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Chilihook

Motors, ESCs, batteries, oh my!

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Wasn't sure where to put this, if I'm in the wrong place, mods please move. Thanks!

So I want to start building the Optima I bought last spring but still need to get a motor/esc/battery combo for it. I am really out of the loop when it comes to what's necessary for all three to work properly together, so I thought I'd throw it out here as a "what would you get if you were me" kind of thing. A couple of stipulations though:

• Cost - all three components need to be less than $100. 

• Battery - must be a NiCad. I have a charger for those, not dropping extra $$$ on another charger.

• Motor - brushed. Boring, i know but fits the other requirements. I figure a motor with decent acceleration, but a good top end, say a 15t?

• ESC - needs to have reverse, not break the bank, and be capable of handling this set up plus possibly a little more down the road.

Hopefully this is all reasonable and doable.  Looking forward to your ideas and thanks!

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That's a tight budget But you can do it.

It will be more particle to go brushless then brushed . Brush motors aren't as good as they use to be I feel since they aren't so common and a good ESC for brushed are hard to come buy.  You can buy a 13t brushless combo cheap and still have money for a battery. Being in a 4wd a brush motor will be on the edge all the time.

Brushless motor combo something like this but a 13T will be more then enough.  Just look around. Yes ESC has reverse and  is programmable as well.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Racing-60A-ESC-Brushless-Speed-Controller-9T-4400KV-Motor-F-1-10-1-12-Car-Truck/182129783878?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D40757%26meid%3Df0b9e3a8621e4298afaaec3af829eb07%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D182197346210

  

Battery is a Ni Mi but your charger should be fine. Your charger will have slightly higher delta value but should be fine unless you want to buy a cheap li po capable charger that does all types of cells and as budget allows buy a few li po's later on.

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-stick-pack-sub-c-3000mah-7-2v-nimh-high-power-series.html

 

With Brushless you can gear the motor lower so it want produce heaps of Torque  and as you want more speed start gearing up. No need to up grade. No burnt out brushes or com and more efficient.

Brushed ESC that's good is a Hobbywing  Quickrun.

 

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Errm, why does it have to be a NiCad? Those are very much outlawed in the EU due to hazerdous materials. Its replacements are NiMH packs. Better quality cells, most NiCad chargers built in the last two decades can charge NiMH packs as well, and outwardly appearance is the same, so they'll fit in the same battery compartiments.

Brushed motor: What are you looking for in terms of speed and power? I mean, a silver can or similar shouldn't cost more than €10, but a good modified, rebuildable 9x3 motor will run north of €75.

ESC: Hobbywing Quicrun WP1060. Can handle up to 12 turns (or 15, can't remember), can handle 2S and 3S LiPo's as well, should you want that down the road, and gives a good, fat 2A BEC at 6V so even the most power-hungry servos can be fed well.

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1 hour ago, GooneyBird said:

Errm, why does it have to be a NiCad? Those are very much outlawed in the EU due to hazerdous materials. Its replacements are NiMH packs. Better quality cells, most NiCad chargers built in the last two decades can charge NiMH packs as well

Hi GooneyBird - I have only ever had experience with NiCad batteries and the charger I have was built in 1985 or so. This is it here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/PRO-TECH-SUPER-CHARGER-702-AC-DC-MODEL-CRAFT-NI-CAD-BATTERIES-6-7-CELL-/152178806649 Yes, the the equipment is outdated, but it works very well and is in excellent shape. If this charges NiMH batteries I would certainly switch over to them, but will probably affect the budget. So for now, NiCad will have to do.

Thanks for the input everyone I'll check out your recommendations!

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Well, to be fair, that's old. And while it may still function well, it's been far far surpassed by modern chargers. As far as I can tell, it can only charge at roughly 1 Ah, which means that it'll struggle to fill a modern battery in less than 3 hours. Does it even do delta-peak detection or is it purely timer-based?

A 'modern' charger doesn't cost an arm and a leg, especially if all you want it to do is charge up a NiMH-pack. Personally, I even think it'll be more expensive to find a not-depleted NiCad somewhere than it is to buy an off-the-shelf NiMH + charger.

