Why Lure Motors Are Not Guaranteed.....
INJOY cannot guarantee the lure machine motors because we have no control over the conditions under which these motors are used or, in some cases, abused. If a motor is run continually after it gets hot, it will burn out. We have seen a motor start to smoke and stop running after one hour of practicing dogs...one right after another with no break to let the motor cool-down. The motor got so hot that it melted the solder in the motor which broke the electrical connections. That motor was not defective...it simply was asked to do a job that it was not designed to do. Or, as our supplier told us (smooth talking devil that he is) "if you ride that motor hard and put it away wet, don't call me when the horse dies!"
INJOY no longer stocks or sells the Ford Long Shaft Motor (FLS) which was the original starter motor we sold with all our equipment and which Tom wrote about below. We now carry and sell a motor that is more suited for use on lure machines, but the information that Tom originally wrote about the FLS motor is still applicable with the new motors. Even though the new motor that INJOY sells now is better suited for the lure coursing application it still, if not used properly, will overheat and the motor can become inoperable. Where this motor can be over taxed is with CAT trials using only one machine where dogs are run right after another without giving the motor the opportunity to cool down.
HISTORY OF LURE MACHINE MOTOR...
In the beginning (early 1970's), lure coursing for sighthounds was conducted using a drag system whereby the string was wound onto a take up wheel. This method required a motor with a long shaft to mount the wheel. The course was re-strung by hand using a variety of means from riding on shank's mare to motorcycles. No matter what method was used to restring the course, a lure coursing trial using a drag system was a lot of work ...and time.....to complete. The time it takes to restring the course does, however, give the motor time to cool-off......this is a good thing!
By the late 1970's, sighthound clubs had begun to experiment with a continuous loop system which did not require the re-stringing of the course because the bunny was run on a belt of string that was driven by a wheel on the motor. The change to a continuous loop system allowed the lure trial to proceed at a somewhat faster pace and was certainly less work...once again proving that constructively lazy individuals are extremely creative. This is when the motors started to overheat and burnout. Why...because there was no forced timeout when the motor could cool down while the course was being restrung. You could run one course right after the other with no need to stop...or so the theory went. However, an automotive starter motor is just not designed to run continually without some provision for cooling.
While a continuous loop system does not require a long shafted motor to operate, at the end of the day you are still faced with the need to retrieve all that string out on the course. So, the long shaft is still required to mount a take up wheel to retrieve and store the string. Until 2007 (and maybe beyond), the Ford long shaft starter motor had been the standard motor for lure coursing because it: (1) has the required long shaft, (2) is battery operated, and therefore can be used anywhere, (3) basically has the power to do the job required, (4) is readily available, and (5) has a relative low cost to purchase and/or rebuild. In 2002, Tom was fortunate to locate some newly manufactured (not rebuilt) Ford long shaft (FLS) starter motors from India....these motors were fabulous. Unfortunately, in 2006, the company in India went out of business, which he found out about when he received 20 motors from his supplier in November that year that were of the worst quality he had ever seen in the 28 years he'd been purchasing FLS motors. After he returned these motors to his supplier that November, he received several sample FLS motors, both new and rebuilt, from various sources and none of them were of an adequate quality for INJOY to recommend and/or sell for a lure machine. They probably would have worked OK for their intended automotive purpose of starting a vehicle, but they were not going to last very long in a lure machine. Tom then went out and found a supplier that was able to supply INJOY with a motor designed to be used in various commercial and industrial applications. This motor is manufactured with a 6 inch long shaft.
