I’m looking to buy a Lift efoil electric motor (1st generation) to replace mine.
I’m interested in a used one, or if someone has found out the source in Asia where I could buy one, that would be great
Will pay fair price and need to have it shipped ASAP to Australia.
Please message me at greg@greghuglin.com
Thanks@!
As a matter of interest what happened to your existing one?
The motor stopped working and when I had a machine shop take it apart, it was full of saltwater. Looks like one or more ‘o’ rings failed.
Hi.
Hit up David at Flying Rodeo. His motor is the same as Lifts.
Good luck.
^ What he said! lol… best option out there!
thanks very much i appreciate the reply
Lift won’t sell you a motor?
it is one of the best and most reliable motor out there… Did you ask lift for warranty and sent them photos? If not do so… Try to forward it directly to Nick Leason. I´m shure he will help you in this case as there are couple thousand units out and the motor is one of the best parts on the liftfoil 
Yes, I sent Nick this photo of what the inside of the motor looks like.
thumbnail_thumbnail_20200909_164136|375x500
And Lift offered to sell me a new motor.
But, it ends up being over $2,000 by the time it gets to me here in Australia with the shipping and exchange rate and the GST. I have two kids in university I’m supporting financially and that’s a lot of money to spend. That’s why I’m looking for a used motor or the actual source in Asia.
The board with the drowned motor actually belongs to a friend of mine who has bought two of them (at my recommendation) and has one in California and one he’s storing with us here in Australia since he can’t come back here for the forseeable future.
I feel responsible for the board since I was riding it in his absence.
I’m not trying to whine about this but here’s the actual facts.
The Aussie dealer for Lift, who is a friend and lives near me in Noosa, spoke to Lift for me and got the same answer. One side of it is that we’ve had the board here in Oz for over 2 years (we own the third board imported to Australia in mid 2018) and it’s past the warranty period. Fair enough, it IS past the warranty period.
The other side of the situation is that this motor is a sealed unit with oil inside of it and several ‘O’ rings keeping the water out. If I’d been told about a possible ‘o’ ring failure, I would have changed the ‘o’ ring and made damn sure there was enough oil inside. But that’s not the situation, it’s supposed to be sealed, I assume permanently.
I have been working with underwater housings since the early 1970’s and have never ever lost a camera due to an ‘o’ ring leak so I’m more than a bit disappointed in this…
Up until now, Lift has given me great customer service, directly thru Nick, replacing various things on our two boards like three batteries and two control boxes that have failed. He’s been great and looked after us really well.
I very much like the product and chose to stick with Lift’s over Fliteboard even though I live in Australia and Fliteboard was cheaper for me to buy back then when I ordered our first Lift in 2017.
David Trewern of Fliteboard came to Noosa when they were still in a prototype phase and I was able to ride both boards. I think both boards and the founders, Nick and David have great products and are honorable people. I wish them well and hope they get rich selling these, they’ve earned it.
I dont really feel comfortable airing this in public but since I have, I’d be interested in opinions from you guys that are in the midst of making your own efoils.
Should I pay for a new replacement motor or should it be replaced for free?
An o ring in these applications dont fail once they are installed. They usually fail because of a faulty installation from the factory.
This would mean that the problem has been there from the start but has only now presented itself.
Its probably a manufacturing fault so if Nick really was “honourable”, he would be replacing it under warranty.
How many hours on the motor would you guess?
Yeah, I totally agree with you. I’m guessing about 80 hours on the motor perhaps because my friend rode it only about 20 times (say 20 hours) and at the most we rode it maybe 50-60 times. I reckon the oil probably slowly leaked out from the very beginning when we got it because the other Lift we have is 6 months older and so far no problem with the motor. There’s about 1/2 liter of oil in the motor so a very slow leak would take awhile and then it filled up with saltwater and corroded so badly that it finally seized up about 6 weeks ago.
Was it ever opened before? Several people have accidentally opened the motor when trying to remove the prop guard or install the folding propeller.
We never messed with the mast, foil or motor except to exchange the 170 wing for the 200. This board still has the prop guard just like the factory installed it. Our other board has the 3 bladed folding prop and so far that motor is A-Ok.
Whether consumers like it or not, warranty’s have a limited time for a reason. If there was a manufacturing fault it would have died much faster. Lift also can’t control how a user uses the product. Someone only needs to run that motor for 2-3 minutes outside water and they can damage the o-rings. Then there’s also the chance that you may have had something slip through the duct and clip the prop. That could destroy a balanced system and then water slips in through the shaft seal.
At least from your pic we can see that the motor is identical to the flying rodeo inside…
Also, pour corrosion X in and slowly let it strip some of the corossion. You might be able to get the rotor loose and then get bearing etc out.
You are correct, warranties are there for a reason and I accept that. But, we never ran it out of the water for more than a few seconds to see if the controller was paired. And, it’s highly unlikely that the sealed bearing shaft seal failed but is theoretically possible. The machine shop did manage to get the rotor out after I soaked it in a glass full of WD 40 for a week. The sealed bearings are replaceable I’m told. Unfortunately the insulation covering the wires at the bottom end of the housing are eaten away and exposing the wires which will create a electrical short. I can’t get to them to somehow insulate them from a electrical short but still thinking about a solution…
Still searching for a reasonably priced replacement motor.
You could ask Electric Motor Rewinding • Brisbane Rewinding Services • CE Engineering to see if they can help.
Wd40 is crap compared to corrosion X. For marine stuff I always use corrosion X.
How do you know the insulation is gone at the sealed end? Corrosion X can insulate too, so you could pour that into the motor.
For a replacement motor of similar performance, you’ll have to pay. There’s no alternative. Otherwise of you change the motor, you’d need to probably reconfigure the speed controller.
You’d need to extract the stator which is impossible with these motors. One end is completely sealed. If you use heat to free up the stator, then you’ll probably damage the magnets…
*Edit: there are no magnets on the stator, so actually you might be able to extract it with heat… But it might cost more to go through that than just buying a new one…
Unfortunately (or fortunately) this motor is not made in Asia but in EU. As stated by @Flightjunkie you could just get one from Flying Rodeo which are the same motors Lift is using, but it’s still 1580€. With import taxes no doubt it will be around 2k$. Maybe you can get a deal with Flying rodeo to deliver a motor alone without duct and propeller for a better price…
http://flyingrodeoefoil.com/motor-systems/
I am very suprised about this Oring failure. I would expect the factory to make to basic waterproofing test before shipping the units, like a vaccum test prior to shipping to see if no air gets out of the unit…
However, it might also come from something that hit the prop, bent the shaft, had some vibrations causing shaft misalignements from where moisture gets his way in…
Do you have any close picture of the Oring to see if it’s damaged ? It would be way easier to judge if its from the oring itself or from somewhere / something else…
Firstly, like @Jezza said, there is a reason why warranty have a limited time. It’s easier for Lift to believe you when you say the battery or control boxes are dead and it’s not your fault than believing the same thing happened to the motor. Because there is simply no way for them to make sure you haven’t opened the motor for any reason before…
From a manufacturer point of view then, they have no proof this problem does not come from your side too…
You mean lip seals right ? Lip seals are between shaft and top cover when Orings are bewteen housing and top cover.
Unfortunately the magnets crossed the unrecoverable limit. Those magnets are Nickel plated (I don’t know why btw because it does not help with eddy current loses…), which is badly corroded. Even if he soaks the rotor in corrosionX I don’t think he’ll be able to use the rotor proprelly again (there will be nickel plating on the bottom side of the magnets -where they are glued- even if the rest peels off).
