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Is there no love for brushed motors anymore?

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6 hours ago, mud4fun said:

I love my Novak Roosters. The only reason I replaced them in my daily driver buggies was they were very large and heavy. I needed more space for a transponder and needed to shed weight AND I am migrating to LiPo. I still use them in my Crawler because the extra weight over the front axle is good and the Rooster can handle a sudden surge in amps as the truck stalls trying to crawl up a step etc. 

Here is a pic of one of my Roosters in one of my Thundershots mated to an 8.4v Sanyo NiCd (not a cr*ppy NiMh!) and a Reedy 19T quad mag spec motor. This combination slaughtered the two cheaper brushless systems I tried although admittedly I had made a bit of a stupid mistake when buying my brushless. I'm sure I can't be the only one that did this but 8-10 yrs ago brushless was not quite as common as today and people were not quite as knowledgeable. I bought 17.5T brushless systems thinking that they would be roughly equivalent to my 19T Reedy, 8.4v and Novak Rooster. How wrong I was!!!! Then after the two cheap brushless systems failed I bought the Novak system thinking that the higher prices Novak would be a quality product. I bought a 13.5T (I think, can't be sure) again thinking that would be roughly equivalent to the 13T Dyna Run Super Touring motor (33K rpm),  8.4v and Novak Rooster in my Avante2001 and Egress. Performance was abysmal compared to the brushed motor it replaced! 

thundershot1 (1).jpg

 Very nice classic setup you got there. I switch from Sanyo matched nicd to NiMh due to less memory retention of the cell and high capacity but was disappointed it didn’t have that punch as the Nicd did. My Novak SR was for my Bruiser I even ran temporarily with 14.4v (ran two 7.2v packs in series) it was too powerful constant wheel spin in 2nd gear couldn’t even drive it the 750sh got really hot but the Novak was able to handle it like a champ. Then until I sold the truck over 20 years ago and installed in my TT01 since the Novak SR has no motor limit.. I have my first brushless setup on order so will see how that goes.

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5 hours ago, JYCM3 said:

 Very nice classic setup you got there. I switch from Sanyo matched nicd to NiMh due to less memory retention of the cell and high capacity but was disappointed it didn’t have that punch as the Nicd did. My Novak SR was for my Bruiser I even ran temporarily with 14.4v (ran two 7.2v packs in series) it was too powerful constant wheel spin in 2nd gear couldn’t even drive it the 750sh got really hot but the Novak was able to handle it like a champ. Then until I sold the truck over 20 years ago and installed in my TT01 since the Novak SR has no motor limit.. I have my first brushless setup on order so will see how that goes.

Yes, while I love my 8.4v Sanyo NiCd's sadly they are all only 2000mah capacity. This gives about 8-10 mins runtime with the Reedy 19T but barely 5 mins with the 13T Dyna Run Super Touring.

So I too switched to 3300-3600mah NiMh to get longer run times. The drop in performance though was considerable, alot less 'grunt' and generally they did not feel much more powerful than 7.2v NiCd's!

So I then moved to 2S LiPos. These are alot lighter so give you an improvement in performance just from the weight saving and they are a bit more punchy for the first minute or so than the NiMh's but still can't match the 8.4v NiCd for outright punch, grunt and fun.

However I have now got an HV 2S LiPo and I'm pleased to say that it is finally giving me performance on my 13T Dyna Runs to match the 8.4v NiCds!!! hurrah. 

So I'm finally back to where I started in terms of performance I'm happy with, that awesome punch but I also now have 20-30 min run times so I'm pretty happy with my brushed setups.