HISTORICAL REFERENCE INFORMATION
MOTOR FACTS FOR THE FORD STARTER MOTOR (This information is still valid for the new TB1225 motor)
The Ford starter motor is a 12 volt DC motor with a short duty cycle (more on duty cycle later). We do not know the horse power rating, but our guess is somewhere around 2 HP. The maximum RPM under load (when running a continuous course) is around 2200. The average speed (RPM) needed to complete a course plan is between 1500 and 1800 RPM. The max RPM of 2200, using a continuous loop wheel with a 9" diameter string groove, will give you a lure speed of approximately 55 MPH. The electrical current (at 12 volts DC) required to start the motor from a stop is 300+ Amps. Once the motor is started, it will use from 100 to 200 Amps to maintain the average 1500 to 1800 RPM speed. It is a little tough to measure the exact Amps used with the pulsing on/off method used to control the lure speed, but these readings are close enough for this purpose. Incidentally, if you wonder why your pulleys make a "whirrr'g" sound when the rabbit is running, it is because a pulley with a 1.5" diameter string groove is turning at about 12,000 RPM with a lure speed of 55 MPH. The duty cycle, mentioned above, is the amount of time the motor is expected to operate between rest periods. The duty cycle for the Ford motor is short because the motor has no provision for dissipating the heat generated when operating. The heat is generated by the large amount of Amps (electrical energy at 12 volts) required to operate the motor. Remember, the original intended use for this motor was to start a vehicle's engine which probably takes around 5 to 20 seconds. To run a lure course, the motor operates around 2 to 3 minutes for a short course (500 to 600 yards) and probably around 4 to 5 minutes for a long course (1200+ yards). Manufacturers of motors such as this one usually state the duty cycle as "on" time and "off" time and it would be stated something like this; 5 minutes run time with 15 minutes at rest or an on/off cycle time of 5/15 minutes. We do not know the original manufacturers' stated duty cycle for the Ford starter motor. What we do know (and most of you who have operated lure machines know) is that this motor heats up and if not cooled down will eventually burn out and cease to operate. The new TB1225 motor has a slightly longer duty cycle than the old FLS motor did, but, like the FLS motor, it needs time to cool down when it starts to get warm!!!
THE WORLD OF VARIABLES
So why do some motors heat up and some don't... why on some days and not on others... why did that 600 yard course yesterday give me fits while the 1200 yard course today is running with no motor problems? Welcome to the world of variables!
Here is but a short list of some of the variable conditions that will effect how your motor will operate: weather (hot, cold, wet or dry)... length of grass... type of terrain... new/old string... amount of string tension... type of drive wheel... condition of the motor... condition of the battery... quality of the electrical connections from battery to solenoid to motor to ground... pulley placement on the field, particularly hold down pulleys... pulley condition... and finally, choice of lure operator. Oh yea, don't forget the lure operator. When all else fails, blame the lure operator for everything, including the weather!
When you consider that each one of the above broad categories could have 4 or 5 possible variables, it is pretty easy to see how there could be thousands of conditional variable combinations. So how do we deal with all these potential problems? It's really quite simple...eliminate as many variables as you possible can before you ever get to the field to set up the course. Don't worry, you will be adequately challenged when you get to the field with grass, weather and terrain conditions.
Here's a suggestion; make yourself a check list of things to do the night before using the equipment. Make sure the batteries are full of water and are fully charged. Check the electrical connections on the lure machine; make sure they are tight; wires in good shape; and particularly that there is no green or white crud around any of the connections. This crud can cause you lots of trouble because it is preventing the motor from getting adequate electrical current to do the job and the motor will heat up needlessly. Check the condition of each of your pulleys; do they turn freely; are they wobbly or rubbing on their base. Just one bad pulley out on the course can cause the motor to heat up. Check the condition of your string. Old or used string is not necessarily bad string. If it is not worn or abraded and is not full of knots, it is probably better than new string because it is pre-stretched and if it was used on hot days it has probably been heat set. This is a condition that people using dacron fishing line pay a premium price to obtain. And finally, make sure that you select lure operators with good problem solving skills and a sense of humor... because they're going to need both.
So, how do you keep your Ford starter motor or your new TB1225 motor cool? The following is the method that we have used for years. We set up two lure machines close to each other, with the ends of the motor shafts facing each other. This is done so that the string can be easily switched from one machine to the other. When one motor starts to get warm, we switch the string over to the other machine for three or four courses until that motor starts getting warm. Notice we use the word warm, not hot enough to fry eggs. If the motor is so hot that you can not hold your hand on it, it's time to let the motor rest and cool down. This method works pretty well for long courses when the ambient temperature is around 70 degrees or less.
When the temperature gets into the 90's this still may work OK but usually you need to provide some additional cooling method. We have always used a fan and some method for concentrating the air flow over the motor...the more air the better.
The last important functioning part of a lure machine is the solenoid. The solenoid gets very little attention from anybody until it locks up...and then all hell breaks loose. A solenoid failure, though happening very infrequently, can be a particularly exciting and a frantic situation if you are unprepared to deal with such an occurrence. What happens is that the contacting surfaces in the solenoid become pitted and burned due to normal operation and will weld together. When this occurs, the lure machine continues to run even though you are not pressing the button. Usually, the lure machine can be stopped with a couple of sharp blows being administered to the top of the solenoid. If this action does not correct the situation, one of the battery cables needs to be disconnected from the battery. The faulty solenoid should be replaced with a new one after such an occurrence.
