Need An Idiots Guide To Brushless Please

[Percymon]

I'm currently restoring various models - Hotshot, Manta Ray, Buggy Fighter, Blitzer Beetle and have a new Rising Storm for the boy for Xmas.

All are either stock MSC and silver, can or a cheap mtroniks sport auto20 ESC combined with Ansmann Clash 23T motors - nothing very exciting, but then they are for use in the garden, parking lot or local football field.

Curiosity has the better of me though, so what would i need for a BASIC brushless set-up that would give improved speed. I obviously need brushless esc and motor, and steel pinions, but do i also need li-pos ?.

I have 5000MAh 7.2V stick packs, and an Ansmann xbase charger (that can do lipos, but only in unbalanced charge) - if these are OK for brushless then i might dabble, but if i need lipos packs and a new charger then its off the cards for now.

Thanks

[tamiya monkey]

The ezrun 35amp esc and maybe the 9t or 13t combo would be ideal for your buggies, there reliable and cheap (around £41 delivered) to buy off ebay, i have a couple myself, they will run fine on nimh's, nicads might struggle to supply the current required and may cause cogging depending on gearing used. as for lipo, if your looking for new batteries then i would make the move, you wouldn't regret it, i haven't. if you did get some lipo's then you would need either a new charger or a balance board.

[kaiser]

go lipo. the nmih's struggle to supply the burst current needed, atleast thats what i found, they got really hot too.

look into an astro "blinky" balancer, they work really well and are pretty cheap.

i ran the 9t ezrun in my manta ray and it was insane, wheelies like crazy. alot of fun.

[Butler]

Turning the punch settings down helps with stuttering on 4wd cars with lots of grip.

[Origineelreclamebord]

The few steps you need to do for running brushless:

1. Get a brushless system (You might have guessed that ). Many people say ezRun brushless combos work great, but they suffer from a lot of cogging at lower speeds (the motor just stutters a lot instead of driving off smoothly). For 30 dollars up you'll end up with a much better brushless set. If you have the money, buy a sensored brushless combo as it's even smoother than the smoothest of sensorless systems. So in short, for a good impression of brushless power, get a good brushless system (It's worth it)!

2. Go LiPo. NiMh batteries won't cut it, they can't deliver the peak capacity like a LiPo can, so for the desired performance and reliability of your electronics, get a LiPo. Don't forget that for LiPo you will need a suitable charger (and if not integrated in the charger also a balancer) for using them safely. It's also recommended you use a LiPo charging bag, and on your car either a LiPo alarm or a Low voltage cutoff (nowadays more and more often already integrated in your ESC).

3. Tweak the gearing.

4. Have fun!

[southy]

Once you go brushless/Lipo you will never go back to old tech. Brushless and lipo can even end up costing less than a brushed/Nimh setup for the same power output. There are many relatively cheap brushless systems out there. I run Hobbywing both Ezrun (sensorless) and Xerun (sensored). If the Ezrun systems are set up properly with correct gearing than cogging is not a problem. The Ezrun 9t and 13t motors are actually a 380 size motor but they punch well above their weight. I had a 8.5T Novak sensored system and the little 9T Ezrun punched out much more power than the Novak. The Novak is now gone as the rotor in the motor ended up killing itself. Been running Hobbywing for about 2 years now end never had an issue with any of my systems. The Exrun is a bit more expensive but if racing, especially 17.5 or 13.5 turn class if you don't have a sensored system with turbo timing advance you will get smoked on the straights.

As for lipo vs Nimh. Good quality Nimh batteries will run brushless no problems, when we first started racing brushless we still had Nimh. Problem is good quality Nimh batteries are very expensive. The cheap 5000Mah Nimh battery that you can get off Ebay are really only good for running torches not high powered RC cars. Lipo is much better, even cheap ones have good discharge rates and can run all but the fastest of brushless systems.

[ozace]

My view :

Start with a Lipo if you are looking for noticable differences. With battery packs its all about voltage under load. Pretty much all lipo packs these days will hold a higher voltage than any nimh or nicad pack, and the prices are silly low for lipo and very high for decent nimh.

If you still need more after that then look into brushless combo's.