Demon Power Products RC Blog

Now, we are trying to scare people about brushless motors but please try not to get them too hot. We have seen a number of brushless motors burnt out from way too much heat due to over gearing or adjusting the timing ring without knowing the implications.

Remember you cannot abuse these motors like you can with brushed motors. Brushed motors, when they over heat will generally cause the brushes to burnout, com to blacken or even magnets to go off. All of these can be fixed by new brushes, a skim and the can also be re-magnetized. Brushed motors very rarely will have the windings melt as the brushes will generally go off before this has happened.

When most makes of Brushless motors and too hot, it will cause the windings in the can to melt along with other components inside. The can on a brushless motor is the expensive part! Sorry their is noooo repair service for this abuse.

Bottom line:
1)    Do NOT over gear them.
2)    Monitor the temperature as per the manufacturer’s recommendations.
3)    Keep them cool with a couple of fans and a heat sink especially in the summer. If you are using LiPos then you have no excuse for the additional weight of fans. 2 fans will not slow the brushless motor down as they take minimal wattage.

Just because your mates motor has not burnt out on the same gearing does not mean yours will not. We all have different driving styles. Some are smooth and some just hammer the throttle and brakes.

Another note is that when using brakes on brushless motors, the power is taken far more from your cells. Brushed motors have stronger magnetic field and will slow down quicker. Brushless motors need to have their pulse reversed to get them to slow down quickly. This equals more heat and more power taken from your cells.

We all want our cars to go faster that the next person. Just be careful.
I will try to get a picture up of some burnt out windings to show you the damage.

Testing down Aldershot track today, trying to go faster.

I used to be quite good , but am off the pace now, probably due to lack of testing, but more likely just getting worse with age.

So , took the 3rd hand Cyclone , Moorespeed down to see if I could tweek my lap times. Hoped to find 0.5sec a lap with clever adjustments.

Car felt good at start but already o.5 sec slower than Nigel who has the new TC. Also was slowest of the 4 of us testing. Looked at their setups which are a lot different from mine. I was trying the new XRay black springs, 2.6 rear and 2.8 front, which I’m told are the new in thing. Nigel however still uses the HPI silver springs front and rear. I also use the 1.4mm roll bars front and 1.5mm rear, while all others use a soft copper 1.2 mm rear.

I try the 1.2 mm rear bar and find the car perhaps has more rear grip, but i push harder making the back hang out sideways exiting corners. I go back to the heavy rear bar.

I try Jons cyclone which looks good, only to find it has no steering, I understeer straight off the track on the sweeper. He says to take a high line into the curve, sweeping in, but I usually enter low and hug the wall, which will not work. I understeer at every corner and give it back.

It seems I drive with extreme steering and cannot drive with any understeer. I guess that is why the back of my car often jumps from side to side. However I persevere. I reduce rear toe block from 3 to 2.5. On the Cyclone you never know what you will get with the rear toe, as they seem to have random angles from 4 degree to zero depending on your luck. Mine seems reasonable for a clockwisde oval so I carry on. Car appears the same so I leave it on.

After a few other adjustments, nothing makes much difference. So finally put on some almost new tyres (Sorex 32). Car immediately responsive, hanging on and plenty of steering.  Times are best I have achieved all day.

So, all I learnt after all, was that new tyres are better than anything else if you want to go faster. But we knew that already. I think my memory is going as well as my driving.

Nick

We did send this out in a news letter but for those that do not subscribe, here are some facts. We where doing some testing on brushless rotors with tools that show digital readouts of the magnetic fields for the Novaks and Orions. We discovered that the Novak rotors seemed to have a much more consistent magnetic field, but was 15 – 20% lower on average compared to a Orion rotor. However the Orion rotors did have a higher field on the best we tested but where more random. Of course the magnetic field is by far not the only factor to take into account. The diameter of the rotar, timing, bonded/sintered, windings and thickness of the windings, etc.

Anyone as we have been making brushed motors for many years now, we are looking at key factors of what makes a good Brushless motor and will be developing our own in the near future. So watch this space as they say.

If you are after a cheap LiPo charger as a spare or are just starting off then click here. We originally got it in for testing to see how it would perform. It does work fine but most of you seem to want LCD LCD and just LCD displays. Nothing so fancy on this one but it does the basics.

Just a quick note on the Trinity DPD dischargers. We are selling them off very cheap to clear them. Nothing wrong with them but we just bought toooooo many (oops Nick!). They did retail for around £110 or so a little while ago. Maybe the price will tempt you.

We have decided to start getting back into Off Road 1/10th electirc again.  Such as the Schumacher Cat, Associated B44, etc. We used to cater for these a long time ago. So rest assured we still know what we are talking about. We are just waiting for our stock to arrive. Tempted to get a B44 myself exept using it over the winter many years ago with pressurized water cans to clean them did put me off. We shall seeeeee.

Well I tried revamping our store banner at the top of our site but I am not too impressed with it. If anyone can do a good one for us then it will stand for a long and we would really appreciate it. Or even if you have any suggestions. Let us know.

Thought I would get myself a Race spec 10.5 Orion so will be trying it on the 6th July down at Aldershot club. Should be pretty good from what we have seen and heard.

Thought it was about time we started a blog. General news, what we are doing, what we have discovered, readers rides and make the rest up as we go along…