BACK to Lure Machines and Drive Wheels Page
INJOY cannot guarantee the lure machine motors because we have no control over the conditions under which these motors are used or, in some cases, abused. If a motor is run continually after it gets hot, it will burn out. We have seen a motor start to smoke and stop running after one hour of practicing dogs...one right after another with no break to let the motor cool-down. The motor got so hot that it melted the solder in the motor which broke the electrical connections. That motor was not defective...it simply was asked to do a job that it was not designed to do. Or, as our supplier told us (smooth talking devil that he is) "if you ride that motor hard and put it away wet, don't call me when the horse dies!"
INJOY no longer stocks or sells the Ford Long Shaft Motor (FLS) which was the original starter motor we sold with all our equipment and which Tom wrote about below. We now carry and sell a motor that is more suited for use on lure machines, but the information that Tom originally wrote about the FLS motor is still applicable with the new motors. Even though the new motor that INJOY sells now is better suited for the lure coursing application it still, if not used properly, will overheat and the motor can become inoperable. Where this motor can be over taxed is with CAT trials using only one machine where dogs are run right after another without giving the motor the opportunity to cool down.
HISTORY OF LURE MACHINE MOTOR...
In the beginning (early 1970's), lure coursing for sighthounds was conducted using a drag system whereby the string was wound onto a take up wheel. This method required a motor with a long shaft to mount the wheel. The course was re-strung by hand using a variety of means from riding on shank's mare to motorcycles. No matter what method was used to restring the course, a lure coursing trial using a drag system was a lot of work ...and time.....to complete. The time it takes to restring the course does, however, give the motor time to cool-off......this is a good thing!
By the late 1970's, sighthound clubs had begun to experiment with a continuous loop system which did not require the re-stringing of the course because the bunny was run on a belt of string that was driven by a wheel on the motor. The change to a continuous loop system allowed the lure trial to proceed at a somewhat faster pace and was certainly less work...once again proving that constructively lazy individuals are extremely creative. This is when the motors started to overheat and burnout. Why...because there was no forced timeout when the motor could cool down while the course was being restrung. You could run one course right after the other with no need to stop...or so the theory went. However, an automotive starter motor is just not designed to run continually without some provision for cooling.
While a continuous loop system does not require a long shafted motor to operate, at the end of the day you are still faced with the need to retrieve all that string out on the course. So, the long shaft is still required to mount a take up wheel to retrieve and store the string. Until 2007 (and maybe beyond), the Ford long shaft starter motor had been the standard motor for lure coursing because it: (1) has the required long shaft, (2) is battery operated, and therefore can be used anywhere, (3) basically has the power to do the job required, (4) is readily available, and (5) has a relative low cost to purchase and/or rebuild. In 2002, Tom was fortunate to locate some newly manufactured (not rebuilt) Ford long shaft (FLS) starter motors from India....these motors were fabulous. Unfortunately, in 2006, the company in India went out of business, which he found out about when he received 20 motors from his supplier in November that year that were of the worst quality he had ever seen in the 28 years he'd been purchasing FLS motors. After he returned these motors to his supplier that November, he received several sample FLS motors, both new and rebuilt, from various sources and none of them were of an adequate quality for INJOY to recommend and/or sell for a lure machine. They probably would have worked OK for their intended automotive purpose of starting a vehicle, but they were not going to last very long in a lure machine. Tom then went out and found a supplier that was able to supply INJOY with a motor designed to be used in various commercial and industrial applications. This motor is manufactured with a 6 inch long shaft.