This one for instance, will charge at 1, 2, or 4 Ah, will do peak detection so you know it'll actually top off a pack, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. (this leaves you with 75 USD for a NiMH pack, ESC and motor. Shouldn't be that all that difficult. Maybe someone here has a spare silver can or something they're willing to part with?)

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You're right, it is old, but so am I. :-) My old charger has an amp gauge on it, but I'm, guessing it's primarily timer based otherwise.

That looks to be a good deal AND can do a whole lot more than what my current charger will do. I was figuring that I'd need a charger up of $75+. NiMH batteries, here I come!

In terms of a motor, I would like to do better than a silver can, but not crazy either. MadRacer mentioned one up above that I'm going to look into. Have you got any recomendations Gooney? Thanks for the help, btw!

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Hobbywing 1060 will take quick brushed motors for less than £15 

Cheap eBay brushed motor for another £15 and then spend 70 on LiPo and a new charger. 

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Sort of off/on topic here but if NiCad batteries are no longer permitted in certain countries and no longer seem to be produced, why do Tamiya still have them fitted to chassis' in their brochures? I have 2 brochures from last year with a few photos of the 2400sp double zapped NiCad fitted to 2or3 different models! even listed the battery part number at the back-55086😖

 

sven

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Because Tamiya seems to care very little about what the rest of the world does or think. I'll have to ask, but I assume that NiCds aren't outlawed in Japan (yet).

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So I went for these as a motor/ESC combo as recommended by mad racer: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Racing-60A-ESC-Brushless-Speed-Controller-13T-3100KV-Motor-for-1-10-1-12-RC-Car-/282116668270?hash=item41af76bb6e:g:BkAAAOSwRLZUH76u
Should see them in the next couple of weeks sometime from Hong Kong.

Then got these from Tower Hobby. Seems like a decent set up?

Capture.JPG

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Chilihook, what brand/model of radio transmitter and receiver are you going to be using with these items?

Also, how good are you with a soldering iron?  The reason why I ask is because the white Tamiya battery connector on the charger, battery and ESC is terrible when it comes to power losses.  I know you probably don't want to spend even more money and time, but I would highly recommend switching to Deans connectors or another popular high current connector.  A couple sets of these would work:

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXKX39&P=ML

One male plug goes on the charger.  The other male plug goes on the ESC.  The female plug goes on the battery.  The second female plug is spare for when you get the second battery :)

If you aren't comfortable soldering, especially onto battery wires that are live (you don't want to short the wires together!), then never mind, but otherwise I'd ask you to seriously consider switching plugs now while everything is brand new.

 

 

 

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Well, it depends on what motor he's using. Anything remotely 'sensible' in a buggy like that isn't going to draw enough power to overload a Tamiya connector. Down the road, maybe, if he decides to install mad power (< thank you Mighty Car Mods) in the buggy, but for a stock brushed motor you'll be fine.

I've had an M05 and a TT01, both regularly raced, with Tamiya plugs. They had a stock 27 turn motor, and a 2S lipo. Never melted a plug. I got rid of the white plugs eventually as repeated pulling them apart had worn out the internal connectors, causing sparks while running. But I never came near to the limit of the plugs.

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The power loss won't be too bad on the Tamiya connectors when they are new, but over time they will wear and the contacts will spread open as GooneyBird mentions above.  Unless you race competitively, you'll probably never notice the running time difference between the different connectors - it's just not that extreme - until the connectors start to get really bad. 

I only mentioned it because of my experience with using the Tamiya plugs for many years compared with the Deans plugs and that fact that you are going brushless which for the most part draws more power than typical brushed setups.  If you ever feel warmth in the connectors after a run when you disconnect the battery from the ESC or after a fast charge completes, it's lost power from the resistance of the connector.  Some people have melted plugs, although it's usually during extreme current draw when it happens.  Personally, I've experienced intermittent connections between battery and ESC from plugging and unplugging so many times so switching to Deans was the right move for me.  When battery packs die I move the plug to the new battery pack.

 

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