Cheapest Brushless ESC Test and Review
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2018 1:50 pm
Once upon a time, upgrading from your mechanical speed control to an esc was a good chunk of a paycheck or a summer of mowing lawns for a kid. Brushless came along and was not the cheapest upgrade to an RC either. When I first started making the change over to lipo battteries and brushless esc's and motors, I noticed a wide range of prices. To buy the latest Tekin setup is a considerable amount of coin. Want a Mamba Monster? Get ready to hand over a stack of folding money. Over the past year or so, I've purchased and ran a fairly good assortment of brushless combos on the track and backyard bashing. I would like to start by saying that I no longer will use any sensorless brushless combos. Sensorless was more economical in the past, but you had to deal with cogging and poor throttle control. In a basher, which is mostly full throttle or nothing, this isn't much of a concern, until you drag race your buddy down the street and your car sits there cogging for a second or two before taking off. I have run some sensorless combos that were very smooth, But it's not worth the gamble at the time of purchase to find out imo. Sensored combo prices have dropped to be just about as inexpensive.
This brings us to the test subject at hand. I wanted to see what the cheapest sensored brushless esc on ebay was and test it to failure and see if its really worth spending a fortune on the "big name brand" products. After a quick check on ebay, I found this no name sensored brushless 120a esc for $16.79 to my door. This is from a chinese seller, but since they have a U.S. distribution center, I received it in 6 days. I will put a link below. It arrived in a bag with no paperwork, stickers or anything. Not exactly an exciting unboxing. There are instructions online and a link for them is provided on the ebay description. If you've never mottled through a poorly translated set of instructions, brace yourself, because they suck. Luckily, the instructions are almost identical for the Hobbywing esc's like the Justock, so I had no problems. In fact, the ebay page for this esc states that you need a hobbywing program card to program or make changes. I was happy to find that it has all the same parameters as my justock esc. I had all the same adjustment capability as my race esc in my B6 buggy.
This will eventually be setup in a Losi XX4 that I'm currently building as a test mule, but I couldn't wait to try it out so I stuffed it in my Stampede with an old race motor (Reedy M3 17.5) and started bashing around under 2s power. The power delivery was as smooth and precise as I've come to expect from any of my Hobbywing esc's. So far so good. I'm going to play with it for a few days until the XX4 is ready. Then we'll go to the track and put this esc through it's paces. I'm going to increase the motor until we get an overheat protection shutoff. I have all the way up to a new 6.5t on hand for testing. I'm going to test it with the included fan and without. The fan, by the way, is very quiet. When I'm done putting this esc through the ringer, we'll see how it stacks up when compared to name brand stuff 5-10 times the price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/120A-ESC-Sensored-Brushless-Speed-Controller-for-RC-1-8-1-10-Car-Crawler-RC646/123112170316?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
This brings us to the test subject at hand. I wanted to see what the cheapest sensored brushless esc on ebay was and test it to failure and see if its really worth spending a fortune on the "big name brand" products. After a quick check on ebay, I found this no name sensored brushless 120a esc for $16.79 to my door. This is from a chinese seller, but since they have a U.S. distribution center, I received it in 6 days. I will put a link below. It arrived in a bag with no paperwork, stickers or anything. Not exactly an exciting unboxing. There are instructions online and a link for them is provided on the ebay description. If you've never mottled through a poorly translated set of instructions, brace yourself, because they suck. Luckily, the instructions are almost identical for the Hobbywing esc's like the Justock, so I had no problems. In fact, the ebay page for this esc states that you need a hobbywing program card to program or make changes. I was happy to find that it has all the same parameters as my justock esc. I had all the same adjustment capability as my race esc in my B6 buggy.
This will eventually be setup in a Losi XX4 that I'm currently building as a test mule, but I couldn't wait to try it out so I stuffed it in my Stampede with an old race motor (Reedy M3 17.5) and started bashing around under 2s power. The power delivery was as smooth and precise as I've come to expect from any of my Hobbywing esc's. So far so good. I'm going to play with it for a few days until the XX4 is ready. Then we'll go to the track and put this esc through it's paces. I'm going to increase the motor until we get an overheat protection shutoff. I have all the way up to a new 6.5t on hand for testing. I'm going to test it with the included fan and without. The fan, by the way, is very quiet. When I'm done putting this esc through the ringer, we'll see how it stacks up when compared to name brand stuff 5-10 times the price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/120A-ESC-Sensored-Brushless-Speed-Controller-for-RC-1-8-1-10-Car-Crawler-RC646/123112170316?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649