Why do you think Tamiya still uses brushed motors as stock?

[Crucial]

14 hours ago, LMF5000 said:

I don't think it's necessarily down to just cost.

It is. A TT02 kit will be going out of the factory gate for around $30, and a chinese made mabuchi 540 can be had for $1/unit in volume, no such pricing exists for brushless motors/escs yet as it's a much less mature technology.

[skom25]

@LMF5000 I totally agree with you, but it seems that Brushed motors are still "ok".

You need to remember one thing. It was hard to swallow for me, but when I understood this my RC life is bit easier now:

I complained about Tamiya quality a lot. Some people wrote me that "Tamiya is toy company with RCs in offer". If you think about this, brushed motors are totally fine.

Not only Tamiya offers brushed motors. There are still a lot of RTR models with brushed motors on market.

Top race cars are offered without any electronics, including Tamiya kits.

Tamiya is very popular in Japan. I believe they have a lot of race events with brushed, kit motors. I saw that in UK races with TT motors are still very popular, because kits are cheap.

I think brushed motors are still "good enough" to exist. They are used not only in RCs.

[LMF5000]

1 minute ago, skom25 said:

@LMF5000 I totally agree with you, but it seems that Brushed motors are still "ok".

You need to remember one thing. It was hard to swallow for me, but when I understood this my RC life is bit easier now:

I complained about Tamiya quality a lot. Some people wrote me that "Tamiya is toy company with RCs in offer". If you think about this, brushed motors are totally fine.

Not only Tamiya offers brushed motors. There are still a lot of RTR models with brushed motors on market.

I like Tamiya because they're assembly kits and because they're high quality and reasonably priced. I'm just not thrilled about having to buy a brushless motor separately to maximise the kit's potential.

[Crucial]

12 hours ago, LMF5000 said:

, but why would brushless cost much more?

The esc cost is probably negligible as you say (but given Hobbywing own the market, they set the price) , but the motor itself it's stamped/drawn steel can versus billet machined aluminium for brushless which is both more expensive and slower to produce. Brushless motors i don't think will ever be as cheap to produce as brushed.

[skom25]

7 minutes ago, LMF5000 said:

I like Tamiya because they're assembly kits and because they're high quality and reasonably priced. I'm just not thrilled about having to buy a brushless motor separately to maximise the kit's potential.

I am not sure, if you are aware of prices of Tamiya kits in Japan.

My friend was in Japan last year and he visited RC shops in Tokyo. DT-03 and TT-02 costs around 45 Euros (!). He bought me DB-01 for around 90 Euros. DF-03 around 80 Euros. I do not remember rest of prices, but I was shocked.

In Europe, we pay at least two times more because of import taxes etc.

It is hard to expect Brushless system in 45 Euros set.

[Alex97]

Money, brushed will always be cheaper than brushless. 

For most people brushed is absolutely fine, for less than £10 you can install a faster motor (CoreRC 21t) and if for whatever reason you need to replace the ESC and motor it's £30 for a whole new brushed setup Vs £75+ for a brushless setup. Most brushless setups also require soldering, for most people this would cause headaches and potential be a barrier to the hobby. 

The HW1060 ESC is great ESC and for 75% of people is all the ESC they'd ever need. Tamiya now offering them with most of their kist was a good move IMO. Tamiya would be paying less than £5 for each 1060, I'd guess their own ESC that they use to offer cost significantly more than that. 

[Crucial]

4 minutes ago, skom25 said:

In Europe, we pay at least two times more because of import taxes etc.

Yep kit prices in the UK/europe are essential double and spares are triple+ for japanese stuff. Strangely sheffield steel products are 10% cheaper in japan than Sheffield itself which is 30 minutes from my house. Go figure.

[markbt73]

The RS540 silver can is not an RC motor; it is an industrial motor that has been repurposed. As such, it is cheap to manufacture, and designed to run for decades hidden away in some machine with no maintenance at all. I would guess that less than 5% of Mabuchi's total production goes into RC cars. Tamiya probably gets them for pennies. And it's what their models are all designed for, all the way back to the '70s, and if keeping that backwards-compatibility is cheap and easy, why change?

Personally, I'm glad they've stuck with the good old 540. I love them. Brushless stuff may be more "efficient," but it has this horrible digital feel that sucks all the soul out of the car. Brushed motors just feel and sound better to me. Sometimes I can't even stand the ESC whine, which is why I still keep a couple of MSC-equipped cars around. Talk about inefficient - but I wouldn't have it any other way. It's the same reason I still have one old car with carburetors, ignition points, and a manual gearbox. It's not always about "maximizing potential." Sometimes it's about the feel, and the character.

