As some may have noticed there seems to have been an uptick in auger motor related failures on the S1 modules. Notably this was often resulting in the main rotor shaft breaking, and seems to be something possibly affecting disproportionately the newer modules. I believe my 2025 delivered snowblower module has some partial failure on the motor as well. Searching around I did notice something interesting which is primarily what I wanted to share:
The first photo is from my “2025” snowblower, and the second is from a used older module. It’s very apparent that the motor appears to be a completely different unit, and with the red anodizing I’m kind of inclined to believe that this older motor is of higher cost and quality. Did yarbo cost cut on the new motors and that’s why we’re seeing maybe an increase in failure rates? I tried to see if I could locate the older motor in the photo as a potential replacement part but couldn’t seem to find them available. Curious if some of the owners of the older S1 modules have this same red anodized motor on their units? Not knocking Yarbo here to be clear, cost cutting and optimization is part of running a business, but maybe this new manufacturer isn’t meeting the engineering requirements
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Yours looks like mine and I have the early batch of the 24 S1.
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The newer blowers were breaking belts, the “mid-old” blowers were breaking motor shafts… I had to put the belt from my old broken S1 on the new S1 when the belt broke after a few runs. S1 down - #35 by rcguymike
I’ve only seen 2 posts of broken shafts that I can recall. I thought they were also newer ones, but could be wrong.
Interesting, I wonder how early the one in my photo is
My new blower has a fully sealed chute rotation motor and the main pulley has what looks like an updated bearing on the main impeller drive pulley with a snap ring retainer. My other S1 I received late this past summer
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Looks like a 23 or maybe one of the 22 prototypes
Also, I don’t think breaking belts is really a standalone issue - that’s a symptom of another issue. The fracturing motor shafts likely represent a manufacturing defect either in the shaft itself or tolerances or poor bearings, etc. The belts will break from something else not being right - pulley alignments, jammed auger, etc.
I believe mine is the same as Bryan’s (going by memory)
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Could also be a symptom of a bad belt heating up the shaft until it breaks.
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yeah I do suspect the shaft failures have some heat involved from either bearing or belt/belt tension/alignment/etc.
I put the old belt on the new unit that broke a belt and it’s been going strong ever since, new belt that broke seemed very plasticy
ah yeah belt material could be a factor as well
My theory is they’re spinning inside the pulley and creating heat, either the inner keying in the pulley was shearing or breaking, because my auger would run and stop intermittently in increasing intervals until it finally stopped and the motor sounded like it was running without load
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Which if all the teeth on the belt missing would do this (or if it broke completely). And then it would heat it up, probably lose any tempering on the metal and then with the heat/cold differentials between runs eventually break the shaft. But it seems in most cases the belt broke first. Maybe in severe cold cases it was breaking the shafts first. Anyways, just a theory. I have no way to verify or validate this.
My theory is the metal “cables” are getting through the plastic belt and then getting into the drive grooves on the pulley for the belt. Winding those cables around the drive motor gear until they break the plastic belt or really bind and break the drive motor shaft.
Oh you might be onto something. Could have damaged the shaft or the bearings.
Oh yes, it is absolutely ripping those metal cables out of the belt.
On my original blower the belt never broke, only the motor shaft. I am using the old belt on the new unit after the belt on the replacement unit broke.
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Hi there, thanks for sharing your observations. We do have an updated version of the motor. The new motor has been optimized for better performance—specifically, it provides improved temperature control when clearing deep or heavy snow, and it is able to maintain a more stable rated speed under high-load conditions. We appreciate you bringing this up and sharing your findings.
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