HISTORICAL REFERENCE INFORMATION
MOTOR FACTS FOR THE FORD STARTER MOTOR (This information is still valid for the new TB1225 motor)
The Ford starter motor is a 12 volt DC motor with a short duty cycle (more on duty cycle later). We do not know the horse power rating, but our guess is somewhere around 2 HP. The maximum RPM under load (when running a continuous course) is around 2200. The average speed (RPM) needed to complete a course plan is between 1500 and 1800 RPM. The max RPM of 2200, using a continuous loop wheel with a 9" diameter string groove, will give you a lure speed of approximately 55 MPH. The electrical current (at 12 volts DC) required to start the motor from a stop is 300+ Amps. Once the motor is started, it will use from 100 to 200 Amps to maintain the average 1500 to 1800 RPM speed. It is a little tough to measure the exact Amps used with the pulsing on/off method used to control the lure speed, but these readings are close enough for this purpose. Incidentally, if you wonder why your pulleys make a "whirrr'g" sound when the rabbit is running, it is because a pulley with a 1.5" diameter string groove is turning at about 12,000 RPM with a lure speed of 55 MPH. The duty cycle, mentioned above, is the amount of time the motor is expected to operate between rest periods. The duty cycle for the Ford motor is short because the motor has no provision for dissipating the heat generated when operating. The heat is generated by the large amount of Amps (electrical energy at 12 volts) required to operate the motor. Remember, the original intended use for this motor was to start a vehicle's engine which probably takes around 5 to 20 seconds. To run a lure course, the motor operates around 2 to 3 minutes for a short course (500 to 600 yards) and probably around 4 to 5 minutes for a long course (1200+ yards). Manufacturers of motors such as this one usually state the duty cycle as "on" time and "off" time and it would be stated something like this; 5 minutes run time with 15 minutes at rest or an on/off cycle time of 5/15 minutes. We do not know the original manufacturers' stated duty cycle for the Ford starter motor. What we do know (and most of you who have operated lure machines know) is that this motor heats up and if not cooled down will eventually burn out and cease to operate. The new TB1225 motor has a slightly longer duty cycle than the old FLS motor did, but, like the FLS motor, it needs time to cool down when it starts to get warm!!!
THE WORLD OF VARIABLES
So why do some motors heat up and some don't... why on some days and not on others... why did that 600 yard course yesterday give me fits while the 1200 yard course today is running with no motor problems? Welcome to the world of variables!
Here is but a short list of some of the variable conditions that will effect how your motor will operate: weather (hot, cold, wet or dry)... length of grass... type of terrain... new/old string... amount of string tension... type of drive wheel... condition of the motor... condition of the battery... quality of the electrical connections from battery to solenoid to motor to ground... pulley placement on the field, particularly hold down pulleys... pulley condition... and finally, choice of lure operator. Oh yea, don't forget the lure operator. When all else fails, blame the lure operator for everything, including the weather!
When you consider that each one of the above broad categories could have 4 or 5 possible variables, it is pretty easy to see how there could be thousands of conditional variable combinations. So how do we deal with all these potential problems? It's really quite simple...eliminate as many variables as you possible can before you ever get to the field to set up the course. Don't worry, you will be adequately challenged when you get to the field with grass, weather and terrain conditions.
Here's a suggestion; make yourself a check list of things to do the night before using the equipment. Make sure the batteries are full of water and are fully charged. Check the electrical connections on the lure machine; make sure they are tight; wires in good shape; and particularly that there is no green or white crud around any of the connections. This crud can cause you lots of trouble because it is preventing the motor from getting adequate electrical current to do the job and the motor will heat up needlessly. Check the condition of each of your pulleys; do they turn freely; are they wobbly or rubbing on their base. Just one bad pulley out on the course can cause the motor to heat up. Check the condition of your string. Old or used string is not necessarily bad string. If it is not worn or abraded and is not full of knots, it is probably better than new string because it is pre-stretched and if it was used on hot days it has probably been heat set. This is a condition that people using dacron fishing line pay a premium price to obtain. And finally, make sure that you select lure operators with good problem solving skills and a sense of humor... because they're going to need both.
So, how do you keep your Ford starter motor or your new TB1225 motor cool? The following is the method that we have used for years. We set up two lure machines close to each other, with the ends of the motor shafts facing each other. This is done so that the string can be easily switched from one machine to the other. When one motor starts to get warm, we switch the string over to the other machine for three or four courses until that motor starts getting warm. Notice we use the word warm, not hot enough to fry eggs. If the motor is so hot that you can not hold your hand on it, it's time to let the motor rest and cool down. This method works pretty well for long courses when the ambient temperature is around 70 degrees or less.
When the temperature gets into the 90's this still may work OK but usually you need to provide some additional cooling method. We have always used a fan and some method for concentrating the air flow over the motor...the more air the better.
The last important functioning part of a lure machine is the solenoid. The solenoid gets very little attention from anybody until it locks up...and then all hell breaks loose. A solenoid failure, though happening very infrequently, can be a particularly exciting and a frantic situation if you are unprepared to deal with such an occurrence. What happens is that the contacting surfaces in the solenoid become pitted and burned due to normal operation and will weld together. When this occurs, the lure machine continues to run even though you are not pressing the button. Usually, the lure machine can be stopped with a couple of sharp blows being administered to the top of the solenoid. If this action does not correct the situation, one of the battery cables needs to be disconnected from the battery. The faulty solenoid should be replaced with a new one after such an occurrence.
BACK to Lure Machines and Drive Wheels Page
