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[Turbulent]

A bit out of my area this one - Probably one for the race boys.

I've seen a load of cheap ESC for Brushless motors & have a question.

Is there any reason these cannot be used on standard motors. Cheers

[andrewh]

Hi, Turbulent
if by standard motors you mean brushed DC motors - Simple answer is yes, there is a good reason - they can't work at all!

Brushless ESC has 3 output wires and supplies a rotating 3-phase AC sinewave

Standard motor gets DC voltage - a brushed controller has 2 wires and supplies chopped DC.

As you say, brushless ESCs are very cheap and available   But so are BL motors!

andrew

[Turbulent]

Cheers - It's in a sub & I might look at Brushless motors next time - what's the advantages?

[andrewh]

efficiency and size

The amps stay in the batteries, carbon dust is not flung off by the brushes (there aren't any), very little heat put out by the motor. 

also smaller motor (for a given power), smaller batteries, (if that helps)

If you need it awesome power
other than those, not much advantage
andrew

[Subculture]

Another lesser advertised advantage, no commutator means no glitching caused by sparking. Always an advantage in a submarine.

Also brushless motors maintain their performance, unlike brushed motors which degrade over time. The only thing to wear out is the bearings.

The snag for submariners and scale boaters in general is finding brushless motors that operate in the right RPM band. A lot of the German model subamriners are making their own brushless motors, and winding them for a low RPM per volt.

Some of the Castle Creation ESC's can be used with brushed or brushless motors. Robbe do a nice motor in the 'Roxxy' range which is ideal for a larger model sub.

Andy