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Old 2012.01.20, 02:50 PM   #61
color01
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Los Angeles (Pasadena), CA, USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChiMiniRc View Post
When I'm at the hobby shops answering questions about Mini-z. My response on brushless and lipo is typically as follows.

1. AAA NIMH batteries give you plenty of run time and AMPS. To me Lipos has always been about run time and current which is ample in AAA Nimh's.

2. By the time you are not at ample battery power (super hot wind motors), the car is un-drivable. This leads into brushless motors. Those have been about efficiency and speed. With high capacity AAA, again, run times are still very good. With AAA you can still put in motors that are un-drivable so needing "more" from a brushless system just doesn’t add up.

3. Brushless also has the benefit of no maintenance. Running club cars for 1.5 years, I can say brushed motors this small are nearly zero maintenance. Just a drop of bushing oil now and then.

So yes, the economics and marketing say LIPO capable and brushless are what the customer wants. But I try to explain why the customer wants those (or the hurdles LIPO and Brushless allowed 1/10 electric to overcome) is non-existent in Mini-z from the beginning.
Although I think we're getting a tad off-topic now, I do agree with all of these points. Because of the small size and loads on Mini-Z cars, wear and tear is simply not a significant argument. I've kept an 80t motor for almost two years and a 33t motor for over a year now with only one brush swap each and an occasional dab of oil to keep them running. AAA's are also easier for the "casual" hobbyist to come by, so they're going to stay in Mini-Z's until the consumer standard shifts away from that cell size.

The other thing about brushless is that only the Hall-effect sensored motors tend to be reliable for racing -- and nobody I know makes sensored motors small enough for this scale. Sensorless systems have trouble on startup due to the way they indirectly sense the timing required to turn the motor. This leads to some stuttery starts for the Micro Mamba- and Excelorin-powered RC's I've seen running, and so not a very practical solution unless we want to start marketing Mini-Z's as bashers. Which, I wouldn't mind, but I don't think that's Kyosho's idea of going about it right now.
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