Electric Motor Numbers

Is there anyway the electric motor numbers game can be de-mystified? ie: 2208/34, 2820/10 Park 400 etc. What does it all mean?

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Electric Motor Numbers

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Oct 06, 2008
Electric motor numbers
by: Pete

Yes, it's quite a minefield! In a nutshell, the majority of electric motor designations refer to the physical size of the motor. For example, 'Park 400' refers to a fairly standard size brushed motor around the 40mm long mark. The chances are that it's actually 37 or 38 mm long, and is, or a variant of, the famous Mabuchi 380 motor.
A '300' size motor would be in the vicinity of 30mm in length, and so on.

Brushless motors are also numbered in terms of their physical size - the ABCD/E numbering system usually gives the stator diameter (AB), the stator length (CD) and the number of turns, E.

Unfortunately for us, there doesn't seem to be any industry standard naming procedure for motors, so designations can vary between manufacturers.

The best thing to do when selecting an electric motor is to study the motor specifications, and don't pay too much attention to the numbers in the name.

Oct 06, 2008
Electric Motor Numbers
by: jerzzy

Thanks for trying. I was kind of hoping the industry had some kind on naming convention. Heck we can name bugs but can't identify a motor without the score card.

Aug 06, 2009
Winding Specs
by: Ninji

While there may be exceptions to this, Mabuchi does have wind specs for most of their motors.
Take for example RS 380SH 4045 The last 4 digits are the wind spec. First 2 digits, the dia. in mm. of the wind .40mm. Last 2 digits, the number of turns 45 So the above mentioned motor has 45 turns on each pole of .40 mm windings

Sep 30, 2009
Electric Motor Question
by: Danny

I'm curious: how (physically) small of an electric motor could I attain that produces about 2.3 or 2.4 horsepower? How much would it weigh and how much space would it take up?

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