Mabuchi Motors

[Tim CooperParticipant @timcooper90034]

I found the article in the October magazine about electric motors interesting. I remember buying the Blue cased Mabuchi motors for my early Eezebilt Balsa models.

Buying them from the model shop on the local High Street putting them in the new model and expecting them to race across the local paddling pool. We had two within walking distance at one time.

Sadly they were not as fast as the picture on the box!

There are now no local model shops and the paddling pools that still exist are now splash pools!

Tim

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Yes a nostalgic article. To be honest I didn’t do much model listing as a lad but I remember the Kako style motors.

Love the blatantly sexist cover of the young lady boating in her bikini ( as you do) playing with her bateau!

i have a pair of decaperms in Diamond, the big destroyer but neglected to see how they were wired from the twin 6v batteries.  Is there any way if telling if they are 6 or 12 volt items???

Ashley

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

It may not matter Ashley,

have a look at this thread on Mayhem with the motor specification data.

https://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=66772.0

Also found this comment online:

Take a 6 volt battery connect to the motor – measure the revolution on the direct drive shaft, a 6 V motor will run app 8400 rev/min the 12 V motor app 4200 rev/min .

Colin

[Tim CooperParticipant @timcooper90034]

Ashley you are probably too young!

It would have been the early 60’s!

Tim

[Dave ReedParticipant @davereed72029]

Take a 6 volt battery connect to the motor – measure the revolution on the direct drive shaft, a 6 V motor will run app 8400 rev/min the 12 V motor app 4200 rev/min

Presumably you make a mark on the drive shaft and count how many times it goes by in one minute?  Don’t think I can count that quickly any more!

On a more serious note, is there an easy way to measure RPM without an expensive gadget?

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

I bought one of these, it was very useful in checking the drives on my paddler.

https://bigshopper.co.uk/product/fitnate-professional-digital-tachometer-non-contact-laser-photo-tachometer-rpm-tach-1092209679.htm

You can buy a cheaper one for around £9

However, if you have a 12v supply (car battery) and the motor is 6v then it should be obvious if it is over revving. Likewise a 12v motor will be pretty feeble on 6v.

Colin

[Dave ReedParticipant @davereed72029]

Thanks Colin, that’s much more budget friendly than I’d expected.

When buying cheap motors on the internet it can be difficult to be quite sure what you’re getting. A while ago I bought a couple of 12v, 130 can size motors for a small boat. I ran them at 7.2v with 25mm props and managed to overheat and kill one after just 10-15 minutes. I suspect they were really 6v with a misleading description.

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Cheers chaps. I have been running it on a 6 stick nimh, so at 7.5+ ish volts its a bit halfway house, and the boat is quite brisk so likely they are 6v motors. As the performance is good it’s a bit neither here nor there what voltage the motors are i suppose!

I do have a single motor that was given to me so it might be instructive to try the battery test on it, in case i were to ever want to use it.

Ashley

[Tim Cooper]

On 16 September 2025 at 14:33 Tim Cooper Said:

……

Sadly they were not as fast as the picture on the box!

…….

Tim

A set of regulations designed to address deceptive practices came in sometime around the 1980s. It resulted in all idealised model box art being dropped in favour of static pictures of a finished model 🙁

I am looking to address this as I (slowly!) convert the free EeZeBilt downloads into kit form, with enclosed fittings. Here is an example of the ‘Box Art’ I envisaged for the PT boat.

I won’t run into problems with ‘deceptive practices’ – the kits build up to a boat exactly as fast as the picture on the box. That’s because it is an actual photo just photoshopped into a sketch, to look like the original  EeZeBilt boxes…

 

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