I have a Hacker A30-28S. The shaft snapped while landing on the 5th flight. I called Hacker USA and they told me it would be a manufactures defect if it broke in mid air. That’s their policy. So this German engineering has produced a motor shaft that is too brittle. It’s not a manufacturing defect just poorly designed. I paid top dollar for what I thought was a quality product. Instead I get a hard time. Do yourself a favor and buy a motor from someone who stands behind their product.

Steve

Steve,
I am not sure who you spoke with at Hacker USA, but if it truly "Just snapped off", we would gladly replace the shaft in the motor. Thing is, a hardened steel shaft doesn't break off for no reason at all! I don't know if there was any kind of a prop strike, an out-of-balance prop, or if the motor was dropped, or some other cause. Had any thing happened in those five flights?

If any of these things happened, would you rather have a soft steel motor shaft that just bends, and then the prop hits the cowling and chews up the front of your plane?

Hacker USA is very understanding of situations like this. Chances are that if you called up with a reasonable demeanor, we would fix it no matter the cause - warranty or not.

Give me a call tommorrow at the office, and we can get you taken care of.

Thanks
Mike

PS - congratulations on your first post on this forum after joining 3 years ago!

So... Was this taken care of?

Mike,

can you tell me if the A20-26M EVO comes with a soft steel shaft? I run these motors on a quadrocopter for wild aerobatics and crashes are not unusual. Though I've had many quads with different motors, I've never had motors with such soft shafts. They bend as easy as no other motor shaft.

Is this a wanted feature to maybe save the bearings? I am a bit confused whether this is a bug or a feature.

Cheers,
Tilman

I know this is a little dated now, but 5mm motor shafts don’t just break without a cause whatever make it is, especially with such a large shaft on a very small motor as 30-28s with reduced prop size (loading) and considering the same shaft is used for props up to 14x7 on their larger 30 size motors.

If there really is an eventless issue then it would be an absolute material fault and not a design problem as suggested. Hackers repeatedly last for years and years and are used in some of the most vigorous competition environments. How long do you imagine the company would survive with a 5 flight failure rate and I doubt you could engineer that kind of problem into any motor even if you tried.

In Europe Hacker back their products to the hilt and will replace any faulty product without issue, providing there is a genuine product fault. It also looks like the same in the US as from these posts.
On 20 size Hackers the shaft used is just 3mm and (like all others) will bend if you give it a reason to. Whilst I understand some crash resistance is desired, to date I don’t know of any manufacturer that actually try’s to build crash proof motors, I think they focus on performance which includes consideration for weight, its really impossible to cater for both.

Hardened shafts can bring about their own problems wherever they may exist as although they might offer better initial resistance they could snap and part company more readily then a soft shaft which is not a great attribute with a spinning prop in a people environment. Of course soft shafts will also snap with enough fatigue. I have worked on many many motors, but none so far in the sub 40 group with hardened shafts either cheap or expensive, not that they dont exsist.

I am very pleased with the quality of my Hacker A10-15s. I have used it on 6 different airframes as I have learned F3P flying over the last 3 years. I have close to 75 hours of flying time on it and have had innumerable direct hits with floors, walls and ceilings. Did I mention floors? My A10-15s still works like new.

Ray

I also have a hacker c50 l motor that i recently purchased and after two quick runs on 4 cell 2200mah lipo, the shaft just snapped and i almost lost my pinion as of a results of it. I hear that i could use any l motor 5mm shaft but i am not sure of what to do at this point.Any advise would be highly taken into consideration. Thank you.

@serpentking
Please give us a call at Aero-Model at (480) 726-7519 - we can discuss some options for you.

Thanks
Mike