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Hello,

I have recently started acquiring parts again to rebuild a car which I bought in a drunken eBay binge about ten years ago. This should present no serious problems as I used to race 1/10 RC buggies when I was a teenager and the old-school technology is familiar to me. I was looking through all my old gear to see what was reusable, though, and realised there was some stuff I didn't know about the box of old brushed motors I had. If anyone can help with any of my queries here, I would be very grateful.

1. I have a purpose-made padded box containing eight old brushed motors of various kinds, including at least one 27T stocker and a number of old modifieds. I suspect the stock motor is probably worn out, but would it be possible to potentially recommission the modifieds? The commutators on some of the armatures might need skimming, but would the static can magnets still be viable, or do they demagnetise over time? Some of these motors have not been used for approaching thirty years, so if time is a factor in them still being useable then I fear it may have run out.

2. I remember BiTD that in the UK there used to be a maximum price limit for modified motors, which was the most which could be charged for them to be legal for BRCA competition (£40, rising later to £45 and then £50, if I remember correctly). These motors used to be described as hand-wound and were markedly superior wind-for-wind to the machine-wound modifieds which you could get for considerably less money. Looking on eBay now, it seems these expensive hand-wound motors have all but disappeared from the market, presumably due to cheap Chinese imports and the advent of brushless motors. I have a number of hand-wound armatures without cans to put them in, so would it be worth getting some cheap new brushed motors and putting the old armatures in them, or will the cans be of too low quality to make it worthwhile? Also, if it is worth trying, would I have to use a can from a motor of similar wind to the arm I a putting in, or are can magnets all pretty much the same?

3. Back when I was driving in the late 80s and early 90s, i managed to fry a number of Futaba ESCs by trying to run motors through them which were clearly too much. I have bought a new modern ESC to fit in my rebuild, but given that it cost about £15 and was bult in China, I have no idea if it has an upper limit for brushed motor winds which it is safe to use with it. It's a Hobbywing QuicRun Brushed Electronic Speed Controller ESC 60A 1060. Does anyone have a suggestion for an upper wind limit, or has technology come on so much in the intervening time that this will safely handle whatever I throw at it?

4. I still have a Tekin 410K ESC from my old car which would probably still work and have plenty of headroom for hot brushed winds. Would this work with the new 2.4GHz radio gear, though? It has the correct Futaba-pattern plug to fit the receiver, but I have no idea if the receiver-to-ESC signal path has changed along with the transmitter-to-receiver one.

5. Does anyone still even make brushed motor spares for these old modified beasts anymore? Stuff like brushes and brush springs?

Thank you in advance if anyone has any answers to any of the above. I realise that the obvious answer to all of this would be "just buy a brushless set-up", but I still find the idea of them somewhat baffling and I am attempting to ease myself back into RC gently, before I start trying to comprehend impossible machines which run on unicorn tears.

Cheers!

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Welcome back! 🖒

8 hours ago, Yalson said:

Looking on eBay now, it seems these expensive hand-wound motors have all but disappeared from the market, presumably due to cheap Chinese imports and the advent of brushless motors. 

Brushless motors coupled with lipos changed everything, brushless motors are more efficient, more powerful, run higher rpm and are zero maintenance  (Well, maybe a dab of oil on the bearings every so often), so was a no brainer if your racing. Lipo power meant run times almost trebbled from nicad's, so worrying about dumping before the end of a race disappeared.

8 hours ago, Yalson said:

It's a Hobbywing QuicRun Brushed Electronic Speed Controller ESC 60A 1060. Does anyone have a suggestion for an upper wind limit

That esc is the pretty much goto esc the world over, cheap, 12t limit on 2s Lipo/7.2 nimh  (18t on 3s, although I ran a 15t in the novafox speed run @41mph) can run upto 3s lipo and also has Lipo low volt cut off built in, really can't be beat for the money.

8 hours ago, Yalson said:

Would this work with the new 2.4GHz radio gear, though? 

Nothing has changed at the car end really, futaba plugs seem to be the norm and still run 6v, so all the old elecs work (Well I've had no bother).

Sorry I've not answered the technical questions re- windings etc, but that's not as main stream now, and guessing things like, hand wound would have been superseded by CNC wound etc.

My advice would be to learn Lipo tech first, running 2s through the capable 1060 (Lipo cut off built in etc), and a brushed motor gives good performance and long run times (but if you understand brushed motors, you will get your head around brushless motors easily anyway 🙄

https://rogershobbycenter.com/lipoguide/

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Lets see if I can help answer some of these questions.. IMHO...........

Question 1 - Just like with the vintage cars, there is also a market for older RC motors, especially if the labels are still in good condition, so one option may be to sell the older motors, and buy something modern.. (eg a Brushless motor and ESC combo..)
The magnets in the old motors may have lost some of their magnetism over the years, but they still should work.. As with everything, Magnet technology did improve over the years, so the magnets in 30+ year old motors would probably not be anywhere as good as the more modern motors, even when new...

Question 2 & 5 - Once Brushless motors came out and became the mainstream for RC car use, the market for Brushed motors basically dried up.. Some of the major manufacturers (Tamiya, Trinity, Orion, Tekin, LRP, Reedy) are/were still selling a range of machine wound brushed motors, but I'm not sure how readily available spare parts like brushes are for them.. Check with your LHS as they may still have some old stock, or keep an eye out on eBay or some of the Facebook RC groups as lots often come up for sale, or put a wanted ad up here on TamiyaClub..
As for putting the new armatures in the old cans, then the simple answer is yes they will work... BUT, there used to be a dark science behind designing and building motors, so you may not get the best possible performance from them by randomly mixing and matching armatures and cans...

Question 3 - What Wooders28 said..

Question 4 - As Wooders said, yes the Tekin 410K it should still work with a newer 2.4GHz radio... Just be aware that some of the Older KO Propo and Sanwa (Airtronics) receivers had the polarity reversed in the servo plugs when compared to the others like Futaba, JR, Hitec etc., so if you used a KO or Sanwa radio BITD, keep that in mind when connecting your old Tekin 410K ESC and servos to the new 2.4GHz radio...

Also be aware that the Tekin 410K ESC is quite rare and desirable, so it something to consider if it is working OK...
 

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9 hours ago, Backlash said:

Question 4 - As Wooders said, yes the Tekin 410K it should still work with a newer 2.4GHz radio... Just be aware that some of the Older KO Propo and Sanwa (Airtronics) receivers had the polarity reversed in the servo plugs when compared to the others like Futaba, JR, Hitec etc., so if you used a KO or Sanwa radio BITD, keep that in mind when connecting your old Tekin 410K ESC and servos to the new 2.4GHz radio...

Also be aware that the Tekin 410K ESC is quite rare and desirable, so it something to consider if it is working OK...
 

No, I used to use Futaba gear, so it should all run the right way round.

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Thank you very much for your advice. It seems my suspicions about motors were pretty much on the money. I almost talked myself into buying a motor comm lathe on eBay earlier, but swerved it at the last moment. I may go in for it if another one comes up, though. I never had one BiTD, but for some reason it appeals to me now.

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