Home >> Toys >> Toy Vehicles

Traxxas Brushless Motor Specs

Brushless direct current (BDC) motors are essentially standard electric motors built in reverse. A normal DC motor uses permanent magnets inside the motor case to create a field around part-time electromagnets on the spinning rotor inside. BDCs put the electromagnets on the case and permanent magnets on the rotor to eliminate the wear-prone contacts (brushes) that standard DC motors use to change polarity. In the high-performance radio-controlled vehicle world, this means that the electromagnets can spin to a higher rpm without overloading the brushes or wearing them prematurely.

Velineon 380 Brushless
- The Velineon 380 is the smaller of the two brushless motors that Traxxas makes, and is optimized for use with 1/16th scale vehicles. Like its big brother, the 380 features powerful, sinter-cast chrome-neodymium magnets for massive power output and low-resistance, high-speed ball bearings for efficient power at high rpm without overheating, and is fully
  
  rebuild-able.
  
  The 380's stock stator is an eight-turn unit (referring to the number of times the copper wire wraps around the electromagnets) capable of handling 4,000 kilovolts. According to Traxxas, this motor delivers more power than other brushless motors of comparable size. The 380 turns at a maximum 50,000 rpm, and is capable of producing about 550 watts (about 0.73 horsepower) peak and 246 watts sustained (about 0.38 horsepower) with an 11.1-volt battery pack.
Velineon 3500
- This motor is designed to power larger 1/10th-scale vehicles, and is essentially an up-sized version of the 380, boasting all the same basic specs. The 3500 also comes with a precision-balanced rotor and solder tabs, whereas the 380 does not. The 3500 is roughly twice as powerful as the 380 at peak and almost three times more powerful under sustained use. It's capable of producing 1,100 watts (1.47 horsepower) peak and 726 watts (0.97 horsepower) sustained with an 11.1-volt lithium-polymer battery pack.
Power Systems
- One of the brushless motor's inherent drawbacks is that it requires a speed-controlling computer to change the field polarity; with a brushless, there's no such thing as just giving it power and expecting it to go. As such, you could almost consider the controller as an integral part of the motor itself. Traxxas sells both the 380 and 3500 as packages with its advanced VXL-3M motor controller. The 3M utilizes three different programming maps: sport mode (which uses forward, brake and reverse), race mode (forward and brake only) and training mode (50 percent of forward power, brake and 50 percent of reverse power).
  
  The low-electrical-resistance, water-resistant 3M offer 326 amps of peak output (52 amps continuous), two-stage thermal shutdown to protect against overheating, aluminum-finned heat sinks to shed thermal energy, battery over-voltage protection and Locked Rotor Protection (which cuts power if the vehicle gets stuck of the rotor stops turning). It weighs 38 grams and measures 26.5 millimeters (mm) wide, 46.5 mm long and 22 mm high. The 380/3M package is part number 3370, and the 3500/3M package is part number 3350X.

Toy Vehicles