Castle Holdings LLC -- our motor production facility
 

Just wanted everyone to know...

Castle Creations owns the factory in China that manufactures our motors. Castle Holdings LLC (China) is a WOFE (a wholly owned foreign enterprise) in Zhongshan China.

Our motors are not sold under other brand names EXCEPT for HPI and Traxxas brands.

Leopard Motors (a Shenzhen company) is not a supplier for Castle Creations. They are a copier of Castle Creations. They copy our motors, "cheapen" them (using inferior materials) and then claim that they are the "same" motors.

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...t/IMG_0113.jpg

Quick google and it looks like some rumours that they were the same orginated from a UK forum.

Personally wouldn't make sense for you to do this and have parrallel distribution...

And you may want to mention that CC's motors are licensed from Steve Neu's design. So these clones are not only robbing CC, they are robbing Neu as well.

You guys should put something up on your website that explains why CC motors are better than these cheap clones. It may not sway people from buying the cheap stuff, but would at least explain/justify why CC's motor prices are higher than the cloned crap.

Yep, that's true -- we pay a royalty to Steve Neu to use his designs (and his name!!)

You said it all right there.

Cloned Crap!!

no matter if cloned or not I don't like crap

Most cases.
 

As in most cases there is nothing like the real thing. Nothing comes close. Its amazing just how much stuff is copied by the Chinese, and if you look close enough about 75% of products sold in the USA today have some kind of sticker on them (made in china) and we try our best to steer clear of them. Just keep doing what you are doing CC and everything will turn out alright. Karma.

Name & shame the forum(s) please, Imma go flame me some noobs.. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...s/indiffno.gif

Coincidently, I had to deal with some nice Scottish fellow who was under the impression that Leopard motors were made in the same factory as CastleNeu motors- quite an aggressive fellow he was too ( traxxas forum-ite ).

Its funny (and sad) how stuff like that can get started on a forum. I can name a few forums where individuals believe HPI makes all the clones of the baja and has a parrallel distribution thing going on too. Some people make no sense

I didn't know Leopard motors were copies of CC motors.

I just bought a Leopard for my 1/5th, hopefully it will last me until the Castle Mamba XL & Motor is released :D

I have to give CC some major credit for making their motor line. Their stuff seems to be just as good as the true nue and quite a bit cheaper, especially considering the royalty costs. Keep it up. All we need now are some good 4x4 5th scale platforms and a good 10-12s esc... I know they are coming (at least the esc!!!)

:lol:



What about TopPower motors?
Same s... different colour?

http://www.gfreakracing.com/collections/motors

http://model-hobbies.com/5692+Toppow...-730KV%29-255/

http://model-hobbies.com/ProductPict...V)-255-500.jpg

Never heard of them
 

I personally have never heard of them, but they look like Neu clones as well. God can't these people come up with an original design and make their own crap? Is this the best people can do, copying everyone else's stuff trying to cash in on their designs? What a bunch of A$$holes.

Actually i got one of these...didnt know it was a copy cat when i bought one..

http://toyabipro.com/product_337.html

O well I've learned from buying Chinese crap.
Wasting a lot of Dollars for nothing.
For me: no clones and Chinese RC crap.

Sucks when someone copies your hard work but that's also how you know that you have a great product. No one is going to try and copy the shitest motor out there. Every copycat is going to be copying the good motors.:yes:

Nothing in this post is to be negative towards Castle, as their products are fantastic quality, and you can't go past their A/M service.

But you said Leopard Copied/Cloned your motors?

How is this so? I have a Leopard 5692 1340kv sitting here. ( The visual build quality is excellent - I'm yet to run it though. )

Castle doesn't produce a motor of this size (This motor has been around for awhile) and nothing close to it. So there is some obvious R&D being done with these Leopard motors and not blatant copying, as you guys have suggested.

I'd lean more towards them being Castle influenced

Just my 0.2c.

Welcome to rcm
 

First off welcome to RCM from the land down under. If you are in search of factual and honest info about our R/C hobby, then you have come to the right place. Not only do we have the pleasure of sharing info with some of the brightest and most experienced minds in the business, but also some of the top manufacturers as well stop in here and share their info with us as well.

With that said I am not sure why you would come here to defend the Leopard brand, but if you place their motors side by side with some of the CC motors it is painfully obvious that someone is cloning someone. CC has not only shared info with us about how their motors are made, but also where, and by who they are manufactured. There is nothing stopping Leopard or any of the other companies for that matter from stopping in on these R/C sites to share info with us (the consumers) in the hopes of supporting their products. Thats just good business sense. Of course this is a USA site and we support USA companies so there is a slight lean in the direction of American companies. Especially when they have one of the best customer support serivce oriented warranties in our hobby. Since Leopard does not visit with us here to share info for or against their motors any arguement on their behalf is somewhat mute. All are welcome here to share info or discuss anything R/C related, and we welcome facts on any discussion supporting claims. I hope you enjoy your time in here as many of us do. Have a great time and enjoy the hobby.

