Peak Racing - Peak Performance Motor Tuning System

[rjsdavis 0]

I recently picked up one of these Peak Performance (Vantage) Motor Tuning System units from Ebay.

So far, I've struggled to actually get it to power up and run! The power inputs are simply 2x black/red banana plugs, and I've tried connecting it to my Turnigy Accucell 6 charger as a PSU, and it runs for about 10-15 seconds, then throws up a voltage error screen and shuts down. I've got it on the lowest possible 0.1A output current, and anything higher will cause it to shut down immediately!

I've yet to determine if it's any good, or if it works, as I can't actually work out how to power it! Does anyone know?

The instructions refer to company in the USA at www.peakracing.com - but the website has long gone, and I can't find any information about them at all. I've posted on the RC Easy facebook page, as I found some vague reference to Peak Racing there, but not holding out much hope. The instructions that I've got with it (original), are good, but all it covers is how to use the buttons and the device and assumes that you can power it fine. If anyone wants to see what I'm on about - it's here:

200632344420 - Item number on Ebay.

Thanks to anyone in advance who can help - and apols if I'm being a real dunce!

[bakaguyjean 7]

I recently picked up one of these Peak Performance (Vantage) Motor Tuning System units from Ebay.

So far, I've struggled to actually get it to power up and run! The power inputs are simply 2x black/red banana plugs, and I've tried connecting it to my Turnigy Accucell 6 charger as a PSU, and it runs for about 10-15 seconds, then throws up a voltage error screen and shuts down. I've got it on the lowest possible 0.1A output current, and anything higher will cause it to shut down immediately!

I've yet to determine if it's any good, or if it works, as I can't actually work out how to power it! Does anyone know?

The instructions refer to company in the USA at www.peakracing.com - but the website has long gone, and I can't find any information about them at all. I've posted on the RC Easy facebook page, as I found some vague reference to Peak Racing there, but not holding out much hope. The instructions that I've got with it (original), are good, but all it covers is how to use the buttons and the device and assumes that you can power it fine. If anyone wants to see what I'm on about - it's here:

200632344420 - Item number on Ebay.

Thanks to anyone in advance who can help - and apols if I'm being a real dunce!

You need a power supply for it. You can not run this machine from your battery charger.

This is a racing tool so you have walk in to the racing world where everybody uses a power supply to power everything from chargers to tire truers.

The bad news is power supplies cost as much or more than a battery charger,they are very usefull but if you are just a hobbiest it can be a little expensive.

I am guessing you didn`t pay much for this,as now most racing guys use brushless so these are very cheap now. Now you just need a cheap power supply to power it.

Here is a link to Muchmore power supplies.

http://www.muchmoreusa.com/power-supplies/index.html

There are cheaper power supplies out there,but you can read up about them on the Muchmore site before you buy one.

[WillyChang 1817]

or a 12V leadacid car battery

[rjsdavis 0]

You need a power supply for it. You can not run this machine from your battery charger.

This is a racing tool so you have walk in to the racing world where everybody uses a power supply to power everything from chargers to tire truers.

The bad news is power supplies cost as much or more than a battery charger,they are very usefull but if you are just a hobbiest it can be a little expensive.

I am guessing you didn`t pay much for this,as now most racing guys use brushless so these are very cheap now. Now you just need a cheap power supply to power it.

Here is a link to Muchmore power supplies.

http://www.muchmoreusa.com/power-supplies/index.html

There are cheaper power supplies out there,but you can read up about them on the Muchmore site before you buy one.

Thanks very much for the pointer and the advice. I'm wondering - would this sort of power supply do the job?

http://www.modelsport.co.uk/fusion-100w-8a...-products/34196

Am trying to power it as cheaply as possible now!

[rjsdavis 0]

or a 12V leadacid car battery

Thanks for the suggestion - but I want to only use this occasionally and in the house - just for testing/running in my vintage Tamiya motors - not going to go mad and start racing them!

[bakaguyjean 7]

Thanks for the suggestion - but I want to only use this occasionally and in the house - just for testing/running in my vintage Tamiya motors - not going to go mad and start racing them!

Your instructions should say how big of a power supply you need. Its usally amps that is important. If your instruction doesn`t say try looking at the Muchmore motor tuner and see how much it requires. Most of these are about the same.

What WillyChang is saying is you can use the battery from your real car,and not have to spend anything. You could bring it into the house to use and put it back in your car when you have to go back to work.

[rjsdavis 0]

Your instructions should say how big of a power supply you need. Its usally amps that is important. If your instruction doesn`t say try looking at the Muchmore motor tuner and see how much it requires. Most of these are about the same.

What WillyChang is saying is you can use the battery from your real car,and not have to spend anything. You could bring it into the house to use and put it back in your car when you have to go back to work.

Thanks - but sadly the instructions don't say a jot about the input ampage/voltage at all! Hence me trying to find out on here.....

[rjsdavis 0]

Your instructions should say how big of a power supply you need. Its usally amps that is important. If your instruction doesn`t say try looking at the Muchmore motor tuner and see how much it requires. Most of these are about the same.

What WillyChang is saying is you can use the battery from your real car,and not have to spend anything. You could bring it into the house to use and put it back in your car when you have to go back to work.

Actually - I've just had a look at the MuchMore motor tester - and it appears to be almost identical to the Peak Performance unit that I have - I would imagine that a reasonable would suggest that MuchMore bought Peak Performance out, or at least the design rights to the motor tester - with this in mind, does anyone know if the Power Supply that I was on about would power the MuchMore motor tuner that can be seen here?

http://www.muchmoreusa.com/motor-accys/index.html

[sosidge 667]

The Much More is the same unit, but not for the reason you stated.

Much-More are the designer and manufacturer, Team Orion/Peak Performance rebadged the unit.

[rjsdavis 0]

The Much More is the same unit, but not for the reason you stated.

Much-More are the designer and manufacturer, Team Orion/Peak Performance rebadged the unit.

Thanks - but apart from a 12v car battery, what else can I use to power it with?

[sosidge 667]

Thanks - but apart from a 12v car battery, what else can I use to power it with?

A 12V power supply.

[TamiyaDan 8]

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[rjsdavis 0]

i know of these things.

first off i would not use a 12 volt power supply to drive it.

second DO not use a brushless motor with it.

back to first point.

The motor tuning system basically measures amp draw of a motor in a no load situation. most of these units were rated between 5amp and 15 amps, since this was the standard Mosfet driver used.

basic operation of these units.

They measured Amp draw under no load.

They measured Motor Rpms.

They measured the timing angle of the armature.

They were sold as brush break in machines.

basically you set the rpm level you wanted the motor to run at adjusted the brush hoods and let the motor run with a fan if possible for 30 to 90 minutes at low voltage.

as voltage goes up so does amp draw, you also wanted to regulate the voltage to a regular battery pack 7.4 volts.

so under no load a stock motor could draw over 5 amps at full rpms. 12,000 to 16,000 rpms.

a modified motor could draw over 15 amps at full rpms under no load, 35,000 to 50,000 rpms or more.

this is a problem for low end motor dynos and dressing machines.

as a comprise you either powered one of these units from a battery pack of 7.4 and deal with voltage drop or you used a 5 volt power supply regulated to 20-30 amps as a driver.

the lower voltage yeilded lower rpms and lower amps draw that would allow the use of heavy springs on the brush hoods.

So what good were these machines?

you wanted to tune a motor for amps draw, efficiency and to know the motors Power factor that would allow you to calculate the engines torque curves.

basically these machines would tell you how degraded a motor had become from peak performance if you benched the motor when it was new as comparable data.

you would use these machines to see how the brushes had broken in, how rough the comm surface was, and what effect a brush and spring combination gave you.

the problem was these machines only gave you no load information which is worthless.

first you broke in the bushings if this was a stock motor, or depending on application turned down the bushings to reduce contact patch.

you ran a new motor for 20-30 seconds noted brush alignment. Aligned each brush hood to make sure the face was the brush was contacting exactly center on the comm. this was more important then making sure the hoods were aligned 180 degrees apart.

