Increasing the value of the motor from Castle?
 

Actually this question is for all of Towerhobbies rose from Castle

Question: temporary or permanent phenomenon?
or increase is associated with some sort of appreciation of the magnets

Most likely the same reason the repair kits ( new rotor + bearings ) jumped in price- the cost of raw materials for the magnets has sored upwards..

Yes, but sorry for the 254 dollars
it was too hard to get by 160-170 and 250 in the light of this all just move to engines from China and type tenshock leopard who breed like rabbits

Hmm, towerhobbies pricing does seem to have jumped rather alot- I don't imagine the Chinese motors will stay so cheap for much longer, or they may start cutting corners to keep costs down.

The motors are still ~$160 over at amainhobbies, and the systems are ~$270 still- you dont have to buy from towerhobbies, but it's worth keeping an eye on prices everywhere to see if they increase...

It has everything to do with the price to neodymium. The price has nearly tripled in the past 6 months. A very large percentage of the cost in our motors is in the raw material of neodymium. Companies that make inexpensive motors tend to use much less of the material, so their costs have not increased as dramatically. Rare earth minerals in general have been rising across the board. I would expect everyone's motor prices to increase in the very near future.

Without getting too much into international politics and economics, when a country produces 97% of a particular material in high demand and they cut production by 35%, prices are going to soar; and anyone dependent on that material is going to suffer greatly. We held out as long as we could in raising prices, but it has simply become too much to absorb and a price increase was inevitable. As long as neodymium prices stay high, don't expect prices to come down any time soon. We were priced very competitively compared to other manufacturer's of the same quality, now our prices tend to be more in line with our competitors.

I'm sure when Pat gets back from China, he might be able to provide more details on the issue.

Thomas Porfert
Tech Support
Castle Creations

Commie bar-stewards... :lol:

Thanks Thomas

Has this delayed production on castle motor and ESC systems?

What about cobalt magnets? Would they work in this application and/or be a less-expensive option?

Well, cobalt has also almost doubled in the last six months... and is still much more expensive than neodymium... So no advantage.


http://www.metal-pages.com/metalprices/neodymium/

Shucks... :lol:

Personally, they could triple the price and i would still buy. I look at other things as much as the price, Castle's Customer Service is top notch and i feel i'm paying for that as much as materials. Y'all can buy Chinese, if you want, good luck getting it fixed or replaced

yeah....i'll always use castle motors too.

i look at it this way...a good nitro engine will run every bit of $300-400 with the pipe another $80-100.

these motors are still much more powerful than the nitros and last a hell of a lot longer.

it also kinda makes me wonder if Caslte is just the first US company that has to hike up the prices...i wonder if novak and tekin will follow suit.


kinda seems like China has the monopoly of neodymium right now and with more and more hybrids needed, they can charge whatever they want to. i think i read they support something like 90% of the world's supply.....

that sucks ass.

Don't forget too that most of the worlds Lithium deposits are in China & Korea- pretty much holding the world to ransom regards greener power...

There's a thread at rcgroups about the recent jump in scorpion motors. They were speculating it was the cost of raw materials. Better stock up now while we can.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1452369

It was expected, but from 20 to 60 for a repair kit is steep. maybe they have some margin for further increase in raw material costs.

im still waiting for the 1520 repair kit though

Well, they did say the cost of Neodymium nearly trippled..

I'm wondering if the motors will have to fundamentally be altered to save money yet still provide enough power- like the 1517 2350kv motor used in the HPI savage flux 2350- cheaper magnets yet larger so the power output is still sufficient..

Well, it's actually much worse than that...

The price has tripled since January. But it tripled between June 2010 and January 2011 also. So today, the cost is well over 1000% higher than a year ago.

June 2010 : $38/kilo
June 2011: $420/kilo

And that's just for the raw material.

To what degree would using ferrite magnets affect the efficiency of these motors? They have about 1/3 the field strength of neo magnets, but I imagine they are less expensive since no rare earth materials are involved.

I'm sure the CC engineers have already looked into other options, I'm just curious. :)

Ceramic ferrite magnets are cheap, and readily available.

However, the field strength is very low, so the torque is only about 1/3 that of neodymium.

In practice, to get the same Kv from a motor with ferrite magnets would require 3 times the number of turns per pole.

For example, a 1410-3Y ferrite motor would have approx. the same Kv as a 1410-1Y neodymium motor. But, instead of having 7 milliohms of resistance, it would have 60 milliohms of resistance.

A neodymium based 1410 motor would lose 12 watts of power to resistance losses at 40A (40^2 * .007)

At the same loss level (12 watts) the ceramic motor would be only able to handle 14A.


So -- reducing the power of the magnets by a factor of three, also reduces the power of the motor by a factor of three.


In practice, you can assume that the power to weight ratio of a ferrite based motor is only 1/3 that of a neodymium based motor.



I know, it's a shame... But to get the same power would require a motor three times heavier.

ugh.

:lol:

Its too bad prices have gone up so much. But you know its still worth it.. I dont have to preach the quality of their motors, you all know! My oldest one will be 4 this winter, its seen 3 winters and this is the 4th summer, and it still rips as hard as the day I took it out of the box :) Mind you its not pretty anymore, and it could maybe use a new bearing soon, maybe.. Either way it has easily outlived my tekin and medussa motors, and gave more grins :rules:

Yes we are being forced to do the same thing. It is scarry how much the price of neodymium is going up. From what I understand prices are being quoted on a weekly basis.

