1/10 scale motor options... so now what?

[Coug90]

I think it makes sense to make sure a new size limit is not smaller than the current motors included in the current rule. Sure, the fact that most are out of production is a problem but it keeps you from eliminating the motor sizes that have been the basis of the class and are still being run in boats out there. The supply of those motors will eventually dry up, but they do work for now and you don't have to reinvent the wheel to make a new rule. Why not be inclusive of what's already there? Maybe just take the biggest dimensions of what we have now and not go any larger? Good or bad, the motors do work if we run them in a way that keeps them alive. If anything, it not only keeps it affordable, but limits what we do when we run them. It doesn't have to be a great motor to perform well enough to allow for good racing. If we all have to be conservative, in some ways it may level the playing field over time and make the racing even better. Guys will have to learn the capabilities of their equipment for the boat they have, build or buy better boats and prop wisely for efficiency. It'll all work out in the end. Folks will discover ways to make to get the most out of what they have. Different motor reputations will come and go like they always have and guys will have their favorites like they always have. At the very least, it sounds like a good place to start and see what happens. Simple, inexpensive, challenging and competitive. Some of the most popular classes start with that. It class doesn't need to be faster. It needs to be better and more accessible for everyone. I think that's why LSH was so popular and IMO, the 1:10 scale boats are much cooler to see on the water than those. I think the motor rules in "spec" classes have been the most frustrating to deal with on the national level, so much so that many clubs choose to make their own rules and not have sanctioned events because they have found a way to make it work well locally. There isn't much benefit, other than insurance, to putting up with this sort of frustration if you don't have to. Ideally it would be nice to look at the motor rules that all organized 1:10 racers use and see what they have in common, instead of how they differ. I don't imagine that anyone is doing anything completely unreasonable or very different when it comes to performance in this class. Maybe that would help decide parameters to look at. Perhaps start a new thread where all clubs can let us know what motors they are currently allowing in 1:10 scale along with what they've seen comparably in their club's competition. See what we have out there for sizes and specs and observations. Someone who knows about numbers could compile the info about each motor and start a comparison and see what they have in common that we might be able to consider when trying to set reasonable specs for a motor in this class. I know from this thread that there are people with knowledge to compare specs and look for common ground, no matter what type of motors you compare. It's just an idea, but I think it has merit. Any takers? We could start with a list of clubs that race 1:10 and seeing if we can reach folks from each of them. As far as I know, in WA we have Classic Thunder, ERCU, PSFE and RCU that race 1:10 scale electrics. It would be easy enough to get a hold of folks in those clubs for information and a list of motors the members are allowed to run.

[T.S.Davis]

That's all been done Mitch.

Darin did some testing on various motors to compare them to each other. Great stuff. Then Mike Ball collected a database of motors and their dimensions. More great stuff. We "should" have enough data to make an educated best guess but as is always the case..............no consensus. It's a weird FE thing. Many FE guys want to be right more than they want to compromise. They'll fabricate some crazy scenario to discredit ideas rather than find a workable solve. "What if? What about? This could happen. That could happen. I can......errrr..... somebody can...... get around the rule this way/that way". It's truly maddening.

The old limited rules and even the tighter tenth scale rules for motors wasn't great. It was a flawed un-techable compromise from inception. BUT!.......it got us on the water. The rules held up and put more boats on the water than any other power range for 9 or so years. If someone hadn't finally just run with the idea at some point we never would have had the classes in any of the books. If Newland had waited around for the nay sayers and malcontents to agree we would still be running brushed 700 motors.

We're right there again. Both organizations. 57,58,59,60mm? Don't know. I do have an opinion. Seems we all do. Length is the only real question at this point. It's time to trust someone's gut. At some point we're going to have to roll the dice and hope that our educated guess is enough for maybe another 9 or 10 years.

[don ferrette]

That's all been done Mitch.

Darin did some testing on various motors to compare them to each other. Great stuff. Then Mike Ball collected a database of motors and their dimensions. More great stuff. We "should" have enough data to make an educated best guess but as is always the case..............no consensus. It's a weird FE thing. Many FE guys want to be right more than they want to compromise. They'll fabricate some crazy scenario to discredit ideas rather than find a workable solve. "What if? What about? This could happen. That could happen. I can......errrr..... somebody can...... get around the rule this way/that way". It's truly maddening.

The old limited rules and even the tighter tenth scale rules for motors wasn't great. It was a flawed un-techable compromise from inception. BUT!.......it got us on the water. The rules held up and put more boats on the water than any other power range for 9 or so years. If someone hadn't finally just run with the idea at some point we never would have had the classes in any of the books. If Newland had waited around for the nay sayers and malcontents to agree we would still be running brushed 700 motors.