You broke in the motor according to the read out and waited for max amps draw, and steady RPMS you then visually checked the brush face and made sure it was 100% broken in. noted amp draw and

efficiency numbers, power factor if given, then Cut the comm. did a shorter break in with comm drops to lubricate the brush face, then compared the start numbers to the end numbers.

cutting the comm advanced the timing on the motor 1-2 degrees so instantly the numbers would show higher, and you would then start tuning the motors amp draw trying to push it up higher with out reducing max rpms.

however due to the limited nature of the tests all under no load when you got the motor on the track you would find it was a dog.

the reason was you really need a motor dyno not a motor tuner/dresser to properly measure the performance of a motor. now your talking big money.

there were 3 true dynos back in the day, the best was the competition electronics dyno which was 1000s of dollars these things were coveted and are still used by experts to this day, you never see them come up for sale. they are unfortunately also outdated, brushless motors are tested in a completely different way. so when brushless hit the market all the dyno makers stopped production. there is maybe 100 of these machines around.

getting back to the peak motor tuning system.

this machine basically told you when a dynoed motor was falling off peak performance and needed a rebuild. the truth is after 5 runs on a stock motor it will need a rebuilt, and after 1-2 runs on a modified motor it will need a rebuilt. Performance racing motors were not designed to last more then one race weekend.

they were designed to be cut maybe 5-6 times then you threw them out and bought another, i would go through at least 10 motors when i was at competition over 2 days. most of the motors would get eaten up during practice time.

these motor tuning systems were mostly a gimmick sold to people that didn't know what they really were.

it was also very easy to blow one of these machines up due to cheap low end single mosfet transistors in them, most of these machines did not have circuit breakers on purpose you would blow them up and have to send them back for repair. So they made a killing off kids that would buy these machines thinking it would make them super fast, blow them up and spend another 50$ a pop getting them serviced. most of these ended up getting thrown in a closet because people didn't know what the machine really was and how it worked and why it was useless.

when you test any motor you want to test it at the use-able amp draw and voltage that means for off-road you want testing done at 20 and 30 continuous amps at 7.4 volts

this is where the buggy will be running 90% of the time. you would gather dyno information and visual information gained from practice sessions on a track and Calculate approximate gear ratios.

only the super expert guys would ever be able to use this information accurately. Most of us would use these machines and basically ball park the ratios.

then we would sacrifice 2 or 3 similar motors to fine tune the gearing. looking at the comm if the copper turned blue that mean lower the gearing and the engine was fried. if the comm turned red up the gear ratio, there was a sweet spot for every motor and every track. the dynos helped but was not the final word on what you did to tune a motor.

there are books written on this subject, look up big jim's motor black book.

here is 90% of the book online

http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=126994

Jim's book which is hard to get in print(i have one they go for big money) gets VERY heavy into armature and motor can design into theory and engine building.

it went over my head in some areas, a lot of it is no longer applicable also. Brushless came on the scene very fast so nobody is going to go through the trouble today of building up a modern brushed motor, Team checkpoint came very close to building the best back in 2004.

once you read through it you will understand why these dresser machines were a big scam.

good luck

TamiyaDan

That's a truly amazing epic answer! Thank you so much.

It's going back on Ebay, as I clearly don't need it. Thank you, thank you, thank you for showing me the light! What a legend.

RD

[TamiyaDan 8]

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[sosidge 667]

You know, the Much-More unit is not a Shinwa unit, and it will run quite happily on a 12V power input.

[TamiyaDan 8]

.

[sosidge 667]

Anything will happily run on 12 volts, and what happens when the higher voltage runs through a modified motor, which can pull over 15 amps unloaded, when you run heavy springs? If your lucky the fuse blows if not your searching for a NPN or PNP MOSFET.

The Much-More unit steps the voltage down internally.