I think my problem, and partly the reason why I come across as awkward or argumentative at times, is that unlike many people, I have been running top spec higher voltage NiCd's since the late 80's so when switching to LiPo I did not have the same experience as many people that were moving from low voltage NiMh. I experienced a DROP in performance whereas they got a GAIN. The same is true for my motors. I have been running some of the best (albeit expensive) brushed motors that were available in their day in combination with the best batteries and some of the best ESC's. So when I first tried brushless I did not see any real gains in performance compared to my 8.4v 33K rpm brushed motors whereas others moving up from cheaper 18-27k rpm motors on 7.2 NiMh's thought it was marvellous. You have to remember that my Thundershots were doing 40+mph way back in the 90's before brushless was around so I'm going to be less impressed by those sort of speeds from brushless whereas somebody coming from an 18mph Thundershot is going to think it is amazing. These things are all relative to your previous experience?

Edit: in fact, other than testing my kids cars, I haven't driven a silver can since 1986!! My thundershots have been running 8.4v with Technigolds in the 80's, Reedys in the 90's and with Super Stock or Super Touring since the early 2000's. You could say I have been spoilt LOL

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9 hours ago, Toolmaker72 said:

It’s about the cross sectional area of the copper windings.  So unless the diameter of the copper winding wire is known you can’t compare motors even if they both have the same winding count.  Also it’s about minimising the gap between the permanent magnets and the rotor within.  Softer carbon brushed motors maintain better contact on the commutator but wear quicker and the springs pushing the brush also make a difference.  All very small differences but make motors very different.  
 

201FD80F-0CED-484C-8389-BBA71AD677B8.png

You should see when I post stuff like this on Facebook lol  "No MoRe TuRnS iS mOrE tOrQe AlWaYs!!"

Same as when I say an 8000mah 25c battery has the same current ability as a 2000mah 100c "LoL yOu ArE wRoNg eVeRyOnE kNoWs MoRe C mEaNs MoRe CuRrEnT"

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On 1/11/2021 at 5:41 PM, markbt73 said:

Personally, I can't stand brushless motors, but I also hate having to maintain open-endbell brushed motors. So these days I just stick to silver cans in most cars. With a 2s lipo battery, it's plenty of scoot for me.

+1!

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34 minutes ago, nowinaminute said:

You should see when I post stuff like this on Facebook lol  "No MoRe TuRnS iS mOrE tOrQe AlWaYs!!"

Same as when I say an 8000mah 25c battery has the same current ability as a 2000mah 100c "LoL yOu ArE wRoNg eVeRyOnE kNoWs MoRe C mEaNs MoRe CuRrEnT

:)

It surely also depends on what you need the torque for? If you are on a track with limited space for stupidly high top speeds then you can achieve more torque at wheels by changing gearing, dropping pinion sizes etc to give more torque and better acceleration while sacrificing top speed. You don't need to increase motor torque or even change motor.

A real world example is my classic Land Rover (on 33" tyres). On our local rolling road it produced a rather pathetic 30hp from its 1957 era normally aspirated diesel engine (at 2000rpm) compared to 180hp (at 4000rpm) on my modern Nissan Navara twin turbo. However in low range the torque was greater on the Land Rover than on the Nissan (and was at much lower rpm) because the Land Rover sacrifices speed for torque through very low gearing. For off roading or pulling stuck vehicles out of ditches or for ploughing through 3 feet deep snow drifts the Land Rover wins every time :)

It frustrates the badword out of me when people look at stats on paper and say that such and such is better because it has a zillion more hp or higher rpm or more torque when in practise in the real world the engines or vehicles prove to be gutless or useless.....

 

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5 hours ago, mud4fun said:

So when I first tried brushless I did not see any real gains in performance compared to my 8.4v

I think this is the crux of our , discussions.

I've never known any sanctioned events to run 7 cell Nicad/Nimh , although club meetings may turn a blind eye (Or have a 7 cell race meet, that's what's fun about club meets, as long as you all agree, race whatever!! 🤷‍♂️

 A 7 cell is around 10v fully charged, (the info I could find, was 1.5v per cell, so would be 10.5v for a 7 cell?).

The BRCA legal, fully charged voltage is 8.4v, and I believe someone was disqualified a while back ,when their fully charged battery tested 8.42v before the race.