We're right there again. Both organizations. 57,58,59,60mm? Don't know. I do have an opinion. Seems we all do. Length is the only real question at this point. It's time to trust someone's gut. At some point we're going to have to roll the dice and hope that our educated guess is enough for maybe another 9 or 10 years.

Great post my friend and as I mentioned in a previous post I'm trying, really am!! And you're right there seems to be a few looking for that perfect answer, that silver bullet......... well there's isn't one. Like you said we need to do a gut check and roll the dice!! With that being said I plan to complete the 1/10th scale rules for district 12's 2019 season this weekend and get them to the DD for our upcoming meeting. As part of that I am also going to mirror our district P limited motor specs to be the same, this was actually suggested/requested by a couple district members. So with that being said the motor limits I am looking at are as follows-

maximum motor can length including any bearing protrusions 60mm, maximum motor can diameter 37mm.

Two things came into play that made me go to the 60mm mark, the NAMBA D19 vote that is now going to go up the chain to their BOD and this quote from Terry way back on post #9-


"The Neu 1412/2.5d is only 55mm depending on what can it was stuffed into. So you can race gold can AQ's and the Neu and that's it? You pick up 17 motors off of Mikes chart between 56.5 and 60 mm. Most of them less expensive than the 1412."

This is the 48th post on the 1/10th scale motor options, time to pull the pin and roll..................

[T.S.Davis]

Don, more like 4800th post on motor options. This is just the first thread regarding 10th motors.

Turn left Don. For the love of all things holy.........do it like everyone else is already doing it. Don't be afraid of the unknown or the unfamiliar. That's how we got 4800 posts on spec motors.

[Darin Jordan]

Going to just say this one thing... All of the previously "approved" motors were 6-Pole motors.

Very few, if ANY, of the "possibility" motors out there in the 36mm diameters are 6-Pole. Most are 4 or 2. A 56.5mm 6-Pole is CONSIDERABLY more capable than a similar length 4-Pole, or 2-Pole.

Testing the motors head-to-head on the bench proves this point.

That said, whatever dimensional limits you agree on are better than ANY "motor-list" based rule. Everything will sort itself out from there. The "P-LTD" classes could use a "slow-down" anyhow.

[rayzerdesigns]

Great post my friend and as I mentioned in a previous post I'm trying, really am!! And you're right there seems to be a few looking for that perfect answer, that silver bullet......... well there's isn't one. Like you said we need to do a gut check and roll the dice!! With that being said I plan to complete the 1/10th scale rules for district 12's 2019 season this weekend and get them to the DD for our upcoming meeting. As part of that I am also going to mirror our district P limited motor specs to be the same, this was actually suggested/requested by a couple district members. So with that being said the motor limits I am looking at are as follows-

maximum motor can length excluding any bearing protrusion 60mm maximum motor can diameter 37mm.

Two things came into play that made me go to the 60mm mark, the NAMBA D19 vote that is now going to go up the chain to their BOD and this quote from Terry way back on post #9-


"The Neu 1412/2.5d is only 55mm depending on what can it was stuffed into. So you can race gold can AQ's and the Neu and that's it? You pick up 17 motors off of Mikes chart between 56.5 and 60 mm. Most of them less expensive than the 1412."

This is the 48th post on the motor options, time to pull the pin and roll..................

The length includes any bearing extrusion.. not excludes it

[Coug90]