Bob Novak

Bob,

If you are getting 1 week on pricing, you are lucky! We are getting only 24 hour quotes currently. Pricing on magnets has increased by 30% in the last week alone. (magnet pricing seems to be lagging the raw material prices by about 3-4 weeks.)

However, Neo pricing seems to FINALLY be leveling off. We'll hope it holds.

Patrick

Imagine what a NEU will cost now. I just got my Baja conversion kit from DDM for $475.00 shipped with a v2 XL..... score. Hopefully what I have holds up cause the price increases are nutty.

Just think it wasn't that long ago Castle had all those motor's at giveaway prices, if only we knew what lied around the corner.

All I can say is when (or even if now) I get another motor it will be my last for quite some time at these prices. All we can do is hope the price falls eventually.

So what are the alternatives Castle is looking at? Superconductive brushless motors?

i don't think Castle should look at alternatives. let the prices go up if need be.

As it is, these motors are all faster than the best of the nitro buggy engines for more than $100-300 less.

A good O.S. buggy engine can go for more than $250... all the way up to $450 or more.

Some of the really competitive Rossi engines can go from $450 to $700 or more, and that's without a pipe. So, to me....it is what it is. All the brushless motors last far longer, are more effecient and require less maintenance than the nitros.

What i have noticed the last couple of days is it seems like Tower has the brushless E-Revos back in stock at their holiday prices instead of it being the normally $50-60 dollars cheaper in the summer. my local hobby store is selling the Monster Castle combos for $80 more than they were a week ago.

They're still selling them too.

It seems like most of the guys who can afford a $300 combo can afford a $400 combo.

Again...if that's what has to happen, then it's worth it imo to keep such a high standard in motors.

I keep thinking the same thing.... If only I knew a year ago what was coming... I'd be a rich man. :lol:

This link was posted on r/ctech.net forum and I think it`s relevant to the discussion

http://www.mnn.com/earth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...YbSjVrVQ#at=54

So is this going to help the cost of neodymium?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7651RZ20110706

I believe it could but the article said that china is appealing the WTO ruling and sources say it will be many years before the appeal process is over with so in the meantime china has the world by the "balls" so to speak.

Glad I kept my CC motor stash

I was about to order a Neu Motor today...
But those prices are also up to the roof....
Can't spend that much so I have to wait and hope the prices are going down one day...

¿350usd for a mmm combo? ¿250usd for a castle-neu motor?

friends thats crazy ..... sorry but for this prices I preffer buy chinese electronic xerun, leopard, ezrun etc ........ I had more than 8 castle escs, but if I need pay this crazy prices for this company ..... bye bye castle :(

I see your point but I have serious doubts that the Chinese (they are all Chinese anyways) ones will stay at their current price for too long. I say if you see a cheap brushless motor anywhere buy it and stock up.

I have many leopard/ezrun/xerun escs and motors ..... and the quality is the same or better than castle ....... the support of castle is better but the prices of this other "companys" are extremely lower ....

castle is great but if they increase the prices is normal the people search other cheap options ........ is the same than mgm compro ........ they have the best electronics/warrantys, but they have a crazy expensive prices ........ for me is impossible pay 500usd for an esc ...... :(

Quality is the same or better than Castle? Hmmm, not a single sample we've tested from those other manufacturers even comes close the same quality.

At Castle, we use 180C (14xx series) or 200C (15xx series) rated magnets. Other companies use 130C or 150C rated magnets BECAUSE THEY ARE MUCH CHEAPER. What does this mean? It means you can run a Castle motor much harder, without risk of damaging the magnets.

We use .2mm laminations. Other companies use .35mm laminations (BECAUSE THEY ARE MUCH CHEAPER.) Why does Castle use more expensive laminations? Because this makes the motor run cooler. So Castle motors can be pushed harder and don't get as hot.

Castle motors use Japanese NMB bearings. Other companies use Chinese bearings (BECAUSE THEY ARE MUCH CHEAPER.) Why does Castle use NMB bearings? Because they last longer, make less noise, and run cooler.

Sure, you can buy a less expensive motor. But don't make the assumption that because they look similar on the outside that they perform the same way.

Could castle make a cheap motor? Of course we could.

But we don't want to make a cheap motor. We'll leave that to other companies.

We always have the option to use less capable magnets in our motors. But right now, we don't want to change. We'll pay the higher price, and unfortunately, so will the consumer. Why? Because quality means something at Castle.

It's not all about price. If price means that much to you, then I'm afraid we'll lose you as a customer. We are interested in performance. And often high performance means higher prices.

Can everyone afford a Porsche or a big AMG Mercedes? No. For many people, a Ford is just fine.

Castle has always striven to give "Porsche" performance at a Ford price. :) But we aren't willing to sacrifice performance to keep those prices when it becomes impossible for us to keep the pricing stable.

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Now, what can the RC enthusiast do to help keep prices low on high performance products (like Castle motors?)

Contact your congressmen, and let them know it's in our country's interest for them to support: H.R. 4866, the Rare Earths Supply-Chain Technology and Resources Transformation Act of 2010 (house) and S. 3521, Rare Earths Supply Technology and Resources Transformation Act of 2010 (Senate)