Pinions confuse me!

[BeetleMeister]

Ok...I know I'm a dummy but can someone please explain a few things to me about pinion gears. If you have a new built car that runs on a 15 tooth pinion, what will happen to the prformance if you change to a 13 tooth? I take it the opposite would happen if you put in a 17 tooth? Do either of these changes knacker the gearbox or motor? If you were then going to put in a quicker motor would you put in a pinion with more or less teeth?[8)][?]

[DerAlex]

More teeth -> higher topspeed but slower acceleration

less teeth -> slower topspeed but accelerates faster

[RETRO R/C]

As far as motors go - if you put a "hotter" motor in - generally to get the same run time or similar - you will have to go down a tooth or two on the pinion.

The only time you will "knacker" a motor is when you "OVER gear" it - this means that running a bigger pinion than needed.

A good test to see if you have the gearing right or not is to check the temp of the motor at the end of a normal "run".........if the motor is hot - this is generally ok -= but if you cant hold it for more than a feww seconds - you are probably over geared - and are shortening the length of the motors useable life.

Things that kill a gearbox are only silly things - like going from reverse to forwad to get those awesome "burnouts" [][]

There is alot ot talk about with gearing - however the general rules have been pointed out already! [^]

Cheers

Darryn

[bholio]

Here is how I remember pinion and spur gear stuff.

PINion - The gear which attaches to the PIN sticking out of the motor.

Spur - The other one.

When thinking about gear ratios, I think about my mountain bike. Mountain and road racing bikes have 2 sets of gears. One in the front with 2 or 3 settings and one in the rear with 5-8 settings. The one in the front (driven by the pedals) matches the Pinion gear. The one in the rear is equivalent to the spur gear.

If you move the chain to a smaller gear in the front, it's easier to pedal, you accelerate quicker with lower top speed. If you move the chain to a smaller rear gear, you get higher top speed, slower acceleration and it's harder to pedal.

If you gear the bike such that it's too hard to pedal you throw up.

If you don't know bikes, the above is not helpful. I guess you could make the same analogy if you are into cars with transmission gears and rear axle ratios.

All of my tamiya cars only let you change the pinion gear. There are other cars which also let you change the spur gear, so it's helpful to remember how both work.

[BeetleMeister]

Thanks guys. I think I get it now![]