To begin with some facts, the leopard 5mm motors have smaller bearing than the Castle one, 5*4*13mm vs 5*6*16mm (I think)....
Just my small statement :lol:

Exactly.
 

Exactly. This is how companies avoid breaking copyright laws. All one has to do is change a couple small items like bearing size, and screw sizes, or screw mounting patterns, and no one can complain or file sute against them.

Make that heavily influenced- up until Castle released their 1515 there were pretty much zero other 4 pole motors to be had, besides Neu & Medusa- and both of those are American designed/ made motors too. Changing the length and diameter of a motor to acheive a desired power output and kv rating isnt that difficult, Castle did all the ground work as it were & the clone factories came along and exploited it, just like all the proper 1/8 scale escs from China that came along after the MMM and Tekin Rx8 were released...

A friend has a Leopard motor in his Hyper7 and Revo. I have to say that do perform very good. Temps are similar and power seems to be on par with Castle. Where I see a problem with the Leopard motors is what are you going to do if your motor craps it self? You will just have to buy another. What are you going to do if there is something wrong with the motor right from the box? You might be luck and the seller you bought it from will look after you but every chance they will tell you to go away.
If you buy Castle you get more than good quality product. You get support as well. Look at what the guys from Castle (and even the man him self Patrick) are doing here. Answering questions, offering advice and really looking after their brand and company image. That goes a long way in my books.

Still I have to confess. I do have a few Hobbywing ESC but they were cheap for my cheap cars and I know that they will go straight into the bin if anything goes wrong with them. My Castle gear is in my better cars and I know if anything happens to it Castle will be there to get me going again. If I was offered a Leopard motor for $30 I might take it but they go for around the $100 mark. I am not a gambling man and that isn't chump change to me.

As far as cloning goes I doubt that they didn't go over the Castle motor with a magnifying glass and a micron gauge. They are just way too similar to believe other ways.

IMO, the castle motor are better for the long term and intense use (more than 1 hour a day) because of their bigger bearings. Leopard and hobbywing motors use the same bearing brand (NMB), but the bearings are smaller.
So, correct me if I am wrong, but for the same quality, the bigger the bearing is and the longer it can hold. That's why Castle upgraded the NEU Motors bearings no ?
Anyway, if one day I have a bearing or rotor failure, I know I can replace it with the Castle repair kit.
All this reasons concern purely the reliability of the motor, but there is the support team too...

The Chinese people that build the CC motors I am sure care about making a quality product.Its kinda a rude statement to say that the same Chinese people build the Leopard motor dont give a shit and build a crappy product.I use the MMM and the MMP in my cars and a large selection of CC motors and have a few Leopard motors as well.As far as I can tell the Hobbywing line has used these same Leopard motors for a while.And ofcourse CC has great customer service 2nd to no one.And BTW China is still Communist.

i fell into the leopard trap... and for that, i am truely sorry...

Purchased this: http://www.rc-fans88.com/details.asp?prodid=2472

purely casue i thought i wasz gettign castle quality at pocket money prices...

4 pole's? good... kv perfect for crt.5? great!

or so i thought....

ran for the first time this weekend, geared for 40mph on 3s, (as its rated to 4s i thought, should run cool!)

Bring it in after a few minutes... notice a small amount of smoke comming from the front of it (using it with my mmp btw) so i thought nothing of it, just a bit of grass stuck in it, its working fine and not very hot (45*C)

stripped it down today to find a lovely 2 pole rotor....

yup... sold a crapper... no better than what i was running before... total waste of money....


will be preforming a charge back TODAY as it is a pos, not as described and unfit for purpose....

Scammers....

Now, I'm Castle creations for life... Strayed from the path to be brought back on with a bang... and a whisp of smoke...

just need to find a 4 pole 540 can 3500kv ish motor now ;)

thanks for all the work, reasearch and customer service that goes into all your products.

Just need to get the next batch of mmm's into england asap! got two on warranty return and the distributer is currently out of stock!

Joe --

The 3800Kv SCT motor is probably what you are looking for. :)

It's a 4 pole 540 can motor.

How can you tell it is a 2 pole?sorry dumb question

2 pole rotor is all one piece, just one large magnet bonded to the shaft, 4 poles are separated into 4 sections, usually wrapped in Kevlar or carbon

as far as i know?

Yup- you could do the piece of paper & iron filings trick too, just to be certain..

Sorry for offtopic guys... here i found this 6 pole 2560kv motor
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=14632

Specs:
Size: 40-68
Kv: 2560
Poles: 6
Max Amps: 120A
Max Volts: 21v
Max Watts: 2200w
Idle Current: 5.0A
Resistance (Ri): 5.8
Shaft size: 5mm

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s.../4068-2560.jpg
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...068-2560-2.jpg

And it probably will perform pretty poorly. 5.0A no load, and 5.8milliohms resistance? Terrible...