I agree with what Darin and T.S. are saying. I've read all of the tests and the many threads on this issue over the years. Folks make their own club rules because it's too difficult to get racers to agree on anything. Racers have too many issues around competition and egos to be expected deal with this sort of thing. Folks who just want to go racing and "get the boats on the water" don't have that kind of patience. I know I don't. It's so much easier to make adjustments when you have a smaller group in charge of the decisions. It's insane to think that there is any completely right or wrong decision here, but it seems that the inmates are running the asylum. For the sake of the classes out there, wouldn't we be better served to leave the final decisions up to a governing committee instead? The general membership has identified a problem and at least a general idea on how to address it. Folks were voted in to various NAMBA positions. Can we not leave it up to a group of officials to make an educated decision for a class for the sake of the class itself? Roll the dice and put boats on the water. It sounds like the conservative approach might be a good place to start and stay close to what the class has already. We can live with what is decided or we can ask for adjustments in the future. It will work itself out on the water. I suppose now we'd have to come up with a proposal to change how decisions are made on the national level. Like Darin said, whatever motor decision is made, it's better than any list based rule. They're just too hard to maintain and adjust to on a national level. I have loved racing with the club I'm in for 25 years now. We've only ever raced 1:10 scale. We have three classes with different motor rules for each. The club is still growing in numbers and is still has fantastic racing IMO. We've had ups and downs with rule changes, but the process is what keeps things going. We submit proposals each off season. They get reviewed by a committee of officials who we voted on and trust to put the club's best interest in mind (supported by a set of club bylaws) when making decisions on what makes it to a ballot and what does not. We gave them that authority because once the club got to be larger, the old method of having everyone vote on everything proposed just wasn't working well for the club. I don't know if a nationally sanctioned class can really reach its full potential as far as national events and multi district participation take place without changing the way decisions are made. I know that it would be difficult to sell the idea of having our club participate solely under NAMBA rules for our classes at this point, but I think it would certainly be a step in the right direction for many of the clubs that have started running 1:10 scale since it became a sanctioned class in NAMBA and those who will start running it under a set of rules in IMPBA. Right now, there doesn't seem to be a way to "roll the dice" on a motor rule in a way that it can happen quickly without intervention from NAMBA. I really do think it would all work itself out once this first steps are taken and a proposal on specs can be made. Maybe start with 56.5 and see what happens over the next year or two. Would this spec work for outrunner motors too or would they need a spec of their own. May as well make a spec for them at the same time, but I don't have the technical know-how to do that. Darin, you're going to have to help me out on that stuff. Right now, our club is running the Himax motor, that is legal in NAMBA, in a class with the Scorpion HK3226-1600 motor with very competitive results. There are other inexpensive outrunner offerings out there that fall into the same general size too. Outrunner motor size specs seem to fall on the smaller side when compared to comparably performing 6-pole inrunners. It shouldn't be too hard to come up with comparable outrunner specs to go with whatever inrunner specs are proposed. Why not include them and expand the brushless motor options? I guess a proposal needs to come from one of the regions first, right? I was part of the original group who came up with the proposal for the 1:10 scale class specs. Much of it was a compromise, but it was necessary. I think it will be necessary again if we want to continue it's popularity with a national sanction. If not, I'm sure it will continue to flourish under individual club rules. Is there anyone writing up a proposal for their district meeting right now or are we still just in the talking stage? Agreement or not, it's pretty clear that something needs to get proposed if we want to rid ourselves of the motor-list based rule any time soon. We already know what the future looks like with that in place. I'm willing to generate some action from our NAMBA district if you like. Sorry about getting off track on political structures for a while. Must be low blood sugar or something. Happy Holidays everyone. Gonna go work on my 1978 Miss Van's P.X. project. Needs work.

[don ferrette]

The length includes any bearing extrusion.. not excludes it

Ooops, thanks.

[rayzerdesigns]