[rjsdavis 0]

I repaired a few early ones, by shinwa to use as display items, so I'm familiar with the circuitry inside. The rpm Gauge was a good tool when used in conjunction with rollout formulas to calculate some theoretical information on a motor. the timing information was pointless later on, but in the early days you needed the gauge because the early stock motors, were rebuild able and had no marks on the bell.

so you would use the timing gauge to set the baseline marks on the motor, so when you rebuilt it you had a starting point.

later on when manufactures marked the bells or had timing mark labels put on, the gauge on the instrument became worthless.

anyway i could go on for pages on this subject, but I'm glad i could help. These units are fun to play with but lead no where unfortunately.

the tekin motor dyno 900 is the beginning bottom level of getting useful motor information, it calculated a primitive power factor of a motor 60 range was a stock motor, up to 97 range out of 100 was a low turn modified motor. with a good approximation of power factor you could plot some useful motor information but it was theoretical. the tekin did one load test at around 10 amps.

the problem with any motor dyno is consistency. everything effects the power factor.

how hot the slave motor was, brushes on the slave motor, etc, you would do 3 or 4 tests and get power factors that would vary wildly power factor numbers might be 67, 68, 65. it would give you a range but that much waving in the power factor would lead to totally different efficiency numbers and torque numbers, plus the test was again done at the wrong load settings.

so for that the tekin was like 300-400$ back in the early 1990s and the information gathered was Bottom of the barrel almost useless information, real power factor equipment cost over 500,000$ back then.

the competition electronics setup was over 3000$ back then so you go what you paid for basically. But again the equipment was only as good as the user.

you needed Gauss meters to see what the magnetic field was really doing and you needed a background in electrical engineering when you went as far as building your own motor.

In a way today we have it easy the brushless motors are amazing in what we no longer have to deal with in the hobby.

for me looking back 25 years ago i made a lot of tuning mistakes in regards to my motor setups.

Thanks again TamiyaDan - another most useful reply.

I had intended to just use it to test various motors that I have, simply to work out if they were knackered or not. I've a number Technigold motors, one in particular in a Bigwig that appear to be much slower than it should be (albeit running on a 7.2v battery rather than the 8.4v) - but it's just a gut feeling. I've no ability to be sure - and had hoped that by connecting them upto this MuchMore / Peak Performance Motor tuner, I'd be able to run several Technigolds against each other one by one, and compare the results - working out if they were actually working as they should?

Although I'm no super-racer and had no idea that people spent so much time adjusting / fine tuning their electric motors as if they were an F1 pit crew (!), I just wanted to check and test for sure and fix / replace faulty stuff accordingly and had hoped that it would be useful for this.

Sounds like it still would be, but I don't want a 12v car battery inside the house to power the little monkey - am still trying to work out if I have to spend another £100 (approx) on something like the Fusion PS600 power supply to actually make the thing work!

[rjsdavis 0]

A 12V power supply.

Hi sosidge

Am looking at your signature, and you appear to link to MuchMore? Are you / did you work for those guys?

If so, other than a 12v car battery, can you point me specifically in the direction of some power supplies that will actually power this device? I ask, as I've been in touch with ModelSport, and they tell me that something like the Fusion PS100 power (that would appear to fine fine to me), defo won't be upto the job, but their top of the range PS600 (which is some £70 more expensive) - defo will!

This is what I can't get my head around - why would a basic power supply not power the MuchMore/Peak Racing unit, and their top of the range will?

[TamiyaDan 8]

.

[sosidge 667]

Hi sosidge

Am looking at your signature, and you appear to link to MuchMore? Are you / did you work for those guys?

If so, other than a 12v car battery, can you point me specifically in the direction of some power supplies that will actually power this device? I ask, as I've been in touch with ModelSport, and they tell me that something like the Fusion PS100 power (that would appear to fine fine to me), defo won't be upto the job, but their top of the range PS600 (which is some £70 more expensive) - defo will!

This is what I can't get my head around - why would a basic power supply not power the MuchMore/Peak Racing unit, and their top of the range will?

It will be because of the power requirements. Since the Motor Master can test a motor that pulls up to 25A at 8.0V, you need a power supply capable of providing that. It doesn't mean you need a 25A supply because of the lower voltage output by the Motor Master, but something of 15-20A should be enough.

It will run on a weaker power supply but it might struggle to run some faster motors at their maximum.

I know Much-More UK well and have been a sponsored driver with them.

