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I have been slotracing for ca. 50 years now. Scratchbuilding is the ultimate to me. Chassis and motor building, arm rewinding, rim / hub lathing, tyre trueing, making bodies etc. etc.
So when I decided to switch to 43rd scale one of the main reasons was that I would ( at last ) be able do scratchbuild almost everything myself again.
There are models ( kits ) of more or less every car I would like to have as a slotcar.
I love open cars, like CanAm and any kind of LM etc. spyders.
But besides that I also love to make my cars as scale as possible. This includes open cockpits, of course, as well.
On the other hand I do not want to be restricted by the motor size or installation principle. I do not want to use inline primarily although it would not really be necessary.
So I had to hit the trail for finding usable motors. Small enough to fit in all cars but powerful enough to give me the pleasure I had been used from the bigger scales. Not the speed, of course. I drive 43rd scale now, so the speed may be slower - logical. But it must be adequate nevertheless.It took me an odyssey of four years finally to have what I intended to.
First I found the right size : N 20, i.e. 15x12x10 mm
But - either too low voltage or too high rpm or both in one.
And - not enough power.
So my first attempt was rewinding. But although showing tiny improvements in performance it wasn´t satisfactory because of the comparative low mag power.
Then last but not least I found motors with really strong magnets and appropriate rpm. One of them is still "active" and really successful.
At this point I started searching for different motors because I had become sure not to find „the one“ who would have all the specs I needed :
Anyway finally, after a long time of searching, I found what I had imagined.
Since then I haven´t had to worry about motors anymore.
One motor donates the arm, the other the can and mags, the third the endbell with brushes. The rpm decrease a bit because of the stronger magnetic field but the motors are still really fast enough. And they have an excellent acceleration and braking.
The only disadvantage – if one wants to call it so – is the arm shaft diameter of 1 mm.
But since I have been used to rummaging around for decades finally I found telescopic brass tubing that sizes the standard 1.5 mm or 2 mm pinion bores down to 1 mm.
Well, a lot of patience and a lot of experiments ( = fun !!! ) lead to the intended aim. I don´t have any trouble with designing and building chassis for almost any car and all three drive train principles – inline, anglewinder, sidewinder.
The weight of the motors is so low that there are all opportunities to play with overall weight connected with an optimum c.o.g.
During the long research time I had bought and wasted ca. 100 different N20 – motors.
It was worth the little expense.
Long live the Chinese with their low price policy J.
Roland
So when I decided to switch to 43rd scale one of the main reasons was that I would ( at last ) be able do scratchbuild almost everything myself again.
There are models ( kits ) of more or less every car I would like to have as a slotcar.
I love open cars, like CanAm and any kind of LM etc. spyders.
But besides that I also love to make my cars as scale as possible. This includes open cockpits, of course, as well.
On the other hand I do not want to be restricted by the motor size or installation principle. I do not want to use inline primarily although it would not really be necessary.
So I had to hit the trail for finding usable motors. Small enough to fit in all cars but powerful enough to give me the pleasure I had been used from the bigger scales. Not the speed, of course. I drive 43rd scale now, so the speed may be slower - logical. But it must be adequate nevertheless.It took me an odyssey of four years finally to have what I intended to.
First I found the right size : N 20, i.e. 15x12x10 mm
But - either too low voltage or too high rpm or both in one.
And - not enough power.
So my first attempt was rewinding. But although showing tiny improvements in performance it wasn´t satisfactory because of the comparative low mag power.
Then last but not least I found motors with really strong magnets and appropriate rpm. One of them is still "active" and really successful.
At this point I started searching for different motors because I had become sure not to find „the one“ who would have all the specs I needed :
- 12 volts
- 26 000 to 35 000 rpm
- strong magnets
- carbon brushes
Anyway finally, after a long time of searching, I found what I had imagined.
Since then I haven´t had to worry about motors anymore.
One motor donates the arm, the other the can and mags, the third the endbell with brushes. The rpm decrease a bit because of the stronger magnetic field but the motors are still really fast enough. And they have an excellent acceleration and braking.
The only disadvantage – if one wants to call it so – is the arm shaft diameter of 1 mm.
But since I have been used to rummaging around for decades finally I found telescopic brass tubing that sizes the standard 1.5 mm or 2 mm pinion bores down to 1 mm.
Well, a lot of patience and a lot of experiments ( = fun !!! ) lead to the intended aim. I don´t have any trouble with designing and building chassis for almost any car and all three drive train principles – inline, anglewinder, sidewinder.
The weight of the motors is so low that there are all opportunities to play with overall weight connected with an optimum c.o.g.
During the long research time I had bought and wasted ca. 100 different N20 – motors.
It was worth the little expense.
Long live the Chinese with their low price policy J.
Roland
.
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