Brushless Truggy and Brakes
 

What brake setup would you guys recommend for bashing and club racing? Mechanical or the brakes the Brushless motor/ESC provide? My CC Monster Mamba 2200kv combo will be here any day now and i am cleaning up my 8ight-t to get ready for the install. I am still up in the air about what to do about the brakes. Thoughts/suggestions?

Well motor brakes are the easiest to setup and use. Some argue it creates more heat tho.

What conversion are you running? Losi? Tekno? RC-M?

electric brakes all the way, less moving parts, less weight, plus regenerative braking gives you a slightly longer runtime even though the diffence can be negated depending on the setup.

With mech brakes, you have to lug around the weight of another servo, the rotating mass of the disks etc.

i am running the Losi electric conversion kit.

Either way works fine.. I run my e-revo w/ motor brakes and both my 8ights w/ mechanical. While the few added oz from the servo and linkage and pads does exist, you will extend the life of the motor by taking off braking duties... you don't get any more run time w/ either setup the .001 seconds is a mute point. If you plan on running w/ the stock losi 8ight chassis w/ a mount then use the motor brakes, if you get the tekno v3 kit go w/ the mechanical brakes.

I dont think that not using motor brakes shortens the life of the motor... with the motor rotation accelerating and decelerating at the same rate- albeit with a different foce everything is subjected to the same forces either way.

That is the point w/ mechanical brakes there are no forces on the motor it moves all force onto the disc brakes you disable the motor brakes in the ESC. Saving work, less stress on the motor and bearings setting it up to last longer, obviously many things can throw a motor though. Mechanical brakes seem to reduce heat by about 5-10 degrees from my experience too (depends on track), again taking that function away from the motor... like I said though it's just not that big of a difference, you'll be happy either way. On another note.. mechanical brakes do allow you to adjust bias so you don't do the classic front flip on a hard brake that you often get w/ setup that has a center diff.

I have motors that could be as old as some of you young RCers here. I still have many of my Aveox's from 1994 and they are still good. I have never used mechanical brakes and have never had a good motor's life get shorten by using it to brake.

Now a mechanical brake is good for setting up brake bias, but that's only for people who got used to driving nitro's. Motor braking is much simpler. Mechanical braking will add weight, more parts to fail and there's always the need to replace the disk and pads which will be often when a brushless is set up at much higher speeds then a nitro.

I think it depends on your goals and usage.

If the goal is a simple setup that has as few parts as possible and/or ease of disassembly, then motor brakes is a no-brainer. No servo, servo mounting, linkages, discs/pads, and wires to worry about. And, fewer parts means fewer points of failure. However, the back-EMF spikes tends to be harder on the ESC and batteries.

If the goal is to achieve maximum tuning, then use mechanical brakes. Gives the ability to change front/rear brake bias. However, there is brake fade, not to mention more wear items.

As far as runtime, I think it's a wash either way, or any difference is neglible. This was discussed TO DEATH in another thread and I don't think it ever went anywhere.

If anything, try it both ways and see which one you prefer. I personally voted for motor braking - not because it is "better", but it fits what I use my vehicles for.

Another thing to think about with mech brakes is that you really need a 3 channel radio with mixing and epa to get the best out of the setup. If you just use a y cable to split the throttle channel the brake servo will be moving the entire time you on throttle, and if you go from full throttle to full brake you will have lag as the servo has to go thru its full travel to apply full brake. If you mix the 3rd channel you can set the epa so that the servo does not move until you go from neutral to brake. This speeds up braking quite a bit. I noticed this with my revo that used mech brakes, and eventually changed to a 3pm radio that would allow for mixing. I have gone back to motor braking for everything now, just do not think mech brakes are necessary for my uses. I will have mech brakes on the baja, but that is due to waning front brakes, and the baja is heavy. Plus I plan to use an air esc as nothing car based is available in 12s (and my budget).

I think I will try both ways. Thanks for all the help i have gotten here. I love you guys! In a MetroSexual kinda way. :P

I'm going to run ESC braking in my Revo. It's going to be my first Conversion and mech brakes would just make it that much more complicated and I would have to worry about more stuff wearing out. I might try mech brakes on a 1/8 Buggy or Truggy if I really get into racing just to see if I would be able to feel any differences and to play around with brake bias.

Yeah, settings linkages are a pain, that and tuning nitro, breaking in the engines, the mess of the fuel, glow ignitors, bump starts etc... im so glad to be moving to brushless, i cant believe that there are nitro guys that still think that nitro is better some how. LOL

Love the mechanical brakes.. Definately takes the stress away from the motor for braking... Plus, I've never used electrical braking in any of my cheap $50 motors and they work fine.... Also takes a lot of stress from the pinion and spur gears as well... my spur and pinions seems to last forever... Motor brakes all the way, I would say.. Another bonus is that you could use cheap air ESCs(what Linc Said)... E-Brakes definately have the weight advantage....

For a heavier vehicle mech brakes will take a beating, and if they are made and setup correctly they will work very well. After seeing how well my lst and muggy stop with motor brakes I can see no real benefit to going mech brakes on vehicle that size. Now on something larger or heavier, or something with big heavy tires i can see mech brakes taking alot of load off the esc and motor.

One other thing, if you go with mech brakes you loose reverse.... Unless you have a mech reverse gear set in the tranny, but those tend to be weak...