assembled. :-)

As I know only this one exists. it is my other rare motor

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by QQriQ

[JopieK]

On 6/27/2020 at 12:24 PM, JaBaCaDaBra said:

FA opening solar panels on a satelite in Technic Discovery

There was also a quite large LEGO World City tow truck that had Light and Sound and this micro motor: Set 6484

[QQriQ]

On 6/25/2020 at 4:43 PM, Coolusername said:

Awesome story! Would love to do this myself.

So you made those 10 of each colored ones, so you got some and 9 other of your collegues have some as well?

I and my "old" college have some pcs from these motors, if he have not sold or thrown out them. (I do not know this because i did not meet or talk with him in the last 20 years :-( )

Yesterday I went to my garage and I made inventory about my rare parts. I took more photose but i can not upload here because only 100 Kb upload allowed me here. (????? in 2020 ?????)
I have 4-4 pcs yellow and purple and 5-5 pcs blue and green and 9 pcs transparent motors. 
Yesterday I tested them again (last time lot of years ago all of them was good) 
BUT NOW only 1/3 of them working :-( :-( 

I dismantled one transparent motor and i saw the typical problem which we had with micromotors and Mini-motors too.
The magnet was crumbled. and the magnet dust clogged the little gap between rotor and magnet :-(
We used powder metallurgy magnets what we order from China. 
Lot of magnet started to crumble after some months the magnetizing. Unfortunately It was known problem. 

[Gray Gear]

@QQriQ you have to host your pics somewhere else, like Bricksafe or Flickr, and embed the link in your Eurobricks post afterwards

[QQriQ]

https://www.flickr.com/gp/189156800@N06/5dLz9h

 

[Conchas]

Interestingly I just realized your transparent micromotors are different from mine.

- One with black shaft and transparent ring
  

- One with black shaft and red ring (cut version)
  

Mine has red shaft and transparent ring.

[Evans]

8 hours ago, QQriQ said:

I dismantled one transparent motor and i saw the typical problem which we had with micromotors and Mini-motors too.

Is there a non-destructive way to open these motors? And do you think there is a way to repair broken micro-motors nowadays?

I was also wondering, no Dark Gray micro-motors were made?

[QQriQ]

11 hours ago, Evans said:

Is there a non-destructive way to open these motors? And do you think there is a way to repair broken micro-motors nowadays?

I was also wondering, no Dark Gray micro-motors were made?

"Is there a non-destructive way to open these motors?" Yes, there is. BUT You need a "simple tool" to open the motor house. and one other  to open the Gearbox.

For the motor opening: You can see 4 hole in the top of the motor. if you  push in 4 pins at same time to here,  motor will open.

For the Gearbox opening: You need a special pinchers with the profil of drive wheel. If you pull  the drive whell up with this pincher the locking ring will pop up and you can take out the planetary gear and the planetary cog wheel and the parrel.

I am absulutely sure that the raison of wrong motors is the magnet.
and if you could open the motor , very complicate would be clean the magnet. 
but even if it succeeds you sholud snaps together the motor again. and for this you need a special tool too. If you see the bottom of the motor you see two little kidney shaped hole. here should push in two very thin needles, and "move" the brushs to the rotor's collector that they do not demage while you pushing the gerbox and the motorhous together again. It is not easy. and the magnet which started to crumbling will not stop the pulverization. And change the magnet is not possible.

No we did not make dark gray micromotors.  (I do not why. We have lot of grey ABS because we produced the all plastic parts for Mini Motor  (injection molding) :-) )

I hope you understand my wrong english :-)

[QQriQ]

19 hours ago, Conchas said:

Interestingly I just realized your transparent micromotors are different from mine.

- One with black shaft and transparent ring
  

- One with black shaft and red ring (cut version)
  

Mine has red shaft and transparent ring.

Yes, I have motor with transparent shaft and red ring; transparent shaft and transparent ring; transparent shaft with black shaft and you have transparent ring and RED shaft.
The reason of this is simple. We produced colorful output shafts and rings  too, for the colorful (not red) motors. (only a few pcs from each parts)
BUT when we started to assemble them, we recognised  the planetary gear tightens with the color gears. That's why we could not use them for the color motors. We produced only a few color parts  and we did not try them immediately. We got problem when we tried assembly. 
The issue (tightens) was caused by the original "output shaft" (black) was moulded from Hostaform not from ABS. And the Hostaform's moulding parameter is totaly different as ABS. So we had to trow out almost the all color shaft, but some of them worked in the transparent motors. (only in the transparent)

The all assembly proces was not easy with the "special" parts and we have limited pcs.  We had to pairing the parts and try them together lot of times. If the motor did not worked we try with it with other parts  until they started to work. This parts is very precis and little different could cause a problem.
So it was a luck that the your motor run with red shaft :-)
Your motor is the RAREST rare motor.

