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is going brushless popular?

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I am.

Once you go brushless, you won't go back.
 
I don't think its popular yet, its getting there though. Brushless for a monster truck is still expensive but the prices are coming down a lot and will continue to do so making it easier for the rest of us. I just looked into brushless for an onroad 1/10 scale and its still a lot more then nitro
 
Doesn't matter if its popular in your region, its the best hands down. I think brushless is VERY popular. Crawlers, bashers, onroad, heli's, all have brushless setups designed and available for them. They even have 1/8th scale conversions. I run a novak GTB/velociti setup, Novak HV setup and a mamba max setup. All are lipo powered and all of them are just awesome. My only problem is getting the vehicle to get the power to the ground effectively. I can bald a set of onroad tires with one battery, my current rate is about 8 batteries on a set of firestorm rear tires and my brand new savage tires with less than half a battery are already down to about 85%.


Its quiet, fast, has tons of torque and has literally no maintenance.
 
I have brushless in my 18B, and it's the way to go. So much more power for a fair price. I'm thinking about adding in a lipo once they make one that small with a hard case.
 
I have 16 brushless cars, and although relatively expensive to set up it is mostly faster and sooooo much easier than nitro. I have an Emaxx with a single brushless but I have just purchased a 16.8v Maxx thats going to end up with twin velenions in it. Soon as I work out if I should use 1 speedie or 2. (Traxxas used 2 in their trial but I can't work out how they got them running exactly together)
 
I think it's very popular. I had to wait on my Novak HV Pro system because they're selling them faster than they can produce them (or they were then). I'm running brushless and love it. When I first got into RC it seemed expensive, but then once I learned what other stuff costs in comparison, it's not bad at all. I have three Novak brushless systems and two Castle systems.

I was a nothing but nitro man for a long time, until I realized what I had been missing. Once I got my head outta my butt and realised the amount of power these things have, I got rid of everything nitro. Now it's strictly large scale gas and brushless for me. Hell, they've even got electric systems out for 1/5 scale stuff.
 
Yeah Charlie. Those Fine Design systems for the Duratrax Firehammer is something else isnt it. 8hp electric, awesome. Pity the price of the whole rig but the motors themselves aren't too bad.
 
Well they only want $2500 for the large scale brushless RTR. It seems steep, but I've got $1500 into my brushless Revo and still have a long ways to go. Now I've got one hell of a powerhouse for a system, and a lot of upgrades, but $1500 is $1500.

That's good information flm savage, but I don't run a pinion. I thought it was a waste of money, so I spent seven weeks engraving lil teeth into the shaft. Man, talk about a steep gear ratio!

OK, I agree, maybe that's not the reason. I don't run an electric pinion gear, because I'm using a nitro clutch on my electric motor. With that much power, it allows it to handle a lot smoother and a lot more like a nitro rig, just without the nitro part.
 
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I have 16 brushless cars, and although relatively expensive to set up it is mostly faster and sooooo much easier than nitro. I have an Emaxx with a single brushless but I have just purchased a 16.8v Maxx thats going to end up with twin velenions in it. Soon as I work out if I should use 1 speedie or 2. (Traxxas used 2 in their trial but I can't work out how they got them running exactly together)

Simple. A Y harness, removing the red wire from one ESC's servo lead. Switch both ESC's on, and you're set. That's the setup that was used way-back-when on Clodbusters, before ESC's capable of dual motors came about.
 
Well they only want $2500 for the large scale brushless RTR. It seems steep, but I've got $1500 into my brushless Revo and still have a long ways to go. Now I've got one hell of a powerhouse for a system, and a lot of upgrades, but $1500 is $1500.

That's good information flm savage, but I don't run a pinion. I thought it was a waste of money, so I spent seven weeks engraving lil teeth into the shaft. Man, talk about a steep gear ratio!

OK, I agree, maybe that's not the reason. I don't run an electric pinion gear, because I'm using a nitro clutch on my electric motor. With that much power, it allows it to handle a lot smoother and a lot more like a nitro rig, just without the nitro part.

