Help! Running a CW motor in reverse; how bad of a time am I likely to have?

[godefroi]

I'm scratch-building my very first FT design, which is also my very first fixed wing model, an FT Tiny Trainer. Because I'm scratch building, I've cobbled together a sort of "power pack" out of what I had laying around and a couple cheap bits from Amazon. I've just realized that the motor I have (a Samguk Wu-series 2206 size 2400kv) is a clockwise motor (i.e. the propeller nut threads are "normal" thread direction. Having looked around, I believe the official FT setup is for a CCW motor, and the little power pack foam board piece is angled a bit to one side to compensate for that.

I believe I have two options: first, I can print out the template backwards, and construct my power pack angled in the opposite direction. I'll use my motor in a CW configuration and a CW propeller, and my propeller nut will (probably) never come loose. Alternatively, I can run my motor in a CCW configuration, and hope my propeller nut never comes loose.

I've no experience with this, so I'm wondering, if I go with the flow here and run my motor backwards to match the "normal" FT setup, how likely is it that my propeller comes loose about 10 seconds into my first flight?

Thanks for any insight.

 

[ElectriSean]

If you use a nylock - nylon lock nut - it won't come off. It may loosen on a prop strike, but it won't go flying off.

 

[godefroi]

The motor did come with a nylock nut, so I'll give that a shot. Thanks for the help.

 

[synjin]

I did that too, and found the uses of blue Loctite solved the problem. Though I did make a reverse power pod that is sitting there should I need it.

 

[TEAJR66]

You can use the other end of the power pod and have a neutral or center thrust line without a whole lot of issue.

Once you have a center thrust line, use the clockwise prop you would normally use with that motor.

 

[mayan]

How about flipping the piece of the power pod over and tracing it backwards won’t that get him the opposite thrust angles suitable for a CW motor?

 

[FDS]

My TT has been running on a CW motor for ages. Possibly reversed, not checked. It flies great.

 

[Paracodespoder]

Just sayin, both my c-pack motor (which does not use a nylon locking nut) and all three of my 2205s have cw thread direction.
I have never lost a nut, because when the motor spins one way, the nut tries to “stay still”, when the motor starts to spin very rapidly, the nut stays unmoved for as long as possible until the motor forces overcome it. So when the motor spins ccw, the nut gets twisted tighter on a cw thread.
Hope that’s not to unclear to understand.

 

[Vimana89]

I used a CCW motor in reverse to power a clockwise pusher and it felt weird and sluggish then just started hiccuping and not running. For now I replaced it with a bi directional motor of the same general specs I'll have to try to power the motor up and see if I did any damage or what, so I'm curious to know too. If it's fine to do that, I wonder what actually got my motor🤔

 

[Vimana89]

Sorry if my above thread caused any worries and for taking this long to post my findings, but the problems I had were a fluke, and you should have no problem running a CCW motor in reverse. I put the same motor I had the issue with on another plane as a clockwise pusher again, and have been flying the junk out of it with no problem

My previous issues were likely due to; the low quality 550 battery I used ran out way faster than I expected. Other than that, there could have been a plug loose on the motor/ESC end or the ESC/receiver end.

 

[synjin]

Here is that reversed power pod. I used it because I was too lazy to solder up the CCW motor I had. Works great in this Baby Baron variant.

 

[sprzout]

The main disadvantage to running a motor in reverse is that the prop nut can come off due to vibrations. CCW motors have their threaded shafts backwards from CW motors so they can keep the prop on the shaft; you'll see this is very common with multicopter motors. If you think there's a possibility your prop might come off, as recommended previously, a little bit of Loctite BLUE (look at the labeling - if I remember correctly, the Loctite Blue is a reddish color when it comes out of the tube, but it'll allow you to unscrew it if needed. The Loctite RED is a permanent bonding and will NOT break loose; you're more likely to break the motor shaft than unscrew it).

I used a little Loctite Blue on the counter rotating motor in my Sea Duck. I bought the Power Pack C for twins, which gave me the Emax GT2215 motors; they don't make them with CW and CCW motors, so it was exactly the same motor. One spun one way, one spun the other, and I've had no problem whatsoever with it other than the initial startup when I didn't have the prop nut tight and sans Loctite.