Paragon brushless motor (new best brushless?)

[Pseudotectonic]

Looks like a US vendor just released their own brushless and it has some interesting features:

(link to product page)

• "3 ms startup (vs 12 ms for t238 / 20 ms for Warheads)"
  
• 33k RPM with PWM adjustment to <50% (with a "dial")
  
• O type shaft for "concentricity"
  
• 9.65 mm dia motor tower
  
• 4 EZO bearings
  
• N45SH magnets
  
• "Parallel windings 0.3 mm x 8 x 6" (I am not going to pretend I know what this means)
  
• Low voltage, overvoltage, overcurrent, overheat protections (unknown numbers)
  

First thought is it looks promising because it ticks many boxes for me especially the 3 ms start up vs 10+ from other brands which is actually quite impressive, because a 7 ms difference out of a "good" 50 ms trigger response is a rather noticeable 15% and as you approach 40 to 30 ms (top percent levels of trigger response) those 7 ms will make the difference between great and sublime. The 33k is perhaps a good balance of speed and torque. Thick motor tower is a good sign that they have done their homework and care about details.

Looks to me this might become a very good brushless if their numbers are real, the only thing is they only ship from the US with a rather hefty price tag (similar to a Warhead Black as of writing) plus unknown shipping costs.

Anyone wanna try it? ??

 

[Lozart]

NO!

XT brushless am bestest brushless!

 

[ak2m4]

NO!

XT brushless am bestest brushless!

haha thanks, theirs are pretty good from the specs I've seen but £50 more for the product and then £31 for shipping (then add on the tax).  I'd like to order one up and try it out but the cost is crippling. 

 

[Fatboy40]

Something interesting is that bargain basement Chinese motor manufacturer Chaoli is also now selling brushless motors.

Maybe this is one for @ak2m4 but I'm assuming, like a lot of electronics, there may only be a few genuine manufacturers of brushless motors and a lot of what we see is from the same sources with different branding applied? (the products from many vendors look identical, just with different colour anodising / logo's applied).

 

[Sewdhull]

The cost of getting a motor, any motor from good to great is really high as the differences tend to be small once you have for example moved to Neodymium magnets.

The start up delay comes down to the board driving the  coils and sensing the position of everything, and honestly you aren't going to notice it unless you go measuring it. 7ms will be noticed by no one. Even 13ms. Your reaction time is about 250ms, if a semi shot takes 7 or 13ms longer to happen what is the effect and it's only relevant comparing brushless to brushless. That's if the experiment I saw can even be understood and is accurate.

I would ignore this factor.

Parallel windings are a way of getting more copper into the coils as thinner wires will sit more densely than a single wire of the same cross sectional area when they are all bundled together. It's harder to wind them so it costs more.

Each winding is made up of 8 parallel conductors each .3mm ( squared I presume) and there are 6 windings. 2 for each pole. The magnets on the rotor will have 4 poles so they don't line up with the 6 poles of the stator and stall the motor.

Magnet strength (the number in N45SH) is affected by temperature they get stronger when cooled below 20C and weaker as they get above 20C but the letters after the number tell you the temperature rating  which changes because the manufacturer stabilises them for temperature to preserve their magnetic properties.

No letter and its 60C, SH is 150C again letters cost money.

It is still better to select a motor of the right speed and torque for your application. The problem with PWM is that the torque drops so the speed does which may not be a problem, but proper gearing or motor winding would be preferable. It's also less efficient. It's an added feature which may or may not be useful.     

I used brushless motors extensively with drones and the software in the esc was really important to good performance and was adjustable, I think it's less important in Airsoft as they are single speed motors so the software can be simple.                

 

[Rogerborg]

£50 more for the product and then £31 for shipping (then add on the tax).

And then the support, or lack thereof.

Something interesting is that bargain basement Chinese motor manufacturer Chaoli is also now selling brushless motors.

£100+ on AliExpress after VAT.

Compared to £71 for an XT from a UK seller and all-round good chap.

 

[Fatboy40]

£100+ on AliExpress after VAT.

Compared to £71 for an XT from a UK seller and all-round good chap.

Maybe I should have said that what I meant was every man and his dog is now selling brushless motors, even the traditionally cheapo Chinese manufacturers. They can't all have production lines and tooling setup to make them, unless some are drastically cutting corners (which looking at the Chaoli PCB is a possibility).

 

[Pseudotectonic]

I guess it's just maybe a handful of OEMs producing all the brands...

Is Chaoli bad? They look like an they are an OEM...

https://en.chaolimotor.com/products_details/196.html

https://en.chaolimotor.com/products_details/163.html

--

Just noticed on Chaoli's page they wrote they have 2 ms start up ("0.002 s"), could they actually be the OEM for Paragon?