How does it perform differently? The only real difference i see is that the nitro may have less rolling resistance than the electric once the clutch springs retract. I would love to see pics of that. you would have to machine the shaft, get bearings, and then tap the end right?
 
I am.

Once you go brushless, you won't go back.


:yes: x 1,000,000,000

It's the new technology, there will still be people who prefer brushed motors but I'm certainly not one of them.

Brushless is great, especially with LiPo powering it.
 
Once you run brushless (with lipo) every thing else is just slow and LOUD. You spend more time driving and enjoying your RCs and less time tuning and cleaning all the dirt and oily residue off your rig.
 
thanks for all the replies guy. i asked because i am thinking about finding a brushless set up to power my usa elctric. its dual motor. at first i was thinking about using an old emaxx setup.
right now i have a six d cell set up with a Tekin 10 cell dual motor ESC. work good but the battery is heavy and runs out fast even though it a 4400 mah.

i also have a 3300 mah battery i run its 7 cell and it does almost as food as the 4400 battery
 
Hey charlie scince you are using a clutch bell in sted of a pinion gear are you also using the stock break set up scince your ESC breraks would no longer engauge when the clutch shoes disengauge from the clutch bell, I was just curious how that all works, maybe you could show us some pics, I would like to see how you machined it, because I have been thinking about making my 1/8 scale brushless...
 
How does it perform differently? The only real difference i see is that the nitro may have less rolling resistance than the electric once the clutch springs retract. I would love to see pics of that. you would have to machine the shaft, get bearings, and then tap the end right?

Well there's a lot of difference actually. First of all, using a clutch, you are able to tune all that power that is produced by the brushless motor. You can tune with clutch shoes and springs just like you would with a nitro. Also, like someone else mentioned, it allows you to take advantage of the onboard brake system, which drastically reduces cogging and removes a lot of the strain that an 8th scale vehicle puts on the motor and ESC. On my Revo, it also allows me to use the front and rear brakes to tune brake bias.

Now I didn't machine it. I bought the Tekno RC brushless conversion kit, and it came with the motor mounts and tekno rc elektri-clutch adapter.

Here's my kit, includes pics and explanations of all the parts
http://www.teknorc.com/product_info.php?products_id=935

Rob Mob already built his revo with a similar setup, so you can go to the members projects and find his build thread, and see it up close and personal.

Now for the good news, Tekno RC is now offering conversion kits for 1/8 scale buggies. Now I see why Novak wasn't so quick to offer stuff for the Losi 8 and 8T. Tekno RC includes a brand new electric specific chassis and the same clutch system. Anyone got a Losi 8 they want to sell me?
http://www.teknorc.com/product_info.php?products_id=947
 
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ok i gotcha. How many different springs are available? I was thinking it was 1.0 and 1.1 Then again i really only got that in depth with my .30VG savage. Very cool man. There is no such thing as cogging with the supa slick novak sensored setups. You can really see the difference in a onroad belt drive setup. Its as smooth as can be. I'd love to drive one sometime. I am actually coming to alexandria again in august so we might be able to meet up.

You must be using cearmic bearings on the clutchbell right? I can't imagine standard bearings holding up to that kind of rpm.
 
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I'm going to see what the best bearings that Eddy can get me over at Team Fast Eddy. He's an amazing guy, with awesome customer service, so he's the only one I buy my bearings from. He's really into brushless and nitro racing, so he should be able to point me in the right direction. I know standard isn't going to cut it though. You're right about the Novak system, but a lot of people aren't running Novak. We are the chosen:) Well, until the mamba monster comes out, then I just have to try it out.

When you get here, I'll have a crawler ready for you. I don't know if the Revo will be done. I have a comp crawler and a scaler, and a slash that will be my priority.

Here's the chassis I'm thinking about going with for my scaler
http://www.rcrockcrawling.com/product_info.php?cPath=47&products_id=766
 
very nice looking but those pinion angles are absolutely horrible. I think any kind of droop is going to bind you up and then when you get on it, that R2 will look like its full of graphite. It would make a beautiful shelf queen but it would bother me knowing that the same cash could have been used elsewhere. I'll pm you when i know more details about the trip.
 
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