I've never ran a 7 cell, as back then, they where super expensive, and I couldn't race with them. Now 3s lipos are almost equivalent to an hour's wage, so I've a few for bashing.

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24 minutes ago, Wooders28 said:

I think this is the crux of our , discussions.

I've never known any sanctioned events to run 7 cell Nicad/Nimh , although club meetings may turn a blind eye (Or have a 7 cell race meet, that's what's fun about club meets, as long as you all agree, race whatever!! 🤷‍♂️

 A 7 cell is around 10v fully charged, (the info I could find, was 1.5v per cell, so would be 10.5v for a 7 cell?).

The BRCA legal, fully charged voltage is 8.4v, and I believe someone was disqualified a while back ,when their fully charged battery tested 8.42v before the race.

I've never ran a 7 cell, as back then, they where super expensive, and I couldn't race with them. Now 3s lipos are almost equivalent to an hour's wage, so I've a few for bashing.

1.5V is for alkaline batteries, typically NiCds or NiMHs are rated at 1.2V per cell, so that would be 8.4V nominal voltage for a 7-cell pack. But fully charged, you'd have another half a volt available, which would cause every 7-cell battery to exceed the maximum spec.

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2 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

I think this is the crux of our , discussions.

I've never known any sanctioned events to run 7 cell Nicad/Nimh , although club meetings may turn a blind eye (Or have a 7 cell race meet, that's what's fun about club meets, as long as you all agree, race whatever!! 🤷‍♂️

 A 7 cell is around 10v fully charged, (the info I could find, was 1.5v per cell, so would be 10.5v for a 7 cell?).

The BRCA legal, fully charged voltage is 8.4v, and I believe someone was disqualified a while back ,when their fully charged battery tested 8.42v before the race.

I've never ran a 7 cell, as back then, they where super expensive, and I couldn't race with them. Now 3s lipos are almost equivalent to an hour's wage, so I've a few for bashing.

True but I was not racing at official events. We raced amongst friends and family or just bashed about in gardens, parks and beaches, as I'd guess 99% of Tamiya buggy users do too.

Official racing rules and regs are therefore irrelevant for most of us hence the discrepancy between what racers may view as good or bad and what non racers think or have experienced.

Having said that, I did race at a local club in the late 80's/early 90's and we did run 8.4v. I think it got quite popular at one point after Tamiya released the BigWig and everybody wanted Technigolds and the 8.4v packs :) Those were good old days when we even used to race Blackfoots or Hornets. It was more for fun than for championships.

Edit: you do raise an interesting point though, specifically in relation to vintage racing. Many vintage racing competitions I've looked at stipulate that the motor (and potentially battery and speed control) must be period for the buggy? So surely over time these rules will have to be relaxed as brushed motors will become scarce and increasingly expensive to maintain. 

 

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hey @Wooders28 if you think you're pulling your hair out with me as it is, it gets worse...... :lol:

Even going to 3S LiPo doesn't impress me as much as some people going from 2S because one of my Thundershots has been running a 9.6v NiCd for 20 years, mainly for drag racing amongst friends. The difference in grunt between a fully charged 9.6v NiCd and 3S LiPo is not that great. I'd need a HV 3S to gain me enough jump in performance to be impressed :)

These old Sanyo NiCd's are pretty impressive beasts, this one is 20yrs old but still has nearly 100% of its original 2000mah capacity and combined with the Dyna Run it is 'fun' to say the least. It will snap a rear dogbone or sheer off a steel drive cup with ease if you aren't careful. It is fun every now and then but soon becomes a bit tedious having to fix the buggy after each run...... I'll stick with my 2S LiPos, especially the HV 2S as performance is good while not being excessive to the point it eats buggies.

sanyo96v.thumb.jpg.3ecb693ce0be5195140feb6e44bae23e.jpg

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18 hours ago, El Gecko said:

1.5V is for alkaline batteries, typically NiCds or NiMHs are rated at 1.2V per cell, so that would be 8.4V nominal voltage for a 7-cell pack. But fully charged, you'd have another half a volt available, which would cause every 7-cell battery to exceed the maximum spec.

