TOPIC:

Is there a quick cheat sheet/chart/etc. to the differences between all the 540 motors?

What motor came on what car (which is actually already in the database...so no response needed)?
What is the difference between mabuchi/tamiya/other brands...?
What is the difference between the Sport Tuned/Torque Tuned/SH/other tuned?
Understanding what all the different T-gears mean (torque vs. top end).
Help understanding all the different /end caps/etc...
Are any 540's brushless? Is there such a thing?

Seems like there many variations...I just want be educated when doing my homework for purchases/used cars.

Thank You Forum for explaining 540's to this neubee!!!!!!

grandall400 wrote:

Is there a quick cheat sheet/chart/etc. to the differences between all the 540 motors?

What motor came on what car (which is actually already in the database...so no response needed)?
What is the difference between mabuchi/tamiya/other brands...?
What is the difference between the Sport Tuned/Torque Tuned/SH/other tuned?
Understanding what all the different T-gears mean (torque vs. top end).
Help understanding all the different /end caps/etc...
Are any 540's brushless? Is there such a thing?

Seems like there many variations...I just want be educated when doing my homework for purchases/used cars.

Thank You Forum for explaining 540's to this neubee!!!!!!

That's a big can of worms ...

Database (as you've found) does say where something exotic was fitted, but in most cases it's "Mabuchi RS-540", meaning a 27 turn "silvercan" ... and those do change over time. There was a thread about the various standard motors a while back, but the ratio of interest to complexity meant it never got sufficient interest to get completed. Very broadly speaking:
Early vintage - Black plastic endbell
late vintage - white/"natural" plastic
very late "vintage"/early re-re - black metal endbell
most re-re/current - silver/"natural" metal endbell

For silvercan motors, I don't think there's very much between Mabuchi and Johnson, other motors made to the same spec can be worse or a little better than each other. For other motors, the Tamiya "Sport Tuned" motor (27 turns with advanced timing, equivalent to a 23 turn motor with neutral timing) is hard to beat on cost/performance increase, even if it they haven't done much to earn the higher price tag. Other Tamiya motors, though well made, seem expensive to me and in my experience have lastlustre performance. Too many other manufactures to list compare TBH.

Gear ratio - looking at the overall figure, higher numbers (say 8:1, picking a number for example) will probably mean high top speed, but not great on acceleration. 10:1 with everything else the same might mean a balance between speed/acceleration, and 12:1 lower top speed, but gets there very quickly (most tamiya kits will give you the figures/options). That's with a "silvercan" motor - use a more powerful motor & you generally need to gear down, otherwise the motor will probably bog down & get to spin fast, and draw a lot of current/produce heat in the meantime. Using those same example figures, the sport tuned you'd use the 10:1 setup, for something a bit faster, gear down (smaller number of teeth on the pinion) to 12:1. For silly fast brushless motors (not all are by any means), you might (probably) not have an option lower enough.

End caps - brushed motors are broadly speaking, fixed end cap ("Silvercan", Tamiya Sport Tuned - not rebuildable, fixed timing), open endbell (Tamiya Technigold for example) - in which case they case they are nominally rebuildable & have the possibility of altering the timing (advance - more power but more current used, retard - less power, less current ... although that also depends on which direction the motor is spinning in...).


Brushless 540 ... yes and no, RS-540 spec means specific dimensions & I suppose the presence of brushes & magnets is implied if not an actual fixed requirement of the spec.. in fact I'm going to say "no" as RS-540 implies that it has two power connectors/points & will run on a specific amount of DC voltage, whereas a brushless motor has at least 3 connection points (and more if it's a "sensored" motor) and need a suitable electronic speed control to run.