Methinks that CC could produce a short paper about motor specs and enlighten the rest of the unwashed masses about what to look for and what the various specs mean.

But then their "competitors" would know what to do... :) Of course knowing what to do and being able to do it are two different things.

It's actually pretty simple:

The no-load current tells you the approximate magnetic efficiency of the motor. Lower is better.

The steel for laminations comes in many varieties. Most of the cheap motors use either .35mm or .5mm laminations. The thinner laminations are more efficient. The cost for the steel goes up significantly with thinner steel (because it needs a LOT more processing to make thinner steels.)

The other variable in steel is the amount of silicon (sand) that they add to the steel. The silicon increases the electrical resistance of the steel, increasing the magnetic efficiency by lowering electrical losses (you want the steel to be good at conducting magnetism, but poor at conducting electricity.) The higher the silicon content, the more brittle the steel and the longer it takes to process (and therefore, the more expensive it is.)

So, the cheap steels are thick with a low silicon content, and the expensive steels are thin with a high silicon content.

We use .2mm thick, high silicon content steel. Most of our competitor use .35mm or .5mm low silicon content steel. The .2mm high silicon steel is about four to five times more expensive than .35mm high silicon steel, and about ten times more expensive than .5mm low silicon steel.

But the difference is large: A 1415-2400Kv motor from Castle has a no-load current of about 2.4A.

To figure the magnetic losses, you multiply the no-load current by the battery voltage.

So, for example:

Hobbyking motor: 5A * 24V = 120 watts of magnetic loss
Castle 1415-2400Kv motor: 2.4A * 24V = 57.6 watts of magnetic loss

--------------------------------------

The second type of loss is resistive loss. This is the loss caused by the current flowing through the copper.

The Hobbyking motor lists a 5.8 milliohm resistance. The Castle 1415-2400kV motor has a resistance of 4.2 milliohms.

The formula for resistive losses is (Current in amps) ^2 * resistance (amps squared times resistance)

So, at 125 Amps (the "rating" from the hobbyking motor) the losses would be:

Hobbyking motor: (125)^2 * .0058 (ohms) = ~90 watts
Castle 1415-2400: (125)^2 * .0042 (ohms) = ~65 watts

---------------------------

These two types of loss (magnetic and resistive) add up in the motor, and get turned into heat.

So to make a good motor, you need both low resistance (for low copper losses) and low no-load current (for low magnetic losses.)

To compare the two motors:

Losses at 24V battery voltage, 120A current:

HobbyKing motor: 90 watts (resistive) + 120 watts (magnetic) = 210 watts of loss
Castle 1415-2400Kv: 65 watts (resistive) + 58 watts (magnetic) = 123 watts of loss

Because the "loss" watts ALL TURN INTO HEAT, the Castle motor will run much cooler in the same setup -- it's efficiency is much higher.

It all comes down to this: It's expensive to make a good quality motor. And, you get what you pay for.

I'm sure they know what to do, but being willing to do it is another story -- like I said, it's expensive to make a good quality motor. And if you are competing for market on price alone, then quality is the easiest thing to sacrifice. :whip:

Yes, thats true too.

Great info Patrick! I added this to the "technical explanations" sticky...

Great information
 

Thanks Patrick that is some great information. That is the first time someone tried to explain efficiancy losses in a way that makes perfect sense to me. It helps a lot knowing this when considering what motor to buy and who to buy them from. Now I understand why certain motors get so hot on a regular basis and are cosidered to be a bad buy. You should share more stuff like this with us, because it equates to better sales as people truly understand what the differences are. I mean its obvious to some of us who have been at this for a while, but for the newbs who have no idea this is an easy way for them to learn. Thank you Sir, and keep up the good work. GO CC.

Thank you Patrick. I've pondered some of these variables, back when I was experimenting with rewinding outrunner motors. John Rob and I were playing around with some ideas at the time.

I wonder why the thinner laminations work so much better at conducting magnetism? I'm sure it has alot to do with, the core of the lamination isn't what does the work since the magnetism follows surface area. The greater number of laminations in the same amount of space equals more surface area, thus conducting more magnetism overall.

I was glad to see that you chose a comparable kv rating for no load current. Kv does directly affect no load current, correct?

Resistive losses change from one motor wind to the next. I'm sure this is why a 1 or 2 turn motor has less overall resistence.

I know this isn't practical, but for the sake of efficiency, wouldn't a motor wound with silver wire work better than copper?

Overall resistence is also based on how good of a conductor, the wind wire is.

Guys, I have a feeling what Patrick posted here is "in a nutshell". I'm sure there's ALOT more to "the big picture".

Yes very understandable.Thanks Pdel.

I believe it has to do with eddy currents. Smaller laminations means smaller eddy currents. Think of them as "magnetic resistance", and like resistors, more flow (magnetic flux in this case) across that "resistance" creates heat (loss).