Besides, if you want brushless stuff, there are plenty of other manufacturers happy to supply it.

[Kowalski86]

6 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

I also don't buy the "less maintenance" claims. A friend  used to keep pushing brushless to me on this maintenance reason. I pointed out that a equivent brushless can buy me 5 - 7 disposable brushed, or 3 "posh" rebuildable ones or 2 high performance ones.

That's a tale that's been spun by brushless fans without any real elaboration. Plus, isn't tinkering and maintenance a part of the hobby?

In my experience, different brands who different motor/esc plug sizes for their brushless systems. With brushed I can just plug whatever into my HW1060, and there's plenty of perfectly good brushed combos floating around from people who jump straight to brushless.

[Saito2]

You know, every time one of these threads pops up about "why don't we all move to brushless?" or "why on earth wouldn't you run lipo batteries?" or the gasp in horror about the occasional use of an MSC (I understand a lot of us had traumatic experiences with MSCs in our youth...can you point to where on the RC car the MSC hurt you?), I wonder about how these new technology proponents feel about things like antique automobiles. My '73 Nova with its carburetor and points ignition (albeit, run through a CD box) gets horrible mileage and would be trounced by a new Mustang. Yet, I wouldn't take a new Mustang with its "ipad(s) excuse for a dashboard" over my Nova if someone gave it to me, even though by nearly every metric, its a superior automobile. Some folks just like the old ways.

[Kowalski86]

1 minute ago, Saito2 said:

 I wonder about how these new technology proponents feel about things like antique automobiles. My '73 Nova with its carburetor and points ignition (albeit, run through a CD box) gets horrible mileage and would be trounced by a new Mustang. Yet, I wouldn't take a new Mustang with its "ipad(s) excuse for a dashboard" over my Nova if someone gave it to me, even though by nearly every metric, its a superior automobile. Some folks just like the old ways.

I'm waiting for the day when I go to a classic car show and someone shows up only to constantly ask the participants, "Why do you still have a 196x when a 202x Mega Luxury SUV is more XYZ?".

Brushed and NiMH just work, my toys being 10% less efficient isn't going to hurt anyone.

[alvinlwh]

2 hours ago, LMF5000 said:

Your pic kind of proves my point. You managed all that with £20 as a retail buyer at the end of a long chain of middlemen.

Actually you completely missed my point. SP went out of business more than 10 years ago and that motor was bought well after the company went out of business. It was an unsupported obsoleted motor with extremely limited stock when it was bought. It was hardly the real retail price I paid. Not even 10 years ago when they were still in business! 🤣 Now try to find a 7000Kv current motor for the same price. 

2 hours ago, LMF5000 said:

I did - I compared what €52 gets you in the brushed and brushless worlds

Now try again with what €52 buy you from Tamiya only. 

Also, will you have an answer to this? 

7 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

Why would Tamiya supply something that can sell for 7 times what they throw in the box?

 

[Crucial]

11 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

 Some folks just like the old ways.

There is a sweet spot for every industry, personally i can't stand cars that constantly bing at you and have all the feedback of a playstation controller, hence my 1:1's being 39, 33, 27 and 15 years old (but i can do without carbs all day long, thank you very much ) , but for RC brushless & lipo wins out in every way bar cost.

[alvinlwh]

9 minutes ago, Kowalski86 said:

I'm waiting for the day when I go to a classic car show and someone shows up only to constantly ask the participants, "Why do you still have a 196x when a 202x Mega Luxury SUV is more XYZ?".

Why do you still have a carburetor in your car when EV are more efficient/faster/etc... ? 🤣

[alvinlwh]

2 minutes ago, Crucial said:

brushless & lipo wins out in every way bar cost.

I actually had someone said "If you cannot afford lipo and brushless, you should not be RCing". That really puts me off anything the fan boys say after that. 

[skom25]

1 minute ago, Kowalski86 said:

Brushed and NiMH just work, my toys being 10% less efficient isn't going to hurt anyone.

I agree.

I run my cars on route marked by cones. Despite I try really hard, my driving skills are not good enough, to run for e.g. 20 short laps without mistakes. 

In that case, I do not care about bit more power or run time. It is not limitation for me.

Brushless should be considered as upgrade, not something necessary.

[alvinlwh]

1 hour ago, skom25 said:

"Tamiya is toy company with RCs in offer"

Tamiya is a model company with RCs as a side offering. 

[skom25]

4 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

I actually had someone said "If you cannot afford lipo and brushless, you should not be RCing". That really puts me off anything the fan boys say after that. 

