I was suprised and concerned that the auger motor was flopping around, but planned on checking after uprighted. When I checked it, the motor is not mounted with bolts at all and is only supported by a shear bolt and nut and was designed that way, so all was good there. It is situated in a metal box surrounding and cannot rotate very much. I just never heard anyone mention that before.
This was a surprise to me, too, when I had to replace the motor in my Mini. I've never seen the innards of a 680 or 700 (or any other Rec Tec for that matter), so I don't know if the Mini is unique, but it seemed odd. I don't know what benefit having no secure mounting for the motor has, but under power, any such setup is going to start the motor rotating, as there's less resistance to that action than the friction involved in turning the auger in its tube, the way a drill will want to twist out of your hand when the bit gets stuck in whatever you're drilling.
Apparently, at least in my Mini, the only thing to deter the motor from turning like that is a steel "shelf" angle welded to the body of the pit, a fraction of an inch below, but not in contact with, the motor. The motor will start to rotate and it will hit this shelf and immobilize, putting its rotational action into turning the auger. There's some kind of tape (padding? electrical insulation?) on the top of the shelf at the point where the motor hits it, so I assume all this is intentional.
The problem with all this, again at least on my Mini, is that the motor's torque is so great that this shelf angle, originally at 90 degrees, has been gradually bent down as it resists the motor's rotation. And it's a fairly stout piece of steel - I couldn't even begin to bend it back up into place by hand (not that that would have helped - once bent down, it would be less strong after bending it back up). And when I had to go in and replace the shear pin a couple of months later, it was bent down even farther.
So I'm not sure what to do. I've racked my brain trying to think of some way to brace it so it doesn't bend even more, but that wouldn't help the fact that now as the motor contacts it under power, the drooping angle is introducing a new force to pull the motor and auger out of the grill. I don't know that it would actually do that, but it introduces stresses in the system that it wasn't designed for. And heaven help me if the shelf bends far enough that it no longer contacts the motor - the motor would sit there and spin until the wiring gets wrapped around it, yanking it out of the controller board.
Sorry for the thread hijacking.
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Topic: RT-700 - Delivery, Setup and Experiences (Read 14614 times)