A time before BL and lipo

[Nevs]

Before 08 I had a few 25"ish 30$ rtr boats. They were running on brushed motors and Nihms...Speed probably 15 mph..
But what was a real fast brushed setup before BL in a 35-40" mono ?..What speeds could you expect. And what runningtime could you expect with something like a 20 cells 4000 nihm = 6s lipo ?

[Fluid]

I did a lot of SAW and oval racing with brushed motors and round cells. In the early 2000s you didn’t run an FE boat much over 30”. The little Aeromarine Mean Machine was popular for 24 cells as was the Titan29. As I recall the record in 2001 was around 40-45 mph for a 24-cell Titan.

We didn’t have 4000 mAh cells then, I started racing with 1100s, by 2005 we ran 3300s. I don’t remember exact run times, but I do remember it was not uncommon to cross the finish line in racing heats (five laps = 1/2 mile on the old short course) barely moving as the 1200 mAh pack was almost dead.

[NativePaul]

I took a break from '97-'04 and skipped the NiMh era, and I think it was only a year or 2 after '97 that we allowed rare earth and brushless motors into our oval racing so '97 would have been close to the pinical of brushed nickle cell racing in the UK but in the UK. When I stopped in '97, we were running ovals on 1700mah NiCads and ferite brushed motors with 4 minutes runtime for monos and 3 mins for cats and hydros, speeds were high 20s for 7 cell cats and hydros in race trim and high 30s for 12 cell cats/hydros, I don't remember any mono speeds as I was a cat guy back then. I recall I had many one way 42mph passes with my 12 cell NiCad ferite brushed cat at a rather rough SAWs, but couldn't stay upright at tthat pace into wind and averaged 38mph after stepping back down to my race prop. The outright UK saw record in '97 was 45mph with a 30cell NiCad rigger powered by a Graupner Ultra (Plettenberg) rare earth brushed motor.

[Nevs]

Wow. I had thought that it was quiet a bit faster 22 years ago. 45mph/72 kmh in a "8s" rigger, and the same in a mono 18 years ago. I imagine the battery was the limiting factor, (c-ratings and mAh) ?...... Or it was the motors..

[NativePaul]

The UK has never been great for SAW speeds as we have a culture of endurance racing there aren't many SAW racers, and most of us that do attand SAWs are just propping up on our race boats, we also live on a windswept island so we have to pray to the weather gods to get a decently calm SAWs one in five events, in my case it was the weather that stopped me getting 42mph on 12 cells but it was the ferite magnet brushed motor that stopped me going faster than that. The 30 cell rigger kept snapping flexies, due to huge torque from a fairly low revving brushed rare earth motor and was retired, these days we would spin it twice as fast for the same power with half the torque and have no worries, he was talking about gearing it up for the same effect, but never got around to it.

While certainly when it comes to ferite brushed motors they were the bottleneck as for endurance racing the most we could put through them was about 40A and even for SAWs 60A was a big ask and efficiencies were a lot worse too, the worst cheap chinese motor these days would be more efficient that the best rare earth motors we had available at the time, and streets ahead of ferite motors. Batteries were also much weaker and importantly heavier too, I think the 30 cell rigger set its record in '93 (and held it until the brushless era) with 30 x 1200mAh NiCads which is about 36 watthours of battery, 30 cells sounds like a lot, but a modern 2s 5000mAh LiPo has 38 watthours, and the just the 30 cell pack weighed more than a complete 2s/3s boat does RTR.

I never saw any FE race boats that were 35"+ back then. The biggest we regularly saw was the ABC Cesa that came out of the box at 36", but we used to cut the rockered stern off so they handled well, and they raced at about 30", still bigger than most, that were around 24-26" for a 12 cell boat. 7 cell boats were about or 17-19".

[Nevs]

Thanks for sharing. I guess your reply explains and sums up the "challenges" before bl an lipo..

[MarkF]

I remember when I had the P hydro record at 61 mph. I used my 8s rigger with a brushed plettenburg motor and ran it on 12 - 2000 mah nicds. My competition was Jeff Vasquez with his brand new Aveox brushless motor. He tapped out at 59 mph so I got the win. Shortly after that, Me and Gregg started the electric only saw event. The Germans showed up and kicked all our butts after that. LOL Now the P hydro record is held by Brian Buaas at 138 mph

Mark

[Fluid]

All the power in an FE boat is in the cells, not the motor. The switch to LiPo cells (with way more voltage under load and higher amp delivery) and better ESC system design made the biggest difference. One point of reference, the JAGs team set the NAMBA SAW record at 140 mph with 32 NiMH cells and a brushless motor. That held for many years, now the JAGs team members have made a pass at 206 mph with 8s LiPo and an average of 186 on 6S. Things have changed.


.

[properchopper]

In November of 2006 I set a smokin' NAMBA SAW P-Ltd Offshore record of 34.10 mph with a Drifter S and some hand-matched cells from Chris Fine and the hand picked 700 drill motor. I can't for the life of me download the wmv file but here's some screen shots :

From the dusty archives:

Mystery boat launcher ( my favorite Mentor Jay T)

JaySaw20190411_200016_resized.jpg

Drifter underway crummy screen grab (imagine this sound : ying ying ying ying......)

DrftrSawJay20190411_204347_resized.jpg

Drum Roll :
SIX YEARS LATER :
March 2012 NAMBA SAW : Identical Drifter S / Lipo 4S2P 3300's / AQ2030/ Brian B El Kabongo prop : 67.771 mph new record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EghzqJxykZ4

[T.S.Davis]

I was running offshore for 4 minutes with a brushed Makita motor and 18 cells in a Titan 29. Think we were running 41mph.

[photohoward1]

Yep terry we had a radar gun. I was running a brushless hacker 40 something on a 2/1 gear reduction at about 48k. Sounded awesome.
It was in my drifter. I think it was about a 30 inch boat. BTW. Loudest thunk I ever heard was when that motor through a magnate.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Brushman]

Hello,

during brushed/ Nicd era, limitation was on commutator, not in the coil, or the magnets. too much current was the limiting factor also for the battery. Once it was understood, using pushed matched 1000 scr, it was possible to reach 50 mph on my hydroplane with a small prop. Exotic plettenberg were not showing a big advantage versus à 700 neodym overvolted...

So yes, gearing a brushed motor and use high voltage can help to move big hulls, the tuning is really difficult, changing the reduction ratio by 10% can make a huge difference on a given prop.