Hey guys,

I just joined this forum today, and I'm looking for one of you R/C Electric Buggy/Truggy gurus and enthusiasts to give me some advice on my current situation.


I bought a Tamiya Plasma Edge electric buggy about 5 months ago when I was in Hong Kong, and the thing is absolutely incredible (I'm no R/C expert, been doing it for years, but I'm just an intermediate enthusiast). This has been my first Tamiya product and I'm sold on them for life, just incredible quality of products. At any rate, I'm looking to upgrade the speed of the thing.......VERY substantially if possible. I realize the way to go is to buy a new motor, although I've been reading online that changing the gear ratio/pinion gear could also potentially increase the max speed of the buggy. In all my life, I have never bought any motor which was beyond stock. The motor in the buggy is a Mabuchi 540 apparently.


So, could one of you gurus give me some thoughts as to what would be the most cost-effective motor to upgrade to (were you in my position)? I don't need to spend $100 on a motor here, but if I could keep it under $30 that would be awesome.

Lastly, I'm interested in purchasing one or two new or used 6 cell 7.2 V batteries, ones that also might increase the speed of my buggy. Any thoughts here (with cost-effectiveness also in mind)?

Thanks guys!!

Nick

Hi Nick! Welcome to the forum!!!

So, Heres the deal with pinion:

More teeth= more speed, heat, but less torque to an extent
less teeth= more torque, less speed and less heat to an extent
If this is what you think you want it can be a simple 3$ upgrade, but you will
obviously lose power some where. If you plan to upgrade the motor, this can be easy! Don't be intimidated!!! I will need to know some specifications before i just tell you a motor, so please let me know if you know some specs. =) thanks!
-Erik

ive receantally bought a venom 13t brushless combo 35a replaced the stock brushed 12t on losi strike the power is increadable comparrison.you dont want to change the gear ratio too much you risk burning out the moter as im told it will draw to much current,the price was 150 dollars from toyworld inaustralia.That was the cheapest i found they are new to venom , really depends what u are doing to much power and controlling will become hard and when u crash more damage.

Changing your gear ratios will increase or decrease your top speed and acceleration, but it may leave you wanting more. You can almost gear the Mabuchi 540 any way you like without harm.

Of course a new motor is always exciting, but I dont know what type of speed controller you have, so I wonder if it can handle a "hotter" motor. Once you get to the point where you need a stronger ESC and you want a faster brushed motor, then you have reached the price point of a good brushless system that would give you increased speed plus runtime, and it can last many years!

If your ESC can handle lower turn motors I would recommend a good quality 19T motor. This will be significantly faster than the stock 540, but not so fast you lose lots of runtime.

I like the Nimh battery packs from Pro-Match. They are not overpriced, and they perform well.

Thanks for your reply Erik!

This is pretty much the best I can give you at the present for specifications.

Apparently I can't even post URLs to my posts in this forum yet, so go to google, type in "tamiya plasma edge motor", and click on the second link from the top. A good number of the specs are listed there at that URL.

The motor is a 540 Mabuchi, like I said. I don't know anything more about it than that. As for how many turns the motor has, no idea. I would think it's a 20 turn?

Does this URL help at all so you can recommend me some motors?

Alright! well i know that your ESC(electronic speed controller) is rated for a minimum of 26t. This lowers the choices, but definitely doesn't eliminate them. The most common motor to upgrade to for your car is the Tamiya BZ motor. This thing is waaay faster than your stock one. But there is a catch. This motor is a 23T motor and there is a 50/50 chance you will kill your ESC. So, if i were you, i would go with what i know works. This motor http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXTSG9&P=7
is rated at 27T and is a racing motor =). Before you go out and buy this, do you have a hobby shop that is local to you?

You are in a wonderful position if you want to upgrade to a very fast electric system, but don't need state of the art.

Currently everybody is switching all their batterys and charging systems over to lipo, so you can find some great nimh batteries, and battery chargers on ebay for cheap.

