Hi Guys,

so I need to pick peoples brains here. I ran my new L70 around at our last tank day with mixed results. One of the evident things I need is motors with more torque. I am running Asiatam gearboxes with the standard motors which I am going to guess by performance are 280's or something like that. Now when I gutted the Mk. IV I used for the bottom hul it was running 380's and had lots of power and torque so probably looking for that or 400's.
Here is the issue, the stock motors are quite short. I am guesstimating around 34-35mm from the mounting plate to the back shaft mount. Unfortunately the Waltersons 400's I have, and any other stock motor I have and look at are longer. Since I am using Asiatam the motors are side by side so I can't fit anything in that is longer. So, I know there are motorheads on here, anybody got any suggestions???

Help much appreciated!

Oh yes, and it would be nice if someone explained what does 280, 380, 400, 480, etc... stand for? how many amps doe we need? What does the KV rating mean? Strato, your up!

KV is a brushless thing, basically it's a number that denotes unloaded RPM at a given voltage, and nearly directly also translates into torque (low KV-higher torque, less rpm). We don't need KV ratings.

The 380, 400 etc series is a bit of an unscientific labeling system... Curtis can chip in here but you'll see different rated motors called 380, 400, 480... depends how they are marketed. Generally a 280-480 will FIT our tank gearboxes, once you enter 500 range the motor shaft changes diameter as do the position of the mounting nut-plates on the motor itself. Our shafts *COUGH* are 2.3mm

I can't tell you off the top of my head what your best motor choice will be, but my first idea is to give Dom @ rctank.de an email as he's really a clever tank guy and knows a LOT of about different gearbox / motor combinations in different hulls. 

The Tower motors I love to preach about (I swear I don't get royalties.. .yet... ) are as follows: Length: 44mm can 13mm shaft, a tiny smidge smaller than most stock HL cans.

Dom @ rctank.de is great. My new best friend. He is on vacation in Egypt until the 22nd. Don't ask how I know that.........

Strato, where do you get your "Tower" motors ? Does the gearbox set you sold me has them ? 

MikeC.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXJSS5

Mike they're not the same but I think they were upgraded by the late Phil

These look cool.

http://www.robotmarketplace.com/products/0-SPDT280.html

I actually discovered the motors I use through that website, lots of useful info and specs.

Unfortunately regular cans are too long by about 2 or 3 mm. Here is a pic of the set up with the motors that came with the gear boxes. These are about 34-35 mm long so you can see not a lot of space in between!

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The 280s on robot marketplace are 30mm and are fairly high in the RPM range at  18,900rpm @ 7.2V... still not knowing what your stock motors are, they might be the same.

Thanks for the input guys. I found this about brushless motors:
Brushless motors are rated by either a number of turns or a 'KV' rating. 'KV' basically stands for rpm/volt, eg. A 2000KV brushless motor when running a 7.2V battery would theoretically give (2000 x 7.2) = 14400rpm
The lower the number of turns, the more powerful the motor
The higher the KV rating, the more powerful the motor

280, 380, 400 and 480 are ratings based on size of the motor.
Dean if you go to a brushless motor you will need to do some homework. They may fit lengthwise but the diameter of the motor will change. You may also need to have a new power source as some brushless don't run well on Nimh batteries.
What ever you do I do not suggest you run your Clark board on  LIPO battery.

Want to learn about Motors  Go Here http://www.mabuchi-motor.co.jp/en_US/technic/index.html