Earthstar Forums

Mine has the shaft thru the gearbox with the brass contacts as well. When I was overhauling my prop, the folks at Ivo were very helpful. They did say that the shaft arrangement was not theirs, and they had no parts for it. The stock replacement brushes from Ivo do fit the upgrade, though. I made my own bracket to hold the brushes.

I, too, am amazed they ever expected the Ivo system to work well. However, not all the gearboxes have a hollow prop shaft like the C box.

The main downfall of the Ivo inflight adjustable is the threaded shaft that runs the cams to change pitch. It has ordinary SAE threads which are not up to the task. It should have ACME threads due to the force on it. I open mine up at each annual for inspection, and re-grease it with Moly Grease. So far it has been fine.

Ha! Precisely the problem I had, and had to send the motor and loose gearbox pieces back to Ivo for a rebuild. The good news was that it was only $90 about two years ago. And your right, the ultralight version uses a cheap piece of all-thread, and not a full Acme type thread as on the bigger Ivo’s. Mine got the threads galled, and stuck at near full pitch which gave me a really lousy take-off that day. I ordered the ground adjustable parts and flew it that way for a year, then got to missing the changeable pitch so I sent the motor back for overhaul.