[rjsdavis 0]

Look at the countinous amps rating on the power supplies you want at least a 30 amp rating.

Waste of money if you want to restore a motor first spend the money on a motor lathe.

Do not go for a diamond cutter option, the regular hardened cutting tool creates a better surface for brush seating.

The reason your techigold has lost power is comm wear and magnet degration.

Cut the comm, then inspect the brushes, chances are the brushes are still good.

Cutting the comm gives you a nice flat surface no more brush arcing, and increases timing. The brushes will not bounce on the uneven comm surface and power will go up. Inspect the motor can while inside check bearings, and you could space the armature in the magnetic field a little better then tamiya did, or not doesn't matter too much. Then for a big cost savings you can wire up 2 or 3 "c" batteries and run the motor on low voltage for 15-30 minutes with a fan blowing on it to seat the new brushes. Basically you just want to see the brush face fully seated into the new smaller armature. Then you could either retard the motor timing to make it stock again or advance it 2-4 degrees for even more power at the higher rate of comm wear.

Anyway just cutting the comm will give you a massive power increase especially if the comm face is shaped like a u.

Average comm cutter lathe is less then 60 bucks because everyone uses brushless now which does not require cutting the comm face.

This looks like another awesome answer - but I don't understand parts of it! (what is comm wear?)

Is there a "how-to" guide, either in photo's or video, that goes through pulling apart and servicing / improving a motor in the way that you've outlined below? Would be amazingly useful for lots of less knowledgable wannabies like myself!

[TamiyaDan 8]

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[rjsdavis 0]

there are tons of it online some with photos.

comm wear is a problem with brushed motors.

Brushes make electrical contact with the surface of the motor armature through the commutator.

A commutator is a rotary electrical switch. this sends electricity to the coils of the armature that turn on and magnetize 1/3 of the motor at a time, this pulls the armature around to the next pad on the commutator with turns on the next magnetic coil and pulls the armature around to the next pad and so on producing motion.

The brushes are forced to sit against the commutator with springs. this is because as the comm moves it would move the brushes off the surface and break contact.

so the brushes are riding on the commutator surface all the time like a bushing over a shaft. due to heat/motion/electrical arcing the brushes and the surface of the comm become: warped/burnt/pitted/scratched, etc. All this reduces the efficiency of a motor, reduces power and rpms.

this is commutator wear.

to repair the damage the surface of the commutator must be refinished, the only way to do that short of replacing the armature is to resurface the commutator electrical switch contacts.

the brushes if very damaged can just be replaced, but the commutator requires repair.

now the problem with repairing a commutator:

the comm must be perfectly round or as close to it as possible. this is because of brush bounce on the surface. simply taking a commutator cleaning stick and getting the carbon off the surface helps but there is unseen damage on the surface of the commutator. with an uneven comm surface the brushes are bouncing off the surface of the comm at high speed causing more arcing/pitting/ and dents in the surface of a motor.

Technically a motor is suppose to be rebuilt every 5 runs with a stock motor and every 1-2 runs with a modified motor.

The motor is considered a consumable. years ago before ROAR KA'KAed all over the hobby with idiotic rules, stock motors were rebuildable and had adjustable timing just like a modified motor.

this is because when you service the commutator surface you change the timing of a motor, this is because every time you cut the surface of the commutator the space between plates is reduced and timing of the motor advances.

that is the basic shot of it.

Bottom line if you want peak performance out of a motor it needs to be rebuilt from time to time.

a motor usually has about 5 cuts in it some have more some have less there is a minimal acceptable diameter, off the top of my head i think its .191 of an inch. most comms are around .205 to start.

there is a limit to how much timing a motor can tolerate before all the power curves drop off as well.

generally its like a bell curve with peak power 2 cuts in and then performance drops off until the engine is thrown out.

a Silver can 540 is non-serviceable they usually have VERY hard brushes, and a larger diameter commutator surface, they run at lower rpm and have little timing, so while they degrade over time as well its less noticeable and you can run them for years without issue. they are designed to last not perform.

A competition motor is just the opposite Lots of Power/timing/ and wear. they are designed to be eaten up like candy and go real fast.