Nominal, is differnet to fully charged. A nominal voltage for a Lipo is 3.7v per cell (7.4v). I originally thought it was 9.6v for a 7 cell , but this page suggests otherwise -

 

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?334069-How-much-voltage-to-put-on-7-cell-niMH-pack

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26 minutes ago, mud4fun said:

Even going to 3S LiPo doesn't impress me as much as some people going from 2S because one of my Thundershots has been running a 9.6v

Probably not, as 7 cell is pretty similar to 2s, 8 cell won't be far away off 3s either.

 

28 minutes ago, mud4fun said:

hey @Wooders28 if you think you're pulling your hair out with me as it is, it gets worse...

I'm going bald!?! 🙄😂😂

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Yeah, I haven't GPS tested the 8 cell for a long time. Last time we did it the Thundershot hit 45mph but that was with a 15T pinion from memory. I'd guess it would get a shade over 50mph on a 17T pinion so yeah, not far off 3S performance. I must remember to GPS it with a 17t pinion when we next go down rec ground.

The fastest brushed Thundershot I've seen was 56mph'ish on 3S but that was with some special motor, not off the shelf. I think all the faster ones were brushless.

The problem is that it is too heavy and also needs a robust ESC to handle it. I only have one and that is an old ripmax race ESC with no reverse so is a PITA for bashing. I think 3S is far better as they are much, much lighter. All too fast for me though these days, you need an area the size of a runway to make use of it, unusable in our garden or even on our local rec ground car park for anything other than drag racing and the breakages mount up when running with those sorts of speeds and power in a vintage buggy!

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On 1/13/2021 at 10:29 AM, nowinaminute said:

You should see when I post stuff like this on Facebook lol  "No MoRe TuRnS iS mOrE tOrQe AlWaYs!!"

Same as when I say an 8000mah 25c battery has the same current ability as a 2000mah 100c "LoL yOu ArE wRoNg eVeRyOnE kNoWs MoRe C mEaNs MoRe CuRrEnT"

It’s important to understand that there are different discharge rates on batteries and that effects motor performance as well.  No point either having a battery if it can discharge at 60amps if the speed control is rated at 30amps. The speed control will become the fuse.  Obviously we like to have a bit of headroom with the bigger motors but generally we wouldn’t want a speed control rated lower than what the battery can discharge at as motors generally pull as many amps when possible under load before stalling, which brings up the  correct gear ratios so we don’t actually ever overload a motor to begin with.   For those that don’t know, a rough rule of thumb is volts give higher rpm and amps give higher torque.  The design of the motor determines its ability to give those and also its efficiency in using the power available to create the rpm and torque.  Brushless motors are more efficient though.  So if a brushed motor and brushless motor with exactly the same torque and rpm ratings used with the same gearbox ratio and pinion size with the same battery with equal voltage and discharge rate.  The brushless motor would still be turning when the brushed motor had exhausted the battery.   
 

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All brushed here. No brushless.

Ended up selling all my brushless motors. Don't want silly fast speeds just want to use my cars hassle free. Brushed with NiMH batteries.

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Most of my cars are brushed, since it's cheap and enough power for most of my vehicles, but the ones that are brushless are almost out of necessity. I built my bomber with a Hobbywing Axe 3300kv system since I wanted a lot of speed and while I could have gone with a 2-speed and a 550 brushed motor, that would have added cost close to the brushless system and additional complexity that I don't want to deal with. Bombers are also notorious for killing brushed motors if not properly cared for, so I felt that a brushless system was my only option. It feels pretty close to a brushed system at slow speeds, but a brushed system will always be smoother than even the best sensored brushless system. 

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Really interesting thread. I have 1 brushless set that I haven’t tried yet but all the rest are brushed. 
 

