Brushless Slot Car Motors

[BarkingSpyder]

Brushless Slot Car Motors have been around for at least three years.  They first came on the scene for 1-24 Flexi/Lexan cars (LMP, NASCAR, Eurosport, etc.) Their long-life, high-torque and RPMs, plus their maintenance-free characteristics are significant advantages over $300-600 motors that must be re-built (refaced, re-brushed, trued commutators etc.) after most races.

The ESC is a watch-battery-powered miniature version of those used for large RC cars.  It converts the track’s DC current to AC current to power the electromagnets in the can of the brushless motor (so basically the ESC replaces the brushes).  The designs allow the use of conventional slot car controllers.

Eventually, less powerful motors, originally made for electric aircraft and smaller RC cars have been adapted for 1-32 plastic scale cars. The prices started out at $35 a motor, plus an ESC ($30) and motor mount adapter ($8-15) making it a rather expensive conversion.
The motor prices have dropped to between $12 to 20, and the ESCs have come down into the high teens and mid 20s.

However, in general for plastic cars, unless you are running on a large and long European plastic track, the advantages are few with some tuning challenge.  The motor’s weight is a third or one-half of S-can motors, so weight tuning in the back becomes more important.  The higher RPM and torque make handling on short and curvy tracks a challenge.  The longer life span is not much of an issue since most 1-32 perm-motors last for 1,000s of hours already.

 

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