Motors

Slot Car Motors

This section of the BSCRA web site is for technical information on slot car motors.

The first article is a detailed analysis of the Falcon 7 motor used in the 1/32 Production class and several similar motors.  The analysis was done to assess what alternative motors might be considered.

Motors Used in BSCRA Racing

The motors used in BSCRA racing are 3 pole permanent magnet dc type.

How does that work?    The permanent magnets are either side of the motor, these are fixed to the motor case.  The rotating part (known as the armature) is in between the magnets.    On one side, a north magnetic pole faces the armature, on the other side a south magnetic pole faces the armature.   Coils of wire are wound on the armature.  An electric current is passed through these coils.   The current in each coil is switched so it is attracted and repelled from the magnetic poles as the armature rotates.  The commutator switches the coils at the right time to make the armature rotate.

These days the motors used are 3 pole - that means there are 3 coils of wire on the armature, and 3 segments on the commutator to switch them.    The commutator is cylindrical copper with 3 segments, the current reaches the copper segments through a pair of brushes pressed against it.  These brushes are generally solid pieces of copper carbon, not literally a brush (in the very early days of electric motors the equivalent did look like a brush and the name has stuck).   

This article is about the motors that are used in the great majority of modern slot cars.  However, I’ll briefly mention several other types of motor that could be used in a slot car.   For example 5 pole armatures were sometimes used.  The earliest slotcars had an electromagnet instead of the pair of permanent magnets.  Some decades ago, a single permanent magnet was used with iron pole pieces either side to produce magnetic poles either side of the  armature.  There have been some experiments with fitting modern brushless motors in slot cars.

Motors Approved for BSCRA Racing

Some  BSCRA classes are limited to approved motors, other classes allow  a free choice of motors.   Below is a list of the manufacturers of approved motors.  Click on the link for details of each manufacture's motors.

Note the Super Wasps and Hornets are similar to the group 12 motors except for the armature.

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