 

[Lozart]

Maybe I should have said that what I meant was every man and his dog is now selling brushless motors, even the traditionally cheapo Chinese manufacturers. They can't all have production lines and tooling setup to make them, unless some are drastically cutting corners (which looking at the Chaoli PCB is a possibility).

You're right, there is a limited number of OEMs but much like the screen analogy used earlier, the difference lies in what goes around the basic guts of the motor. Be that the quality of the bearings/magnets/copper or the firmware in the ESC there will be a difference based on the market cost of the items. Do I think that Warhead motors are overpriced? A bit. But they were the first to market with a well made product and responsiveness to customer feedback. They went down well with the early adopter crowd and what we are seeing here is the upshot of the market reacting to that. The OEMs knocking out cheaper versions of the same basic components just with varying levels of sophistication added on by the "brand".

 

[Fatboy40]

Do I think that Warhead motors are overpriced? A bit. But they were the first to market with a well made product and responsiveness to customer feedback. They went down well with the early adopter crowd and what we are seeing here is the upshot of the market reacting to that.

I've tried to resist buying a Warhead specific motor, but I've a feeling that their firmware is somewhat more advanced than some other vendors and it's designed to play better with controllers / ETU's (it would be a Base, plus I want to compare its behaviour against the ak2m4 one when used with a Double Eagle Falcon controller). 

 

[ak2m4]

Something interesting is that bargain basement Chinese motor manufacturer Chaoli is also now selling brushless motors.

Maybe this is one for @ak2m4 but I'm assuming, like a lot of electronics, there may only be a few genuine manufacturers of brushless motors and a lot of what we see is from the same sources with different branding applied? (the products from many vendors look identical, just with different colour anodising / logo's applied).

Yep, and makes sense due to the high tooling costs. 

A few years ago I wanted a Chinese motor factory to make me a motor similar to the Taiwanese / ASG versions that were out.  This required all new tooling etc and I was quoted around $100,000.

In regards to the Paragon motor, I didn't even think about startup speed or parallel winding (again whatever that may be).  I did however think about the motor shaft thickness and CNC pinion gear (samples are on their way now)

For EZO bearings these I decided against as it would have added an extra £10 onto the price and the ones I use are high grade and seem fine so far.

One thing Michael from Paragon did pick up on was that the T238 was quite a bit shorter and did say it caused some issues on some builds, hence why there's is longer.  

 

[Rogerborg]

Just noticed on Chaoli's page they wrote they have 2 ms start up

Perhaps Chinese seconds are like Chinese lumens, or airsoft metres.

 

[Fatboy40]

One thing Michael from Paragon did pick up on was that the T238 was quite a bit shorter and did say it caused some issues on some builds, hence why there's is longer.  

I'm wondering if the T238 being shorter is potentially a positive, if not too short, considering the end bell on brushless motors seem to foul up on pistol grip end plates? I suppose almost all RIF's are designed with brushed motors so play to that.

 

[Lozart]

I'm wondering if the T238 being shorter is potentially a positive, if not too short, considering the end bell on brushless motors seem to foul up on pistol grip end plates? I suppose almost all RIF's are designed with brushed motors so play to that.

It's not so much the length of the motor that's a problem, more that the space between the bearing point and the back of the motor shell is less on a brushless motor. If the motor was shorter but still the same sort of profile then you'll get the same problem.

 

[Leo Greer]

The one question I have (and this is hearsay, so mind yourselves), is that I've heard most airsoft brushless motors actually incorporated a ramping program specifically to slow down the startup, as early models had a habit of snapping their shafts. No clue where I heard this, but maybe something to look out for...

 

[Pseudotectonic]

@Leo Greer I might have been the one who said Warhead has a ramping start, based on this video showing the current graph, as well as "Warhead has starting delay of ~10 ms".

But I didn't say anything about the shaft snapping tho in relation to this.

But separately I have heard (maybe just one guy) the Warhead Ronin titanium shaft snapping, but that is probably due to the material itself, if anything it shouldn't have happened because of Warhead's ramping start...

 

[Sewdhull]

The one question I have (and this is hearsay, so mind yourselves), is that I've heard most airsoft brushless motors actually incorporated a ramping program specifically to slow down the startup, as early models had a habit of snapping their shafts. No clue where I heard this, but maybe something to look out for...

I don't believe motor shafts snap on starting like that, unless it's the pinions that fracture,  but if there is ramping to start off with it's likely to keep the current down through the MOSFETs.

Start up currents can be much larger on brushlesses than brushed

 

[DerDer]

Definitely is more offerings on the market.  See that Specna Arms and King Arms have some for sale. 

As regards the physical sizing they can be a pain at times. Couldn't manage to get one to fit in  a G36 motor cage before.