---------------------------------

Ok so you want the comm to be flat and perfectly round.

well you need a lathe to accomplish this.

most motor lathes are designed to be used Track side on the work bench and use a high turn slave motor usually 55T or higher to produce the power off your regular 7.2volt Car battery. No power supply needed just a fresh charged battery.

there is more detail but just to gloss over it

1) take the old armature to be cut, and clean it well.

2) take a black sharpie marker and coat the comm with it in the area to be cut.(this serve 2 purposes, one it acts as a wax on the surface of the comm for the first pass, and it tell you how much more you need to cut the comm to achieve a flat surface.

3) setup the armature on the lathe, use spacers to hold it steady. keep it from rocking back and forth.

4) setup the cutter bit, move it away from the comm surface.

5) hook up the battery, turn it on and test the lathe make sure everything is working right and there are no issues.

6) get your cutting fluid out. its a lubricant.

7) have a ball point pen ready for after.

8) line up the cutter very close to the surface of the comm but not touching. line up the where you want the cut to start close to the coil windings.

9) turn on the lathe.

10 using the dial, Slowly bring the cutter bit into the surface of the comm you JUST WANT IT TO KISS THE SURFACE at this point.

11) watch the black sharpie surface for first contact. move the dial in one tick and start your first cut, slowly index the movement wheel and cut down to the end of the comm, place a drop of comm fluid by the bit keep it wet, but don't flood it.

12) complete the cut to the end of the comm do not stop half way.

13) now come back up the comm back to the start point. (the cutter will create a different surface depending on direction of the cut. inspect the surface, you want all the sharpie to come off.

14) repeat this each time indexing the bit 1-2 ticks closer to the surface, each tick is about .001" the worse the surface the deeper the cut the less serviceable life the motor will have.

15) at some point all the sharpie will be gone and the surface will look good, you can go an extra step and cover the surface again with sharpie and cut an extra .001" to verify the surface is perfectly round, or remove the motor for cleaning and finishing up.

16) inspect the surface make sure it looks good, you can use a loop(magnifying glass on it) but you want the surface to look like a VERY tiny thread wrapped around the commutator surface.

A mirror Finish is not optimal for brush break in, you really want it to look Satin and EXTREMELY fine thread wrapped around the surface. It takes practice and it doesn't hurt to open up a Bran new motor and inspect the comm surface before its run to get an idea of what you want.

17) Take a fine xacto blade clean out the slots between comm plates get all the little flakes of copper out, blow everything out with motor or electrical cleaner.

18) take a ball point pen and lightly run the ball over the edges of the comm slots to debur the edges.

19) reassemble the motor balance the armature in the magnetic feild.

20) put in a set of new brushes if needed or just clean up the old ones.

21) run motor for 20-30 seconds with clean brush and look at the contact patch of the brush on the new surface, Adjust brush hoods as needed to get the wear mark Dead center of each brush.

22) break in the brushes again at low voltage. about 20-45 minutes depending on the brushes. you can use comm drops.

23) inspect brushes they must be 100% percent broken in to the new comm surface. Clean everything up and relube as needed.

Now if you read this and got to the end and went,,,,

"Wait a second i just cut the comm surface made it look perfect and now your telling me to screw it up again with a long brush break in? are you crazy?!"

yup this is where all kinds of gimmicks have come in over the years.

the 2 largest mistakes people make with a motor.

1) Brushes not fully seated and broken in

2) brushes not aligned properly.

the entire brush surface must make contact with the commutator surface, otherwise timing will be thrown off as well as torque and inconsistent RPMS

the brush must be 180 degrees apart from each other, BUT must also be Perpendicular to the comm surface. Now the brush hoods have HORRIBLE consistency and tolerance.

the brushes also vary wildly in sizes, so they move around inside the brush hoods. you have to bend the brush hoods so that under Rotation the brushes are 100% centered when they hit the comm surface.

you can lose 2 degrees of motor timing because of this misalignment.

ok ok, getting back to the unavoidable. taking a bran new comm surface and wreaking it all over again.

well first remember this new surface will be a smooth and flat compared to the original surface. it will also be smaller then original and increase timing.

