Essel motor type?

[MRail]

Does anyone know if the motors - MFA Como - used by Essel Eng are brushed or brushless?
Yes, I've asked Stephen, but no answer yet.
The MFA Como website is not much help.

 

[bobg]

Interesting question there Rob.

I know things have moved on a tad since I re-wound my own slot-car motors in nineteen-pancake, but how does a D.C. brushless motor work, does it need some electronics to pulse the polarity, and do you just swap the wires to make it reverse?

Brushless A.C. I understand (ish).

 

[trammayo]

I've just had a peek through the ventilation slots and there are two brushes - look like high copper content carbons.

 

[spike]

Interesting question there Rob.

I know things have moved on a tad since I re-wound my own slot-car motors in nineteen-pancake, but how does a D.C. brushless motor work, does it need some electronics to pulse the polarity, and do you just swap the wires to make it reverse?

Brushless A.C. I understand (ish).

Quite a lot of brushless dc motors are actually permanent magnet AC synchronous motors.
Normally these have a static wound field with a permanent magnet rotor driven by a DC fed
inverter.

 

[Madman]

Interesting question there Rob.

I know things have moved on a tad since I re-wound my own slot-car motors in nineteen-pancake, but how does a D.C. brushless motor work, does it need some electronics to pulse the polarity, and do you just swap the wires to make it reverse?

Brushless A.C. I understand (ish).

Quite a lot of brushless dc motors are actually permanent magnet AC synchronous motors.
Normally these have a static wound field with a permanent magnet rotor driven by a DC fed
inverter.

Ah, er, would you please translate that into English?

 

[spike]

in simple terms
a lot of these motors are not DC at all
Their feed is DC but the inards are AC.

 

[MRail]

Thank you all, so far!
The reason for asking relates to ESC's (Electronic Speed Controllers).
These are usually specified for brushed or brushless motors, and then by the number of turns in the armature windings.
I have a few of these, which work OK with LGB motors, but my Essel chassis (3) don't like them, and keep cutting out. The leads me to wonder about brushes.

 

[bobg]

Interesting question there Rob.

I know things have moved on a tad since I re-wound my own slot-car motors in nineteen-pancake, but how does a D.C. brushless motor work, does it need some electronics to pulse the polarity, and do you just swap the wires to make it reverse?

Brushless A.C. I understand (ish).

Quite a lot of brushless dc motors are actually permanent magnet AC synchronous motors.
Normally these have a static wound field with a permanent magnet rotor driven by a DC fed
inverter.

Cheers Spike, so, much as I suspected, the invertor provides the field fluctuation, and the invertor will also change the field to make it reverse. Sounds complicated just to get rid of a couple of bits of carbon and a couple of springs. :thinking:

 

[Rhinochugger]

[
Sounds complicated just to get rid of a couple of bits of carbon and a couple of springs. :thinking:

Ah, but if you arrive at an answer that involves no moving parts, no friction and no wear ................................:thinking::thinking::thinking:

 

[bobg]

[
Sounds complicated just to get rid of a couple of bits of carbon and a couple of springs. :thinking:

Ah, but if you arrive at an answer that involves no moving parts, no friction and no wear ................................:thinking::thinking::thinking:

Well I could count on the hands of one finger the number brush springs I've worn out............tried to set fire to quite a few, but never actually worn one out

 

[spike]

As Ian points out, these motors do have the advantage of no wearing parts, apart from the bearings. With todays technology it's quite easy to mount the electronics inside the motor.

I have described these motors in a simplistic way but most of them are constructed with a wound armature that is static ie it's really a stator......the rotor is really the static permanent magnet you would see in a normal model dc motor.
Basically they have turned the dc motor inside out, if you get my drift.

The windings of the armature do depart from real armature windings as they are more like single and three phase windings compared to the normally closed loop of a real armature winding.

If you want to see what they are like inside, most computer cooling fans are made this way......get an old one and rip it apart to see the inards.

 

[spike]

Thank you all, so far!
The reason for asking relates to ESC's (Electronic Speed Controllers).
These are usually specified for brushed or brushless motors, and then by the number of turns in the armature windings.
I have a few of these, which work OK with LGB motors, but my Essel chassis (3) don't like them, and keep cutting out. The leads me to wonder about brushes.

Quite a lot of the brushless ECS's will have a three wire output as they feed a three phase winding in the motor.

 

[bobg]

As Ian points out, these motors do have the advantage of no wearing parts, apart from the bearings. With todays technology it's quite easy to mount the electronics inside the motor.

I have described these motors in a simplistic way but most of them are constructed with a wound armature that is static ie it's really a stator......the rotor is really the static permanent magnet you would see in a normal model dc motor.
Basically they have turned the dc motor inside out, if you get my drift.

The windings of the armature do depart from real armature windings as they are more like single and three phase windings compared to the normally closed loop of a real armature winding.

Yes cheers Mike, I'd figured that.

 

[MRail]

Quite a lot of the brushless ECS's will have a three wire output as they feed a three phase winding in the motor.

So, if a motor has only two terminals, it's PROBABLY brushed?

 

[spike]

Quite a lot of the brushless ECS's will have a three wire output as they feed a three phase winding in the motor.

So, if a motor has only two terminals, it's PROBABLY brushed?

I don't know every config of all these types of motor but a normal permanent magnet DC motor will only have 2 inputs, thats + and - to the armature.
You can of course have a brushless with a two wire feed if the electronics are inside the motor.
To give you an idea, a normal brushed motor will have a fairly low resistance but a motor incorporating the electronics will no doubt be a high resistance as you will not be reading the winding resistance.

 

[MRail]

A job for the multi-meter in the morning.

 

[trammayo]

A job for the multi-meter in the morning.

Well this has turned out to be a learning curve for me! In the light of the aforegoing posts, I went into the shed last night to have another look. I have four of the Como motors but only two are the same as that used by Essel.

I'll retract my previous post about the brushes as that motor is a 15v type. The two 24v are installed but I had a look AND cannot say if they have commutators! I just assumed that they would all be the same as the one on my bench.

Even the MFA website doesn't give a clue - but it does only mention a couple of types of brushes (carbon and semi-precious metal). The plot thickens.

So that will teach me to make assumptions!

 

[MRail]

Had a look at my own stock....
An older worm drive 6-15V type, I can see brushes through the slots.
The current bevel geared 12-24V type, has no slots so cannot tell.

Have just heard from Stephen at Essel, he will check for me.

Meantime, have checked resistances as suggested by Spike...
Brushed motor reads 7.2 ohms, the other reads 49.7 ohms.

 

[spike]

Had a look at my own stock....
An older worm drive 6-15V type, I can see brushes through the slots.
The current bevel geared 12-24V type, has no slots so cannot tell.

Meantime, have checked resistances as suggested by Spike...
Brushed motor reads 7.2 ohms, the other reads 49.7 ohms.

7.2 ohms for the brushed motor sounds good to me.
49.7ohms could be ok, depends on the construction, voltage, speed and output power.
A very dirty commutator could give a higher reading for instance.
If any electronics were invovled I would think you would see hundreds of ohms at least.

 

[MRail]

Thanks for input, Spike.
The motor with the higher reading is barely run-in, waiting for a project to use it.
It's obviously not in the hundreds of ohms ball park.