Cheapo motor testing

[Jimbo302]

The Redcat 550.


I don't know a single thing about this motor other than it can be bought for $15.
For starters, its a smaller 550, the can is slim and straight walled, no sleeve like some of them. It has a nice cooling fan at the rear similar to the hpi gt550.


So, how did it run...


I only have a small amount of time on this one so far. Not even a full 2S pack through it yet, but it is pretty good. It doesn't have as much torque as the GT550 but it easily surpasses it in top end. Even on 2S it pulls pretty hard, something the GT550 does not do.
It is able to pull the front end up and move out quickly. If I tightened the slipper more I assume it would wheelie regularly. It also increased the trucks top speed. To what, from what, I am unsure. It does seem to get up a head of steam going down the street though.
So, faster top speed than the GT550 on 3S, and quicker than the 15T firebolt on 2S. It seems like a great all around 2S basher motor depending on how well it holds up over time.

[Jimbo302]

The next cheap stuff I plan on trying out is:

- Dynamite's 15T brushed motor ($16)

- The cheapest brushless combo ever, 45A esc/4370KV motor ($35)

- SkyRC 10.5T 3250KV Sensored, programmable, Brushless combo ($75 for everything)

[yellowdatsun]

I've been regularly surprised at the cheap stuff lately. I have a cheap Gool RC Leopard setup in my drift car, and it hasn't given me any issues at all. A buddy has a similar setup in his B5M and it works great. There's still crap junk out there, but I think the days of cheap-automatically-equals-junk are long gone.

[Lonestar]

There's cheap stuff, and cheap stuff.

The cheap class 05 proved a dud, I wish I had been wrong on this one though, but this was predictable.

that cheap 4900kv-ish BL combo hauls ass - it is a knockoff/rebadge of the ezrun 9T combo, which is actually THE product that launched Hobbywing to the masses. Same for leopard, bullistorm, xcar, and stuff - great hardware, amazing value for money, long amortized dvpt costs over thousands and thousands of units sold, hence rock bottom price.

After a while you develop a 6th sense for spotting cheap performance stuff

(it only comes after you've lost hundreds being penny wise and pound foolish )

keep us posted,
Paul

[Lonestar]

edited

[Coelacanth]

Good comments there. Yes, there is cheap, and then there's el-cheapo. The stuff that has no name, or a name you've never heard of, is the bottom-of-the-barrel. Stuff like EZRun, Leopard Toro, Bullistorm, Hobbywing are all cheap, but decent-name products that all seem to function well. But you'll also see tons of clones on eBay that LOOK almost identical to those products, but just have a generic "clone" look to them. The problem I've found with those Chinese knock-offs is: They ALWAYS cheap out somewhere. It could be an inferior soldering job or flaky circuit board or a piss-poor fan...but you won't discover this until you've bought it. Sending it back for refund is almost pointless because the cost to return-ship is probably not worth it. So by this point, it's money shat down the toilet.

As a perfect example, I bought a cheap sink drain/strainer assembly like the image. Everything looked good, as good as the original, anyway. But when I went to thread on and tighten the large retaining nut on the bottom, it promptly snapped in half. I don't know wtf it was made out of but it could never have survived even half the torque needed to tighten it properly. Fortunately, I re-used my previous retaining nut, which weighed about 3 times as much.

A lot of these clone Chinese manufacturers are wizards at making their bottom-of-the-barrel clones LOOK just like the better brands. But you know they had to cut corners somewhere and it's not until you've bought one that you'll soon find out where.

[Jimbo302]

Agreed on all points guys. I am using the actual price point per product as my basis. The lowest price I can find for a certain style of product; i.e. brushless sensored tunable combo @ $75, or a 9T brushed motor for under $20.
It seemed to be the easiest way to toy around with and learn about what is available, for me.

[Jimbo302]

The Dynamite 15T.



I got this one for under $20. It has the cooling fan feature and some ferrite beads on the lead wires (presumably to cancel signal noise).

Not a ton of torque with the gearing I was using, but the top end is more than expected. This one is faster than the hpi 15T. However, it created some serious heat, rather quickly. I'm inclined to think this motor would really benefit from a smaller pinion gear, which would probably give it quite a bit of "off the line punch". Overall, stout little motor and seems to have the ability to turn some relatively high rpms.

[Coelacanth]

I remember that brand name "Dynamite" now...I bought some anodized aluminum items from that brand. I don't even know if you could call it "anodized", because you could scrape it off with a fingernail.

[Jimbo302]

The ebay special brushless 45A esc and 4370KV motor.



