# Question re: Armature wire colors



## car guy (Nov 22, 2003)

First off, Hey how's everyone? I haven't been on here in quite awhile, busy with "LIFE" as we all know it can be some times.


Anyhow, Armatures. I've been looking at putting some cars together and noticed that not only do I have green & red armatures but now I notice I have 1 with 3 different colors of wire. It's got 1 arm w/ copper, 1 w/ red & 1 w/ green.

Btw these are all AFX armatures.

So, my question really is, What is the order of speed in these?

I thank you all for looking & hopefully responding with your much needed knowledge.


----------



## AfxToo (Aug 29, 2003)

This site has a brief overview: http://www.slotcars.org/neilswheels/techtips.html#tjet_arm


----------



## mtyoder (Jan 3, 2004)

Well there is a lot of speculation about arms and wire color combinations. As far as I know the quadralam was the hottest production pancake made and was a double wound gold wire on black laminates. As far as the rest go the green on red tuffone arms are real good. The green on green,green on blue, and gold on green are pretty good also. Then there is the rest gold on red, gold on grey, multi color(the one you mentioned), and red on grey(probably left a few out combinations) are not as quick. However it's hard to tell which arms run good and which don't. I use an ohmmeter to check the arms I run and look for the least amount of ohms. The good ones usually range from 5 to 8 ohms. There are a lot of arms in the 12 ohm and higher range and I've seen some these run pretty good too. You almost have to test run them all to see what runs good and what dosen't. The biggest power robber in pancake cars that I've found is poor gear mesh, the slightest bit of drag in the gears can make any arm appear poochy. I know people who chuck the rear axle of their pancake cars in a drill and let them run for a while to break in the gears, and this works well. Before doing this it's a good idea to remove the brushes. Hopefully this info will be usefull to you.


----------



## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

AfxToo said:


> This site has a brief overview: http://www.slotcars.org/neilswheels/techtips.html#tjet_arm


 I LOVE that site. Pretty good guidelines as to what's what, although of course there are exceptions to the rules. I really like to build motors with the tri-color "Christmas tree" arms... they're nice and smooth when you get a good one with the right combination of chassis and magnets. Not the fastest, but they're some of my favorite runners... 

--rick


----------



## AfxToo (Aug 29, 2003)

There's a LOT more to permanent magnet DC motor performance than the static resistance of the armature windings. You always have to test with the chassis, magnets, brushes, lamination material, and power supply characteristics that you'll be running with. Then there's variables like the rest of the mechanicals on the car (gears, gear ratios, tires, etc.) the track, track rails (height and material), traction magnets, ride height, temperature and humidity, controller, and driver experience and skill. No it's not rocket science, but these little toys are still highly dynamic and variable and measuring a single characteristic of a car's armature alone does not give a complete indication of the actual performance of the complete car. The individual Aurora armatures mentioned all have a range of performance characteristics within their own group. The characteristics that are usually mentioned for a particular armature represents a somewhat random sampling and has a certain amount of anecdotal content. In other words, your results may vary, and vary a lot. You always must test it out and try it for yourself.


----------

