The stock motor that came with my Tribute foamy only has two wires (black and red). Can I hook up my (3 wire) Castle Creations ESC to this motor without using the ground (white) wire?

Thanks.

Dave

if your castle creations esc has 3 wires, then it is most likely intended for use with brushless motors? if so, you will not be able to use it with the brushed motor that comes with the tribute. brushed and brushless esc's work differently. brushed esc's simply vary the voltage to the motor--think of it kind of like a gas pump, the harder you squeeze the handle, the faster it puts gas into your tank. brushless esc's, however, are microprocessor controlled and use the 3 wires to deliver current to the motor in very specific patterns.

Thanks. I now realize my mixup.

Dave

Just to clear a couple of things up...

Both brushed and brushless ESCs use the same principles for throttle control. Voltage isn't varied; power is turned on and off many thousands of times per second to simulate partial throttle. The main difference is that for full throttle, a brushed motor is ON all the time. A brushles motor continues to pulse the power, just at a faster rate.

The three wires on a brushless ESC don't actually have specific names, like positive, negative, ground. Power is cycled through any two of the three wires in a sequence to make the motor go around. It'll be something like 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 1, and so on.