touch) and some shrink tubing for said connectors. The connectors are gold plated (for electrical conductivity) and are firmly attached to the wires.  Upon closer inspection you’ll see the tidy job that was done shrink tubing the connectors.

Look closely and you’ll see the attention to detail. No sloppy work here. The wire is a nice heavy gauge (looks like 16 gauge) and is very flexible.  The wire’s length is 2.5”.

The wires have an additional section of heat shrink tubing serving as a strain relief where it exits the motor housing.

The motor’s can is anodized a nice deep cinnamon color and the ends are silver. There are four evenly spaced mounting holes on the shaft end of the motor. The shaft does not have a flat spot machined onto it.  Depending upon the type of pinion you use, you may need to grind one yourself.

The motor is slightly larger and heavier than a typical brushless motor used in the 1/18th market.  For comparative purposes, I placed the Aon next to a Mamba (by Castle Creations). The motor’s larger size is readily apparent (as is the Aon’s heavier gauge wire).

The Mamba has six mounting holes spaced at different positions around the shaft.

This provides you with mounting flexibility. When mounting the Aon to the motor mount I use in my RC18T, I wasn’t able to get two holes to line up.

To solve this problem, I drilled another hole in my motor mount. The Mamba and stock brushed motor fit the motor mount without new holes.

Here you can see the motor mounted on, what else, the motor mount. It’s a tight squeeze, but it does fit. As noted, the only issue was getting the holes to line up. The recommendation is for Aon to have a couple more mounting holes at varying distances from the shaft to increase your mounting options.

Other than that, the motor passes the visual inspection with flying colors.

Physical Inspection

Before I installed the motor in my test bed (Team Associated’s RC18T and a Castle Creations Mamba 25 ESC) I put it through some stress testing.  The goal here is to see if anything fails straight away. Testing was simple...run the motor at full throttle for 5 minutes and then half throttle for 30 minutes (the motor is not mounted in the truck).

There’s not much that can fail on a brushless motor. Either the bearings will fail or the magnet will shatter. Other than an obvious failure, I was also looking for bearing chatter and excessive temps. After 35 minutes of testing, no failures were observed.  The motor was just humming quietly along.

Below are the specs for the motor. Nothing much to judge here, everything is within expected parameters.  I thought you would like the data, though.

KV: 9,900 RPM/V

No Load Current: 1.2A

Resistance: 42.3 mOhm

Maximum Current: 28A

Average Current: 8A~12A

Motor Outer Diameter: 24mm

Length: 33mm

Weight: 65g

Shaft Diameter: 2.0mm

Maximum Power: 200 Watts

Magnet: Neodymium, single piece

Ball Bearings: Dual

Street Price: $59

Once installed, the one item that becomes apparent is the motor’s weight.  While not excessive, it does weigh a little more than some of it’s competitors (the Mamba is 48.19 grams). Note, the increased weight is due to the motor’s increased size (relative to the Mamba) Does this hurt the Aon? Not really.  It depends on the vehicle you are using it in.  For me, it actually shifted my truck’s center of gravity to a more desireable location. With the Mamba motor installed, my COG was at location A.  With the Aon, my COG moved to location B. This places my COG to the near center of my truck - perfect.

As you can see, I use 7 cells, which was part of my COG issue from the beginning.

Test Drive

Let’s go for a test drive. The first thing that’s apparent when compared to the stock brushed motor is how much faster the RC18T is when running the Aon.  It’s fast, but not uncontrollably fast. In my opinion, anything with a KV above 6,000 in a car or truck this size (1/18) is just too much.  For example, with 7 cells and a 6,800 KV motor, the RC18T can hit the high 40 MPH range.  At that speed, the car will become airborne if hit by the slightest headwind. With this setup, I would break something nearly every time I used my truck.

I would consider the speed with the Aon to be ‘just right’.  It’s fast, very fast. But not so fast it becomes uncontrollable. On the dirt, you’ll barely open it up. You’ll need a big parking lot with nothing to hit to really stretch it’s legs.

Another observation I made is the motor has a nice amount of what I call “off throttle drag” or OTD. You know when you let up on the throttle and the motor’s drag slows the vehicle down? That’s OTD.  The OTD with the Aon is more like a brushed motor and less like most brushless motors. Depending on your preference, this is a good thing.  Personally, I like the natural breaking that occurs when I let up off the throttle (but that’s me). Some people like the coasting that many other brushless motors provide when no throttle is applied.

I experienced zero cogging with the Aon and the motor braked strongly (both are attributable to the motor and the ESC).

To gather some objective data, I took a fresh 7 cell GP1100 pack and headed out to a nearby parking lot. Once there, I ran the truck in a simulated road race (full throttle start, full throttle break, high speed run of 200 feet, over and over until the pack starts to dump).  The air temp during my simulated race was 75 F and I used stock gearing. 

My run time was an impressive 13 minute average. The ESC’s maximum temp was 124 F and the motor’s maximum temp was 152 F.  These numbers are pretty good.

I also did some bashing runs (up and down the driveway, some dirt, some jumps, etc.) and I averaged 18 to 20 minutes of runtime. 

Results

If you are in the market for a brushless motor, I highly recommend you consider the Aon T2415-4900.  It’s a high quality motor that’s completely rebuildable, offers great performance, and is really sharp looking.  The price is good; it’s neither over priced nor is it bargain-bin. The motor is a little heavier than it’s smaller competitors, but that may not be a bad thing.  The only criticism I have is the motor needs to have more mounting holes at varying locations.  This will provide the user with greater mounting flexibility.

Drop me a line at webmaster@e-maxximumrc.com!