What are people using for cruisers in place of Mabuchi R360 RH 6V motors for heavy and light cruisers? They had an unloaded rpm of about 13,000. The supply appears to have dried up a few years ago in North America and the UK. Are R395s comparable in rpm and current draw? I need drive motors for the CL Profintern, CVL Ibuki and spare R360 RHs for HMS Suffolk and SNS Canarias. There's no shortage of R380s for use on bilge pumps but they're too fast for drive motors.
+1 for irnuke. i use a 1700-2300kv motor based on the same design and size. about the diameter of a quarter and made the 3 pound Shimakaze do an 11 second 100' at 100%.
I know everybody's enamored with brushless nowadays but brushed still works great and the controller options are more robust and flexible IMO. Look at the RS380PH series for a smaller lower rpm option Mabuchi RS 380 Motor 12V Great for R C Applications | eBay Mabuchi RS 380PH Hobby Motor 7 2V DC 2000 RPM Great for R C Boat Apps | eBay I used RS520 series pancake motors in my Mogador and their low rpm torquey little bastards but they have leaf brushes which tended to burn out. I'm still looking for a variant with carbon brushes.
I've got two of those powering my St Louis armored (or "armoured" if you're a Brit) cruiser. If I didn't dial down the endpoint, they'd crash-dive the boat in about 10 feet (such a big bow wave it would roll right over the top of the ship)
I've just bought 10 Mabuchi RS360 RH motors (6V, 12,000 rpm) from ebay. Those are what I've used in all my Class 2 and 3 models - it took quite a while to find some for sale. I've used high rpm RS380 SH or Graupner 400 motors for bilge pumps. Looks like the RS 380 PH might be better for small drive motors that the RS360 RH if the rpm is only 2000 at 7.2V. All my models run on 6V. I run small drive motors on direct drive, having tried some gear reduction systems in the past but not finding them significantly better or worth the expense and added complexity and length of the drive train. All of my Class 4 and above models except Espana (RS360s again) have used 6V Mabuchi 540 motors with reduction gears: MFA 2.5:1 belt drives for Courageous (very smooth and quiet), Master Airscrew 3:1 drives for Warspite and 2.5:1 for Hood. The master Airscrew drives have enclosed gear housings so no debris can enter them. Dumas gear drives were tried in my first 3 models (HMS Terror WWI, HMS Terror WII, and Courageous) but were noisy and tended to loosen on the Dumas aluminum mount due to vibration.