However there are 540 sized brushless motors that will fit in place of the basic silvercan. TBH I haven't really kept up with what it takes to go very fast as my recent projets have all been much slower ... some fundamentals though, suitable brushless motors will usually be sold as "1:10" or "540" size, compare dimensions if not & especially look out for the output shaft size - IIRC "540" motors are 3.2mm (?), smaller/bigger motors can/will be different & are to be avoided. Motors are usally specced in terms of "kV" - how many thousand rpm they will give per volt applied, i.e "1500kV" on 7.2v nominal = 10,800 rpm, or 5000 kV on 7.2v = 36,000rpm. And/or T, e.g. 21.5T, 9T 5.5T etc..., this is not directly equivalent to turns on a brushless motor, I forget the ratio (20% less?) but basically a brushless "T" is slower than a brushed motor of the same apparent number of turns. For instance this motor (hobbyking.com/e...tore=en_us) you'd probably get away with on a road going car (with tamiya's current default ESC).

Another thing to look for is whether the T is a half number (e.g. 5.5T) as that means it's a 540 size rotor in a 540 size case - or a whole number (e.g. 23T) which means its a 380 size rotor in a 540 size case (so a lot less torque) - this can be a good thing in old/light cars.


So no, there isn't a quick answer

Fantastic answer, as always, Jonny!

540 motors also have 25mm between bolt holes, smaller motors have smaller distance, bigger motors have bigger spacing.

550 motors is basicly a longer 540 motor with more torque out of the box.


Regarding brushless.
Take the reclamed 540 size with some sceptic.

As a 3650 is a 360 motor in a 540 size can, and at most times they led to failure after a while because the 360 can't handle the work needed for a 1:10 size vehicle.
Stay away for those motors that says 3650, or have large cooling finns, that's a good indicator it has a 360 rotor inside.
Brushless is a bit of minefield, there is so many variants regarding size of motor (usually a 4 digit number), intended voltage usage and KV rating.

A modern buggy can handle 4500-5500kv on 2s (2s means two cells in series, giving 7.4 volts), but that power my be too much in a vintage vehicle due the weakness in design and age.

But if you find the spec of an brushed motor, and it says 25mm bolt pattern, it is either a 480, 540 or a 550 motor.
Safe to say they will fit most vehicles, but due the length of the 550, it may be too long on some, touching tires etc.

I see I'm a bit late to the party but this thread isn't that old so I figured I could still reply. I was asking myself the same question about motors not all that long ago and didn't have anyone to ask at the time so I put together the attached chart based on my own research. This shows the Tamiya branded 540 size motors over the years. I've separated them into brushed and brushless and then sorted them by number of turns. I've also indicated whether or not they are rebuidlable (open endbell) and whether they are out of production. I can't claim this is 100% accurate, but it has really helped me in figuring out which motor is which and how they relate.



One question that is harder to answer is the relationship between the Super Stock TZ, RZ, and BZ. They all have the same specs so I'm not entirely sure what the difference is.

For brushless I've used the TBLM-02s at 10.5T in a couple of models and really like it. It is not any better than other brand brushless motors, but sometimes it is nice to go with all Tamiya and you can run it off the standard TBLE-02s ESC if you don't push it too hard. I've got one in my TB-04 LaFerrari and a pair of them in my TXT-2.

Great info, blakbird!
Based on that I found one error in my own Tamiya Motor DataBase: tamiyabase.com/parts/motors
I have had 54358 Torque Tuned listed as 27T. It really is 25T, as in your list.

Source for the Sport Tuned being 23T? I ask because if you've got some official, printed word (rather than the repeated incorrect information found on the internet - including places that should know better - that they're 23T, or there are two versions) then fair enough - but if not, as far as I'm concerned, they're still 27T with advanced timing

On tamiya usa website, the sport tuned is a 23T

stingray-63 wrote:

On tamiya usa website, the sport tuned is a 23T

... and IMO they're wrong/just echoing wrong information from elsewhere. Filed under "should know better".

Jonny wrote:

Source for the Sport Tuned being 23T? I ask because if you've got some official, printed word (rather than the repeated incorrect information found on the internet - including places that should know better - that they're 23T, or there are two versions) then fair enough - but if not, as far as I'm concerned, they're still 27T with advanced timing

The primary source of my information was the Tamiya website which I assumed was authoritative. Perhaps they list it that way as an indication of the speed rather than a true physical characteristic. If it really does have advanced timing then it should only be run one direction and really should come with a warning of such. I guess we'll have to tear one open and count the winds!