I agree with what Darin and T.S. are saying. I've read all of the tests and the many threads on this issue over the years. Folks make their own club rules because it's too difficult to get racers to agree on anything. Racers have too many issues around competition and egos to be expected deal with this sort of thing. Folks who just want to go racing and "get the boats on the water" don't have that kind of patience. I know I don't. It's so much easier to make adjustments when you have a smaller group in charge of the decisions. It's insane to think that there is any completely right or wrong decision here, but it seems that the inmates are running the asylum. For the sake of the classes out there, wouldn't we be better served to leave the final decisions up to a governing committee instead? The general membership has identified a problem and at least a general idea on how to address it. Folks were voted in to various NAMBA positions. Can we not leave it up to a group of officials to make an educated decision for a class for the sake of the class itself? Roll the dice and put boats on the water. It sounds like the conservative approach might be a good place to start and stay close to what the class has already. We can live with what is decided or we can ask for adjustments in the future. It will work itself out on the water. I suppose now we'd have to come up with a proposal to change how decisions are made on the national level. Like Darin said, whatever motor decision is made, it's better than any list based rule. They're just too hard to maintain and adjust to on a national level. I have loved racing with the club I'm in for 25 years now. We've only ever raced 1:10 scale. We have three classes with different motor rules for each. The club is still growing in numbers and is still has fantastic racing IMO. We've had ups and downs with rule changes, but the process is what keeps things going. We submit proposals each off season. They get reviewed by a committee of officials who we voted on and trust to put the club's best interest in mind (supported by a set of club bylaws) when making decisions on what makes it to a ballot and what does not. We gave them that authority because once the club got to be larger, the old method of having everyone vote on everything proposed just wasn't working well for the club. I don't know if a nationally sanctioned class can really reach its full potential as far as national events and multi district participation take place without changing the way decisions are made. I know that it would be difficult to sell the idea of having our club participate solely under NAMBA rules for our classes at this point, but I think it would certainly be a step in the right direction for many of the clubs that have started running 1:10 scale since it became a sanctioned class in NAMBA and those who will start running it under a set of rules in IMPBA. Right now, there doesn't seem to be a way to "roll the dice" on a motor rule in a way that it can happen quickly without intervention from NAMBA. I really do think it would all work itself out once this first steps are taken and a proposal on specs can be made. Maybe start with 56.5 and see what happens over the next year or two. Would this spec work for outrunner motors too or would they need a spec of their own. May as well make a spec for them at the same time, but I don't have the technical know-how to do that. Darin, you're going to have to help me out on that stuff. Right now, our club is running the Himax motor, that is legal in NAMBA, in a class with the Scorpion HK3226-1600 motor with very competitive results. There are other inexpensive outrunner offerings out there that fall into the same general size too. Outrunner motor size specs seem to fall on the smaller side when compared to comparably performing 6-pole inrunners. It shouldn't be too hard to come up with comparable outrunner specs to go with whatever inrunner specs are proposed. Why not include them and expand the brushless motor options? I guess a proposal needs to come from one of the regions first, right? I was part of the original group who came up with the proposal for the 1:10 scale class specs. Much of it was a compromise, but it was necessary. I think it will be necessary again if we want to continue it's popularity with a national sanction. If not, I'm sure it will continue to flourish under individual club rules. Is there anyone writing up a proposal for their district meeting right now or are we still just in the talking stage? Agreement or not, it's pretty clear that something needs to get proposed if we want to rid ourselves of the motor-list based rule any time soon. We already know what the future looks like with that in place. I'm willing to generate some action from our NAMBA district if you like. Sorry about getting off track on political structures for a while. Must be low blood sugar or something. Happy Holidays everyone. Gonna go work on my 1978 Miss Van's P.X. project. Needs work.

Mitch the proposal has been sent to namba.. it has to go to secretary and BOD to see if it needs to be re worded.. if not it will be put out to a vote through the whole NAMBA Membership..So it is in the works.. it was voted on in d29 to go straight to national..the proposal was for 37x60 max.. to include any bearing protrusion

[T.S.Davis]

Ray, has anybody addressed 10th scale? They had their own motor list I thought.

[rayzerdesigns]

Ray, has anybody addressed 10th scale? They had their own motor list I thought.

No sur.. not that I know of..

[T.S.Davis]

So NAMBA 10th guys are at least a year away and that's only IF someone gets proactive now. You may need to kick the cage on their behalf Ray.

[don ferrette]

Going to just say this one thing... All of the previously "approved" motors were 6-Pole motors.

Very few, if ANY, of the "possibility" motors out there in the 36mm diameters are 6-Pole. Most are 4 or 2. A 56.5mm 6-Pole is CONSIDERABLY more capable than a similar length 4-Pole, or 2-Pole.

Testing the motors head-to-head on the bench proves this point.

That said, whatever dimensional limits you agree on are better than ANY "motor-list" based rule. Everything will sort itself out from there. The "P-LTD" classes could use a "slow-down" anyhow.

Not disagreeing with anything here but we are facing the current situation of most of those 6 pole motors are now history, do we let the classes die with them?? Of course not!! I said it before and I'll say it again- time to gut check this, set some simple diameter/length limits and roll the dice. Darin is SPOT ON THE MARK saying everything will sort itself out from there, it will and always has. I've been in this game a while now and watched that happen in gas and nitro, this will be no different. There is no magic answer, no golden ring, no silver bullet. There is only one thing guaranteed not to change and that's things will keep changing! Like it or not we in the boating community are but a small slice of the r/c community pie and often simply have to adapt to what's out there. Time to pull the pin and rock!! Bottom line it's all about getting boats on the water boys and girls..............

[Doug Smock]

The "P-LTD" classes could use a "slow-down" anyhow.

You didn't just say this did you? Glad you did.

[785boats]

Here in Australia, at our club, all our restricted classes run the 3656 Proboat, Dynamite, or Aquacraft 1500kv motors. The Aquacraft is no longer available.
But we are also restricted to the 45A Proboat or Aquacraft ESC.
Props are not restricted, but usually end up being the X645 or X447 size, in monos, sports hydros, & riggers.
Maybe a restricted ESC amperage could work as a suitable "slow-down" factor.
Could keep the costs down a bit too.