PF motor cables being fried

[SNIPE]

Hi,

So today, I woke up to yet another motor cable being fried. I left the motor unpluged on my floor last night and the cable was fine.

Then I woke up today and the cable was worm almost all the way through.

This is the FIFTH motor to do that now and im complaining to LEGO about it.

Do you think they will send me 5 replacments?

Is there any way to prevent these cables from breaking in future? I'm pretty fed up now.

The 5th motor works unless you move the cable a certain way.

Regards, Snipe.

[Mr Jos]

Can you show a photo of where the motor is placed when it happened?

[Jurss]

So, motor was not connected to battery etc.?

Please, add some pic how it looks.

[Doug72]

Mice ?

[SNIPE]

 3 of them have no disable damage but still have damaged cables and these two mysteriously went like this:

Edited November 12, 2020 by SNIPE

[amorti]

26 minutes ago, Doug72 said:

Mice ?

We have a winner...

Cables can't try if not even connected to a power source. 

[JaBaCaDaBra]

Thats not fried, the plastic isolation is persihing,
plastic consist of a part plasticizer, that part slowly vaporizes over the years.
The remaining plastic becomes hard and brittle and breaks.

33 minutes ago, Doug72 said:

Mice ?

No, thats looks different.
I've seen lots of mouse damage in apparatus I fix for a living.

[howitzer]

As others said, it cannot have been fried if it wasn't connected to a power source.

This thing happening overnight would imply a pest of some sort, but if it happened gradually over a longer time, it would suggest degradation of the insulation plastics.

[Jurss]

How old are those motors?

[Zerobricks]

Seems something at your home loves to eat plastic insulation. There's no other explanation.

[JaBaCaDaBra]

14 minutes ago, Zerobricks said:

Seems something at your home loves to eat plastic insulation. There's no other explanation.

Nope
Bitemarks are missing,
damage by mice, rats, marten, etc look different, I allready wrote that i'm very familiar with repairing such damages

[Munchkin255]

Those cables look very much like the cables of my old MINDSTORMS RCX sensors , which had become brittle with age.

[Gimmick]

13 minutes ago, JaBaCaDaBra said:

Nope
Bitemarks are missing,
damage by mice, rats, marten, etc look different, I allready wrote that i'm very familiar with repairing such damages

But from fine to this over night?

[SNIPE]

1 hour ago, Gimmick said:

But from fine to this over night?

unless I missed it yesterday and maybe the day before, I doubt it though.

[Gimmick]

2 hours ago, SNIPE said:

unless I missed it yesterday and maybe the day before, I doubt it though.

If you have no pets: Next time buy a mouse trasp and place the motors inside ;D

If you have rabbits, birds, cats or any thing else: Punish them with a long sceptical stare!

I think spontaneous rotting is unlikely, but there was an Outer-Limits episode ...

[amorti]

If the insulation wasn't eaten, where did it go? It didn't burn, there's no evidence of burn marks.

[SNIPE]

2 minutes ago, amorti said:

If the insulation wasn't eaten, where did it go? It didn't burn, there's no evidence of burn marks.

It flaked off.

As per my original question, Is there any way(s) to preserve the life span of Power Functions motors?.

Regards, Snipe

[amorti]

There's no burning but there is some green, which may represent copper corrosion. In that case the insulation has been compromised for some time and allowed moisture underneath, which corrodes the cable and lifts the insulation off from underneath. Similar concept to rustjacking on cars.

Looking at how this has happened in a quite straight line and at the very base of the cable, I'd guess it's where the cable has had a tighter kink in it which has cracked the insulation leading to subsequent failure.

Not much you could do really, except be cautious of how much bend you put in the cables. Yes I appreciate that's not a good answer or always possible, but it's all I can offer.

[2GodBDGlory]

9 hours ago, Jurss said:

How old are those motors?

I don't think they can be too many years old, since there is the small bulge on the wire end which wasn't there on older plugs.

3 hours ago, SNIPE said:

It flaked off.

As per my original question, Is there any way(s) to preserve the life span of Power Functions motors?.

Regards, Snipe

I have had issues with my wires wearing down over time where they enter motors and plugs, so I tried putting hot glue around the joints to prevent it from rubbing around. I don't know if this really helped, and all the hot glue is flaking off now, though.

If your only problem is with the wires themselves, you could always replace the wire. If you can solder, it isn't too hard to do. In fact, I learned all my soldering skills from working on Lego motors. Replacing the wires does, of course, require a replacement wire, which could be cannibalized from an extension wire. Alternatively, perhaps it is possible to buy generic wire that would fir PF plugs and motors?

Just now, 2GodBDGlory said:

 

One other thought: Would UV light have an affect on the insulation?

[amorti]

Changing the wire into the motor isn't so bad but changing the top of the wire into the plug is not an easy thing to do without damaging the plug. Perhaps buy one long extension wire, cut it in half, and use it for both damaged motors?

[JaBaCaDaBra]

9 hours ago, Gimmick said:

But from fine to this over night?

Somewhere something is missing in this story..
There are too much open ends.

When it where mice you would find droppings all over the place.
Mice eat, shit and piss at the same time, believe me, you would not have missed that.
It stinks, everything they come across rots away from the piss and is smeared.
Rats on the other hand are serious neat and trained, you will find their droppings alway on one place.
But a rat would not only bite in the plastic, the wiring would also be damaged.
Both would leave bitemarks all over the wire, not only neatly eaten away areas.

So it NOT any kind of animal that did this.

Chances are that the plastic was brittle.
Any stronger movement or bending would at that point break away the isolation with the wires intact.
And thats what I see here,

But WOE did the plastic remains go??
And who did that bending/movement?

Burning looks also different.
Seen that enough and just believe me, this was NOT burning.

[Frequenzberater]

I have heard about huge spiders causing this type of damage

[Woodstock89]

Looking at the top right of the first picture, which kind of corrosion could cause this damage to the wires?

 

 

 

 

[aeh5040]

It's very odd - I've never seen anything like this. Is it possible they were exposed to some solvent? Floor cleaner or something? 

[2GodBDGlory]

On 11/12/2020 at 2:40 PM, amorti said:

Changing the wire into the motor isn't so bad but changing the top of the wire into the plug is not an easy thing to do without damaging the plug. Perhaps buy one long extension wire, cut it in half, and use it for both damaged motors?

Well, the plug design was changed a year or two ago. Now it is one solid piece, and it is almost impossible to replace the wire. The older plugs came apart relatively easily, and wires could be replaced without too much trouble. The pictured one above is the older design, so it should be possible to fix, though not necessarily easy. I am rather bothered that Lego would change the design of the plug like that, especially since without a supply of new PF, I'll be trying to keep my stuff running as long as possible!