This effect has also carried over to speed controllers in a way that will be great for you. Everybody is changing to lipo which requires a speed control with lipo cutoff, therefore they are literally throwing away great speed controllers that are no longer great for lipo or brushless applications.

Novak and tekin speed controllers which are smooth and can handle almost unlimited motors are available for 1/10th of what they cost, and they still work perfectly. I would get a novak 410M1c or similar speed control, and speedworks 12 turn motor. your car will burn off its tires, or do wheelies, and it wont cost you too much because the good parts from yesterday are now very cheap.

there is a novak 610RV on ebay right now for $1. this will handle almost any nimh or nicd battery/motor combo that you want.

There is also a speedworks 12turn double motor on ebay for $4.
you are going to be shopping for "vintage rc electronics" but if you get the right stuff it is very very fast.

Those of us who must have lipo and brushless will pay more for our fun than you will.

enjoy

Thanks for all your replies guys.

To the person who was discussing my stock ESC, I didn't know it could handle only a minimum of 26T. Well that's too bad. HOWEVER, I happen to have here in my possession an Duratrax ESC which I used in one of my other RC projects like 6 years ago. It's a Duratrax Intellispeed ESC and on the box, it states that this ESC's motor turn limit is a motor with no fewer than 20 turns. I actually paid around $50 back in the day for this ESC.

The only downside about this Intellispeed ESC is that it doesn't have reverse (does have brake however). Not a big deal.

In light of all this, do you guys still recommend I find a some cheap, quality ESC on ebay, and find a supercharged lowturn brushless motor on ebay as well?

Let me know soon cuz I wanna get my buggy upgraded ASAP! Thanks again guys!

Its up to you, I think there are some great deals to be had on some older stuff, the examples I gave are a little on the extreme side, and may cause you to stip gears, or melt your battery connectors. there is probably a happy medium on the motor, but you cant go wrong with one of the nice older speed controllers.


new lipo/brushless systems are super cool, and that is why most people are switching, but it aint cheap.

I saw a couple of Novaks...cyclone, 410 M1c...a tekin 411G for very reasonable prices.

I think everyone in the hobby should be able to experience BL/Lipo in their RCs. Brushless and Lipo have a solid future in the hobby for good reason. They are better in so many ways. But you dont need them to have a little fun for sure. Brushed motors and Nimh batteries do work pretty good. Neverthelss, I hold that IF you can spend a little more for brushless up front that you will save in the long run over brushed motor setups. No need to get anything thats extremely powerful, but a mild setup would blow your mind without stressing your buggy or wallet.

I looked on ebay and didn't see the novak that you mentioned for $1. I would definitely buy it if I could find it. I didn't see the $4 speedworks motor either, do you have links to either of these?

Yes, I have a local hobby shopt that I can go to tomorrow and check out some of this, but I really don't wanna buy anything there as it's usually like
10X the price of what I could get it for.

Yeah I don't wanna melt gears or anything, but burning off tires is no big deal . I do want to get the buggy super fast.

What's the verdict here? Can I go brushless for cheap or should I find an ebay low turn motor with a cheap/good ESC?

http://www.hobbypartz.com/car.html

This combo is proven to be a solid performer. This will be quite a bit faster than stock without breaking things, and it should have runtime similar to stock or better. Plus it has the tuning card which allows you to adjust the motors power to your liking. The only downside is that you will need to change your battery connectors to Deans or Traxxas plugs.

If you just want speed and still want brushed, I do recommend finding an ESC on ebay. I purchased a Novak GT7 for $25 to use in my slash for racing. I already had a good 19t motor and that is the combo I am using. It has plenty of speed and the price was right since that is my son's car and we mostly just bash around with it.

If I were in the market for a new esc/motor combo, I would go the brushless route. It will be more expensive than the older technology. The cheaper systems go for around $150 for the motor and ESC. I'm not sure what the hobbywing or other foreign stuff is going for. You won't believe the difference in speed, power, and ease of use. They are amazing! Stick a lipo in and you are flying!

I do think if you upgraded to a brushed 19t motor and esc combo and put some money into a lipo and charger you would also be happy.

Get what you can afford that will give you the result you want.