Exactly the same with bikes. Carbon is must have.

It does not matter that with your power output/ riding style it will not change too much. You need carbon because it is BETTER.

[skom25]

Just now, alvinlwh said:

Tamiya is a model company with RCs as a side offering. 

Yes, I am not sure why I used word "Toy".

[Crucial]

19 minutes ago, Kowalski86 said:

I'm waiting for the day when I go to a classic car show and someone shows up only to constantly ask t

Classic car shows will always be 60's to 90's metal for a reason, that was the peak of the industry.

[Wooders28]

Same could be said about kits not coming with bearings, or not supplying a decent pinion!!! 🙄

Cost mainly,

But, by also adding a TBLM-02s motor (presumably what would be used) to a kit, they'd need to add substantial cost to the new kit, or it would devalue their brushless motor as a hop up part, and we all know how Tamiya love a bit of Hop Up profit...

 

 

 

[Kowalski86]

3 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

Why do you still have a carburetor in your car when EV are more efficient/faster/etc... ? 🤣

Well that's simple, I like products that last!

1 minute ago, skom25 said:

I agree.

I run my cars on route marked by cones. Despite I try really hard, my driving skills are not good enough, to run for e.g. 20 short laps without mistakes. 

In that case, I do not care about bit more power or run time. It is not limitation for me.

You did a good job highlighting how it's the actual experience that counts, the motor/battery that are used are only a small portion of the overall equation.

In my case, I run my cars maybe once or twice a week. I've tried brushless (Castle, Hobbywing, Surpass, etc), it was nice but it didn't add $100 worth of fun to my experience.

[Wooders28]

5 minutes ago, Crucial said:

Classic car shows will always be 60's to 90's metal for a reason, that was the peak of the industry.

Now restomods add more reliable, more fuel efficient, more powerful fuel injected engines into the mix....🫣

[Siclick33]

1 hour ago, LMF5000 said:

I like Tamiya because they're assembly kits and because they're high quality and reasonably priced. I'm just not thrilled about having to buy a brushless motor separately to maximise the kit's potential.

If they left the brushed motor out of the kit then they could probably reduce the retail price by less than $1. Would that really make any difference to whether you would buy the kit? It might, however, turn a lot of people off buying a kit who are happy with a cheap silver can/torque tuned motor, if they now have to go and buy that separately. I have many kits that are quite happy trundling round with a silver can (e.g. my Lunchbox). My TC-01 benefits from brushless but that doesn't come with a motor/ESC. Maybe Tamiya know what the majority of their target audience uses - e.g. how many TT-02s in the real world are being run happily on the supplied silver cans, and how many people immediately upgrade to brushless?

The other potential issue with this is what brushless setup they would include? I have just started buying a couple of Kyosho kits that have recommended (Kyosho) brushless setups in the manual that are no longer available just a couple of years after the kits were released, which is a pain; the Mabuchi brushed motors have been around for decades in largely the same format. Tamiya would need a supplier that could provide the same motor for years/decades to come, otherwise they would have to keep updating their manuals (and maybe pinions). Look at the number of threads where people are asking (even complaining) how to use the Hobbywing ESCs because the switch is a different size to the Tamiya ESC switch. These questions/confusions would be multiplied ten-fold with brushless setups, particularly if they keep changing which brushless setup was included.

And then the next question would be what brushless setup they would include? Different people would want different spec combos depending on their use-case.

And what about intended batteries? Would Tamiya supply a setup that ideally uses LiPOs, with all the added complexity and cost that might add to a new user. Or spec the brushless setup to work with NiMh, and then annoy all the people who want to use LiPOs?

Rather than go through all this, why not just supply the cheapest reliable components possible to get the vast majority of purchasers started, and if more advanced users want to upgrade then it is up to them. Yes, it might cost you that extra couple of dollars for the kit supplied ESC and motor but that's it. If you really don't want to use them then you could easily resell them and use the money towards a brushless setup of your choosing. You would probably be able to sell the HW1060 ESC for way more than Tamiya pay for them!

I think the fact that Tamiya doesn't supply ball bearings for the majority of their models gives an indication of their mindset. I would opine that they would likely start including ball bearings well before they start supplying kits with brushless motors, so I'm not holding my breath for a change any time soon. 

[Crucial]

3 minutes ago, Wooders28 said:

Now restomods add more reliable, more fuel efficient, more powerful fuel injected engines into the mix....🫣

But crucially they don't add feel'less electric power steering to the mix, then sellotape an ipad to the dash!