so methods

traditional.

low speed brush break in. pro: less arcing, less brush bounce. full brush break in Con: takes forever, engine heat must be managed, more comm surface damage.

radical:

Water Dipping: Pro: Major arcing, water produced plasma just above comm surface, Instant Brush break in, water cooled engine Con: very easy to screw up and ruin a motor. some consider this Illegal and cheating.

new theory:

Use a reverse rotation slave motor attached to break in motor, only attach one brush at a time during low voltage break in, slave turns the break in motor, having 1 brush installed, prevents the break in motor as acting as a generator, and zero brush arc during break in. CON takes longer to setup and doubles break in time.

semi radical:

use a special tool on new brushes that sand down the surface of the brush to better match the surface of the comm diameter then perform a shorter low voltage break in of the motor to seat brushes.

Use a search engine and type in "how to cutt a commutor" or "how to use a comm cutter" and look up theory on the subject.

read Jim's book online and gain a better idea of whats involved.

There is no perfect method for this nor is there the perfect surface to be obtained.

but you can bet a flatter comm surface is going to give you a lot more power then one shaped like an hour glass from brush wear.

--------------

taking this even further, now you get into magnets and motor can designs.

packing a armature. or building a motor for a specific track.

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One mistake people make at a local track is Once they find a brushed motor they liked they stuck with it forever, even as the track changed.

you always needed to make changes when the track layout was changed.

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As a hobby look how things have improved with brushless motors there is no comm surface that makes contact with an electrical arc any more.

the armature now has the magnets and the outer can holds the magnetic coils that are electronically turned on and off by a computer control system.

the only part that wears is the bearings or bushings on the armature.

the maintenance is very low compared to the old days.

brushless makes 2-4 times more power then a brushed motor and is at least double the efficiency making the batteries go for over 45 minutes.

In the old days, a race was 2-3 minutes, as technology improved. we went to 4 then 5 minute races. now in some areas they have 10 minute heats or more.

imagine trying to get a brushed motor to run for 10 minutes at max power at the speeds we have today think of the wear on the comm surface after 3 heats and a main.

that is 40 minutes of run time, it would be impossible.

back in the day you geared the cars to not melt down the gear box and get 4 minutes out of the battery, and you were on the ragged edge. i remember motors hitting over 225 degrees after a 4 minute run smoking coming off the track. after 5 minutes the gear box would of melted besides the motor cooking itself.

today you aim to gear a brushless motor to 150 degrees that is considered the sweet spot.

Holy ****! That's some answer.... Most of which I just don't follow too well. I'm more of picture and arrow guy than a text guy - if there's a guide to servicing a Technigold motor out there on the web, I'd love to take a look....

I've got a car battery now and the Motor Tuning System does appear to work. However, the one thing that I've not been able to get working yet is a reading on the RPM counter. At the moment, I'm selecting the first option (MOTOR RUN) - and choosing a voltage (7.2v to bring it close to max) and seeing what happens. The motor's are spinning up nicely, BUT when I stick the motor arm into the RPM hole on the side of the Motor Tuning unit - the RPM display just remains at 0, with no flicker of a result.

Am I doing something wrong?

[sosidge 667]

Holy ****! That's some answer.... Most of which I just don't follow too well. I'm more of picture and arrow guy than a text guy - if there's a guide to servicing a Technigold motor out there on the web, I'd love to take a look....

I've got a car battery now and the Motor Tuning System does appear to work. However, the one thing that I've not been able to get working yet is a reading on the RPM counter. At the moment, I'm selecting the first option (MOTOR RUN) - and choosing a voltage (7.2v to bring it close to max) and seeing what happens. The motor's are spinning up nicely, BUT when I stick the motor arm into the RPM hole on the side of the Motor Tuning unit - the RPM display just remains at 0, with no flicker of a result.

Am I doing something wrong?

Have you put the plastic bushing on the motor? Does it have both its shiny stickers attached? Is the motor all the way in to the rubber grommet?

PS you should put the motor into the unit first before powering it up. If you stick it in once running there is a good chance you will damage the sensor inside.