Have a couple of modern super stock motors but really like the look of the vintage ones. Have a load on their way to me and plan to speed test them all with different batteries etc. 

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Those brushed motors looked good in the Egress and Super Astute.

If you want a brushless motor that looks good in a vintage race buggy, try a Trinity Revtech.

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I’m still using brushed motors.  I my TB-01 I use the GT tuned one and I’m my TRF-201 I use a Superstock BZ one.  Still not jumped to brushless yet, possibly in time when I take the plunge to li-po I will change to brushless but happy with what I have for now.

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I use brushless in my race cars, but my XV-01 has a brushed Super Stock RZ going in it, and my CC02 just has a standard Torque Tuned. My M07 will get whatever motor the rules dictate depending on the event - at its last (informal) race the rules were 21.5 brushless, but there's a few events I hope to attend later this year where a sports tuned is all that's allowed. 

I can see the appeal / advantages of brushless - but it doesn't need to be used everywhere and for everything.

For racing purposes I think brushless is great as it ruduces costs a bit (no more getting motors skimmed and fiddling with different brushes, springs etc). However if I went to an event and it was particularly wet, I'd probably break out the old brushed gear! 

 

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still new to this, i still havent gotten into brushless and not ready for the crazy speeds it gives. happy with NIMH and brushed.

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Still use brushed motors and NiMH for all my cars.

Motors are:

     - 540, Carson Cup, RZ, Lightly Tuned (28T) for 1/10 cars;

      - LRP (55T) for CC01;

      - for TTG cars: Graupner Speed and TTG Sport Tuned (black).

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I've got a brushless in my two 1/14 Monster trucks (a Tamiya QD and Tandy Off Roader) as they only take 280 motors, and the thermal ceiling is hit very quickly with modern electronics pushing voltage into a brushed 280. Brushless can mean a huge jump in speed and power when you've only got a 280 motor size. The 2030 EZruns are great, huge battery life and massive power for the size.

For trucks with larger engines (390 and 540) I've stuck with brushed - for me once you get to a certain speed, more doesn't really add to the fun, and I can always just get a lower turn motor for very little £££. I'd also be worried about mashing up my gearboxes. That being said you can always get a smaller, less powerful brushed motor, and enjoy the same speed a a larger brushed motor for less energy use and longer run times. I think very often we equate brushless with 3S and silly speeds, but it doesn't have to be that way either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This is a great topic. I use brushed in all my kits except the high power RTR's that come brushless. I just like the feel of brushed, the speed and I use 6 cell 1800mah in most Tamiya cars and trucks and use 2s lipo shorty packs in some crawlers. The High Power RTR's are insane you gotta be careful as they can get broken.

Cory

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On 1/13/2021 at 5:00 AM, mud4fun said:

It frustrates the badword out of me when people look at stats on paper and say that such and such is better because it has a zillion more hp or higher rpm or more torque when in practise in the real world the engines or vehicles prove to be gutless or 

You’ll hear the same about really cut fit looking guys with “gym strength” Versus someone with a “dad bod” who has cardio and endurance and still has the strength to  toss literal tons of wet snow off the drive  or push a barrow of dirt around the yard for a couple hours. 

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15 hours ago, RC4x4 said:

 

This is a great topic. I use brushed in all my kits except the high power RTR's that come brushless. I just like the feel of brushed, the speed and I use 6 cell 1800mah in most Tamiya cars and trucks and use 2s lipo shorty packs in some crawlers. The High Power RTR's are insane you gotta be careful as they can get broken.

Cory

 

I have a Vintage Stampede “resto modded” to modern metal gears and bearings I run on 2S Brushless.  And an Axial SMT10 with 3000kv brushless system I run on 2s or 3s 

Almost forgot, by mini Revo 1:16 is brushless and bonkers 

Everything else I have is either brushed or Nitro.

Anyone else want to really muddy this convo and being nitro into it ? Lol 

 

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