And I have to apologize - - I get a little bent sometimes because I know how hard we work to keep our jobs here in the USA.

It's a big priority at Castle.

I had an offer to purchase Castle last year (from a large Chinese model manufacturer...) and I had to turn it down -- they wanted to shut down all our USA operations, and move everything to China. That's just not WHY we are in business -- there are a lot better ways to make money than the RC hobby industry. :wink:

SO... does anyone actually make motors in the US anymore? (besides Neu)

I personally don't know of anyone else besides Steve Neu.

Steve does a LOT of custom motors...

Am I remembering correctly. Didn't neu wind a lot of motors south if the border? That was years ago though.

Novak winds their motors in the U.S.

As far as where the laminations are stamped, plastic components molded, and metal parts machined, they don't say.

That's awesome Patrick. I wish you were in control of some aussie companies that have sold out. Where do I send a case of beer?
Pete

Ok l am more of a plane guy than a truck guy. I have all castle escs in my planes. Cheap knock off don't cut it in a plane. I fly 3d so throttle response is very important. castle is the only escs l have found that has a great response and the features l need and want( plus backed by a great )cs . Now rc cars. My vorza has a mmm and 2200 castle motor in it. My trophy truggy has the hobbywing escs and hobbywing 1950 motor in it. The hobby wing escs is smoother. even with that when the hobbywing escs dies it will be replaced by a castle mmm. I like castles products and castles support. They are a top notch company. I also love that they are here in the USA.

Now as for hand wound motor in the USA if you are a plane guy Ken at subsonic planes does all his in house. He is also in the middle of designing a 60cc gas replacement sized electric motor fully hand built here in the USA by him

its companies like subsonicplanes, castle creations, and rc-monsters that l recommend and like dealing with.

I think if you guys sold out to the chinese I'd give up on this hobby for good. It's hard for a lot of us to pony up the money for your goods but they are worth it! Quality products backed by unmatched customer service. I've toasted a number of ESCs, many I freely admitted fault to, and yet as far as my memory goes back I've only had to pay for one or two. That said I buy a lot of cheap crap from overseas as well, but that's primarily experimentation or batteries. If I toast a $18 motor doing something stupid who cares, if I kill a $200+ motor I'd lose it!

Worth it?! If you buy at the right time (during a sale) castle is not expensive at all.

That's true, but who knows when a sale will come along? I got my last 1717 for $70 and have yet to see a sale like that since. They do a good sale for black friday, but aside from that you just have to watch out for a sale. Usually I need a motor faster than "well a sale will come around eventually."

It is actually hard for us to have a sale because of our contracts with our distributors. Of course we can undercut us but we would not survive without the distributors large orders, there is no money in selling one or two at a time. We simply could not afford to sell 35,000 systems a month. We are a manufacturer not a retailer. Our effort goes into designing and building the most innovative best quality product possible, we let others take care of their actual sales.

Isn't it interesting that as soon as we started making our 2 pole magnet, slotless stator motor design in China suddenly every Chinese company started building and selling them?

As soon as we start making 4 pole magnet, 12 pole slotless stator motors in china every Chinese motor company started selling these.

The owner of a Chinese company was joking about how all he had to do was copy our can, just the outside of our motors, and people would assume they were the same. He also said that of course he couldn't use the same materials or build quality because then his motors would be as or more expensive as ours. Experience building high quality products is worth quite a bit and cannot be bought. Ask BMW.

The more sophisticated a motor is, say 4 pole magnet, 12 pole slotted stator motor compared to a 2 pole slotless, the more important build quality such as consistent air-gap, magnet placement, winding neatness, bearing carrier accuracy and etc is to the efficiency of the motor. This the same for material quality such as magnet gauss and heat resistance, copper purity and coating, stator plate thickness and electrical resistance, bearing quality etc etc. A sloppy 4 pole magnet, 12 pole slotted motor is much worst compared to a good one than a sloppy 2 pole magnet slotless stator motor.

I have always joked that I could make a working motor from junk car parts. However, I could not build a efficient motor that won't burn itself up with the slightest load, even if I wanted to. I couldn't get the parts.

One of the things that makes Castle such a good place to work is that we can justifiably be proud of our inventiveness and the resulting products and how we take care of our customers. It really is true that if Americans set their mind to it we can really make the best products in the world!

Bernie

Amen to that, it's crazy just how many inventions are born in America, then go overseas.

What about Cordova Research brushless?. Just got shown them and they look American made or at least designed

Interesting- never heard of them before. I wonder if they are in anyway related to the now defunct Medusa Research ( I know Neu took over the warranty and production of Medusa models, but I like to wildly speculate sometimes ). Only issue I see is that they are only 36mm diameter motors- my old Medusa 36x74 2000kv was a pretty good motor, but it ran hotter and didn't quite have the same torque as my 39mm ( without fins ) Castle motor does....

cloning
 

not to bring up and old thread but I am going to complain about the eBay companies that are selling Castle electronics, how do I know castle benefits from my purchase, I called for a list of legitimate retailers from castle and they told me they don't have one. sorry just my 2cents .:whistle: