Reliable, cost-effective brushless setup?

[generalbacardi]

Hi, I'm new here and new to crawling. I recently got my son a Losi Night Crawler, and now I want my own crawler.

I'm going to be using my crawler mainly for backyard crawling. Long runtimes and reliability are what I'm after; I'm not going to be doing formal competitions. From what I've read on the newbie forum here, the Axial AX10 would actually suit my purposes better, but since my son has the LNC, I want to stick with the Losi platform.

I have RC experience (used to fly 450 size heli's), but I'm totally unfamiliar with crawler motors, pinions, and ESC's. For my purposes, what would be a good motor / pinion / ESC combination? I would assume a 2S setup would be easier on the drivetrain and give longer runtimes?

[kmnss]

There's a number of brushless systems available specifically for crawling. I would personally make sure that you get a sensored system. The Novak Goat(2S and 3S), Mamba Max Pro, Tekin RS, and Losi Excelorin systems are all sensored.

After that, it will be up to you to decide how much wheel speed you want. With 2S I would go with one of the 13.5's, or 18.5's to still give decent wheel speed. If you go with 3S, the 18.5 or 21.5 would do well. I've seen a number of people running 13-16T pinions, I would buy a set that had 12-16T and see what works the best for whatever you end up buying.

My personal choice would be the MambaMax or the Tekin ESC's with a Tekin Redline 18.5 on 3S with a 14T pinion.

[generalbacardi]

Originally Posted by kmnss

There's a number of brushless systems available specifically for crawling. I would personally make sure that you get a sensored system. The Novak Goat(2S and 3S), Mamba Max Pro, Tekin RS, and Losi Excelorin systems are all sensored.

After that, it will be up to you to decide how much wheel speed you want. With 2S I would go with one of the 13.5's, or 18.5's to still give decent wheel speed. If you go with 3S, the 18.5 or 21.5 would do well. I've seen a number of people running 13-16T pinions, I would buy a set that had 12-16T and see what works the best for whatever you end up buying.

My personal choice would be the MambaMax or the Tekin ESC's with a Tekin Redline 18.5 on 3S with a 14T pinion.

If I were to go 2S, what are the pros/cons of going with a 13.5 verus 18.5 motor?

[mrG]

Originally Posted by generalbacardi

If I were to go 2S, what are the pros/cons of going with a 13.5 verus 18.5 motor?

If you go with a 2s I think the 13.5 would be better for the wheelspeed. There are a few guys who run the 13.5 and say they really like it, low end control and speed. I ran a 21.5 on 3s and it was too slow now I run 4s on the same 21.5 with timing boost on my MMP and its great, tons of torque and wheelspeed when I need it.

[JohnRobHolmes]

The 13.5 is going to be an amp hog compared to the 18.5, but otherwise it is a better choice for 2s running if you want wheelspeed.

Tekin will have some sensored 4 pole motors out soon, as will I. Your options for brushless motors will be getting better in the next few months for sure.

[mrG]

Originally Posted by JohnRobHolmes

Tekin will have some sensored 4 pole motors out soon, as will I. Your options for brushless motors will be getting better in the next few months for sure.

What's the 4 pole about, I'm pretty new and don't know too much, please explain. Will it require a special esc?

[hardhead]

I ran the novak 3s goat and 18.5 with a 15t pinion and was real happy with the performance

[JohnRobHolmes]

A 4 pole motor will have better torque at low rpm's, in a simplfied nutshell. Low speed resolution may suffer if proper design changes are not made to the salient pole design. I don't know enough about the Tekin to comment on anything else, other than it will be a good option with plenty of power for most people.

[axelram]

Can you please give as info as to how short your new brushless sensored motor will be? Will there be an equivalent 17.5T or 18.5T BL motor?

Originally Posted by JohnRobHolmes

A 4 pole motor will have better torque at low rpm's, in a simplfied nutshell. Low speed resolution may suffer if proper design changes are not made to the salient pole design. I don't know enough about the Tekin to comment on anything else, other than it will be a good option with plenty of power for most people.

[Zimm98]

I am running a LNC and brushless. The LNC is redicualy low geared so wheel speed is tough to obtain. I went with a 13.5 from hobby city (about 17$) and a Mamba Monster Max. I had to pinion it to an 18 tooth, but I really like, the setup and it was cheap to boot, and dont have any heat problems.