How To Connect Up A Tamiya Mechanical Speed Controller

Tucker posted a comment on an early post this week asking for assistance in connecting up a Tamiya Mechanical Speed Controller, so I thought I’d put together this quick and hopefully easy to follow video to walk you through the process.

Mechanical Speed Controllers were fitted to most early Tamiya radio controlled cars, from the 1970′s right through to the 90′s and beyond in some cases and offer pretty rudimentary three step speed control in both forward and reverse. The speed of the vehicle is controlled by a servo connected to channel 2 of a 2 channel radio system which operates what is essentially a rotary switch on the MSC.

Motor wires on a standard Tamiya MSC are normally coloured coded Yellow and Green. Ideally these should be connected to the matching wires on the motor, but this isn’t critical. Motors aren’t polarity sensitive so if the motor runs in the opposite direction to that required, simply swap the wires connections around.

The three thinner wires on the MSC – usually 2 purple and one blue connect to a high power 0.3 ohm resistor which regulates the power supplied to the motor to vary the speed. The blue wire goes to the centre terminal on the resistor and the two purple wires connect to the two outer terminals of the resistor.

The larger White connector is the Battery Connector. This is commonly know as a Tamiya Battery Connector and will be compatible with the majority of 7.2v and 8.4v battery packs and comes fitted to most MSCs as standard.

You’ll also notice a small red connector on the end of a two core black and red lead. This provides power to your cars receiver and should be connected to a simple power switch harness and then on to the Receiver.

Hope you enjoy the video! Any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments.

More Essential Reading...