[Conchas]

11 minutes ago, QQriQ said:

Your motor is the RAREST rare motor.

 

It was working until recently (tested it only a few times).
Unfortunately now it seems not working anymore. Still whistles when applying the 9V, but does not move. It might be be the crumbled magnet problem as you described (the unfortunate fate of all these motors). Don't know if it will ever turn again... 

[QQriQ]

7 minutes ago, Conchas said:

 

It was working until recently (tested it only a few times).
Unfortunately now it seems not working anymore. Still whistles when applying the 9V, but does not move. It might be be the crumbled magnet problem as you described (the unfortunate fate of all these motors). Don't know if it will ever turn again... 

you can easy to see if you have "the crumbled magnet" problem on transparent motors. Turn the motor in the direction of strong light and look over its side.  the magnet is the upper side above the rotor (under the rotor there is a simple iron in plastic holder) You should see a little gap between the magnet and rotor and same gap between the rotor and the Iron. It is clearly seeing  in my cutted motor picture.

But if the motor is whistles is means the rotor is turning so it is not magnet problem.

[QQriQ]

1 hour ago, Conchas said:

 

It was working until recently (tested it only a few times).
Unfortunately now it seems not working anymore. Still whistles when applying the 9V, but does not move. It might be be the crumbled magnet problem as you described (the unfortunate fate of all these motors). Don't know if it will ever turn again... 

"the unfortunate fate of all these motors"
Not the all micromotor got cheap chinese magnet. In the first xy hundred thousand pieces got vacuumschmelze's magnets. So the older motor's magnets much more better, They do not "crumbling"

[Evans]

3 hours ago, QQriQ said:

In the first xy hundred thousand pieces got vacuumschmelze's magnets

Thank you for your answer!

Do these motors also have a production date engraved? Train motors (9v and 12V) have two numbers for the week and a last number for the year of production, but I've noticed micro-motors and mini-motors have a letter and a number engraved under them, (B4, Z4, Z4, U4, S3 on my five micro-motors for example), so how should we read the letter, considering the number seems to be the year?

And do you have an idea when they changed the magnets supplier?

[davidzq]

Sorry for reviving a somewhat old thread, but my attempts to communicate with OP so far have been unsuccessful.
I am interested in purchasing one or two of these motors, particularly one of the transparent ones.
Did you ever settle on a price?
I would love to discuss this further in PM.
 

[mathewn]

@QQriQ How can I get in touch with you? I tried mailing you on Flickr. Can you share your email with me? I can make you a very generous offer for the micromotors. Thanks in advance.

 

Feel free to email me @ naoummathew@gmail.com to negotiate. I have a huge prototype collection, one of the biggest in the world.

[9v system]

On 7/2/2020 at 8:18 PM, Conchas said:

 

It was working until recently (tested it only a few times).
Unfortunately now it seems not working anymore. Still whistles when applying the 9V, but does not move. It might be be the crumbled magnet problem as you described (the unfortunate fate of all these motors). Don't know if it will ever turn again... 

are you thinking of selling it? would love to add it to my collection of 9v stuff

[QQriQ]

On 7/2/2020 at 5:05 PM, Evans said:

Thank you for your answer!

Do these motors also have a production date engraved? Train motors (9v and 12V) have two numbers for the week and a last number for the year of production, but I've noticed micro-motors and mini-motors have a letter and a number engraved under them, (B4, Z4, Z4, U4, S3 on my five micro-motors for example), so how should we read the letter, considering the number seems to be the year?

And do you have an idea when they changed the magnets supplier?

Sorry for my late answer.

Yes, on the bottom of the motors there is a date "stamping" but i don't remember exactly to the rule how was it change. We had a time tabel which showed when we had to change the "hot stampper" tool and to what
and unfortunately I don't remember when was the magnet supplier changing. I was "only" a blue collar" workers in this time but i think only the first some thousend pcs were made from VC magnets.

[QQriQ]

22 hours ago, 9v system said:

are you thinking of selling it? would love to add it to my collection of 9v stuff

Yes, i would like to sell them. I have just working on it, I started to "collect" the offers.

But only 6 of the transparent micrromotors turning well.(i tested them some days ago)

and my  1 pc transparent 9v Mini-motor with "goldened iron parts" . It is odd parts too, because only hundred pcs were produced (every workers got one pc as last gift, when LEGO sold and closed the company in Budapest.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/189156800@N06/5dLz9h

Edited April 29, 2021 by QQriQ

[1974]

I had well over a hundred red MMs and I've thrown out at least twenty. They just go bad and there is no cure. I don't even think you can transfer the cool coloured cases to normal red ones

Just because they test finel at your end they may be faulty when they reach the buyer. I've had to replace a few I've sold via Bricklink and most of them I've sold locally, pick up only

The fact is it's an awfull, overly complicated desgn. But back then it was very hard to get decent torque and low rpm into such a small package

Good luck!