Smoke coming from motor

That is what Electrical Engineers call "magic smoke". You've let the magic smoke out. Time for a new motor. Before you just randomly pop a new part in there, make sure nothing else is wrong.

The first thing I would do is take the motor out and make sure everything turns smoothly and easily.  Look at the bright side. At least it wasn't a 13.2Kv 3000 HP motor with a six month lead time! That's like watching someone pushing your new Corvette off a cliff.

It would seem pretty clear if the motor is smoking that something is drastically wrong!   Either it's very overloaded and it's cooking the motor, or it's just failed.  I just tossed a couple of locomotive motors that fried.

Yes, I suspect that motor is certainly toast!

Can't offer any help.  Just wanted to say "Thanks" for the video--I've never seen  smoking motor before.

Since this motor is mounted directly beneath the whistle smoke funnel, I suspect that I got smoke fluid in the motor. I obviously need to be more careful but I wonder if I could protect the motor from that happening with the new motor. Maybe some kind of plastic deflection piece.

I second @Davety's suggestion to suspect smoke fluid ending up in there...

Does that smoke have the aroma of your smoke fluid or is it an acrid electrical burning smell?

RickM46 posted:

Does that smoke have the aroma of your smoke fluid or is it an acrid electrical burning smell?

It's an electrical smell.

I'd find out if there's any binding in the drive train, but I suspect you will have to replace the motor.

Not to be a panic merchant but about halfway through the video I thought I saw either sparking or a flame inside that motor - through the oval opening on the side. I think that the smoke volume is too much to be smoke fluid residue. I can't guess what failure would produce the effects you can see but I would rather replace the motor before it damages anything else - on the engine or anywhere else.

Hancock52 posted:

Not to be a panic merchant but about halfway through the video I thought I saw either sparking or a flame inside that motor - through the oval opening on the side. I think that the smoke volume is too much to be smoke fluid residue. I can't guess what failure would produce the effects you can see but I would rather replace the motor before it damages anything else - on the engine or anywhere else.

I plan on replacing the motor. The question is what caused it to fail? Smoke fluid, overload or just bad motor? I'll be taking the motor out to check for any binding in the drive train but it was running smooth when I parked it a couple of weeks ago.

I've seen motors smoke like this, in all cases it was the windings drawing excessive current and cooking the insulation.  One was the bearings seized up, the other one I suspect was stalled before it was sent to me.  For some odd reason, I've also had several Williams steam locomotives come to me with motors that drew amps of current with no load, clearly those had to be replaced as well.  I didn't wait for them to smoke, but I'm sure they would with extended running!