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by rec-models-rc-land on July 18th, 2003

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What are the parts of a motor, and how does it work?

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  • by rec-models-rc-land on July 18th, 2003

    rec-models-rc-land

    Electric motors EXTREMELY simplified: An electric motor has basically two parts: a 'can' and an 'armature'. In reality it has a whole bunch of other parts, but those are important mostly to hold everything together. The can is what you see on the outside; it is made of two (sometimes more) magnets. The armature is on the inside; you can usually see it if you look through the went holes in the can or if you take the motor apart. It is made of some magnetic substance like iron and has wire
    wrapped around it; this makes it an 'induction coil'. When electricity is run through the wire, it creates a magnetic field. This electro-magnetic field is opposite to the magnetic field provided by the permanent magnets; the two repel each other, and the armature rotates.

    As a user, you are generally concerned about how fast the armature spins when a given voltage is applied to it, and how well it can retain those revolutions when a load is applied to it. The first is normally given by the manufacturer in 'RPM' (rotations per minute), and the second is referred to as 'torque'. Two motors (even the same make and model) can have wildly different values. Therefore motor specs have been generalized in terms of 'turns' and 'winds'. Turns is the number of times a wire is wrapped around the armature; winds is the number of strands the wire has. For example, you will see motors specified as "17T2"; this means the wire is wrapped seventeen times around the armature, and the wire is made of two strands. Assuming that everything else on the car is kept the same lower number of turns translates to higher RPM. Winds deal with torque. In simplest terms, a single wind will give you generally more punch and a higher wind will give a progressively smoother pickup and a bit more top speed. Both winds and turns also affect run time - higher number of turns and single wind will give you more run time. Note that RPM does not always translate directly to speed! There are other factors, plus a better driver will always beat out a faster motor with an unskilled driver.

    In R/C car racing motors come in two categories: 'stock' and 'modified'. If you enter into a stock race, you will need to do it with a stock motor. The idea of stock races is that all the motors will perform the same, so the winner of the race is determined by: 1) the skill of the driver, and 2) the setup of his car. This is not necessarily always true, but that is the idea anyway. Modified motors come in wide range of winds and turns, and are usually made so they can be rebuilt and therefore are modifiable. They are generally (but not always) higher performance motors as compared to the stock.

    Significantly more detailed information can be found at Tom's R/C Page
    <http://www.csc.uvic.ca/~tyounger/hafh/rc/ >.

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