I've seen these with a program card for $38, recently. I bought a couple a while back for under $35 shipped , so I am using one of those, without a card. It arrives from china in a small nondescript white box with nothing more than a sticker noting the contents.



It's brushless, it's un-sensored and it's fast. Install is normal, although I had to swap the drive wires on the motor to have it rotate the correct direction and still have power.
Give it a few seconds and everything is automatically programmed and ready to go. It gives you a nice little scale tone, twice, to let you know it is powered up and receiving signal. Then you are off.

I immediately had to back the slipper off. Power wheelies were a problem on any high traction surface.
It chugs a bit at low speed, due to its uncensored nature, and the fan is loud. These aren't deal breakers for me.

But the speed, oh the speed, its there, if you can use it. For me this mostly meant going easy on the throttle and feeling like I was faster with a more familiar brushed setup. But then, a shot in any long straight direction would leave a you smiling and understanding the real enjoyment behind this kit.

So far I have run three of these combos and haven't had any problems with them yet. They stay relatively cool, run hard and can break parts if you choose to push it. I've managed to hurt more than one old diff.
My one real complaint is that the braking/rev/forward changes can be slow or abrupt and awkward at times. I even had the slow speed chug completely stop forward movement completely in one car that was not geared low enough for rough terrain.

So, fun, fast, cheap. Hard to beat that.

[Jimbo302]

I remember that brand name "Dynamite" now...I bought some anodized aluminum items from that brand. I don't even know if you could call it "anodized", because you could scrape it off with a fingernail.

Yeah, I had some old dynamite nicads as well. I think they were/are just a general budget rc company.

[Coelacanth]

The "chugging" you mentioned...cogging at low speeds...isn't supposed to happen even with unsensored ESC's. I have EZRun, Hobbywing, Bullistorm and Leopard Toro ESC unsensored ESC combos and they all run fine with no cogging whatsoever. So, there you see a difference between cheap and el-cheapo. I don't want my cars to cog, it's a deal-breaker for me.

The noisy fan is another issue I mentioned earlier...actually it was my Bullistorm ESC that came with a fan that had an annoying whine, and even worse--the fan blades were actually rubbing the heatsinks. The fan housing was so cheap that you could bend the plastic in your fingers. I tossed it out and bought a $15 Novak fan that works great, but that's one area where corners get cut.

[Jimbo302]

Yes, cogging. It wasn't horrid, but was noticable and sometimes annoying.

My RC10T4 with 9T EZrun setup does it a tiny bit as well. Which is why I wanted to test the leopard sensored setup, and I bought a 10.5T to dial the power back a bit.

And yes, depending on how the esc was sitting or being touched it would flex enough for the fan to hit the shroud.

[Jimbo302]

The wiring on the Toro/cheetah/skyrc/leopard combo is all too short to install, so I ordered extensions for the motor wiring and sensor.
In the meantime I threw in a little 3S 30C 4500mah battery on this motor.

The Redcat 550.

It ran like a wild boar, wheelies, power, speed, then a little magic smoke got out so I called off the torture and unplugged it. I learned this one isn't quite ready for 11 volts.

[yellowdatsun]

The ebay special brushless 45A esc and 4370KV motor.



I've seen these with a program card for $38, recently. I bought a couple a while back for under $35 shipped , so I am using one of those, without a card. It arrives from china in a small nondescript white box with nothing more than a sticker noting the contents.



It's brushless, it's un-sensored and it's fast. Install is normal, although I had to swap the drive wires on the motor to have it rotate the correct direction and still have power.
Give it a few seconds and everything is automatically programmed and ready to go. It gives you a nice little scale tone, twice, to let you know it is powered up and receiving signal. Then you are off.

I immediately had to back the slipper off. Power wheelies were a problem on any high traction surface.
It chugs a bit at low speed, due to its uncensored nature, and the fan is loud. These aren't deal breakers for me.

But the speed, oh the speed, its there, if you can use it. For me this mostly meant going easy on the throttle and feeling like I was faster with a more familiar brushed setup. But then, a shot in any long straight direction would leave a you smiling and understanding the real enjoyment behind this kit.

So far I have run three of these combos and haven't had any problems with them yet. They stay relatively cool, run hard and can break parts if you choose to push it. I've managed to hurt more than one old diff.
My one real complaint is that the braking/rev/forward changes can be slow or abrupt and awkward at times. I even had the slow speed chug completely stop forward movement completely in one car that was not geared low enough for rough terrain.

So, fun, fast, cheap. Hard to beat that.

Looks like a copy of the Hobbywing un-sensored setup I have. If it's a decent copy, it's a good setup.