Sid,
Your doing great with your upgrades. I read through the detailed posts in this thread, they are all informative. Let me toss in some of my advice, as the designer of the BEMC, RCMC, Cruise Commander, etc.....
Cannon motors tend to fail in ways that take out the electronics.
Mabuchi and Pittman are great motors for our trains; and the Pittman normally has higher stall currents.
The BEMC has MOSFETS that can handle any of the above motors. The Bridge must have a heatsink, or it will overheat. Overheating the bridge is guaranteed to damage the balance of the motor driver (MOSFETS).
The BEMC does *not* detect stalls; the RCMC does. However both designs do *not* apply full power (high current) at low speeds; which tends to protect the motor driver circuits. Typically the limiting the power to the track is your best protection method for the trains; ie: ZWL or GW-180 which act quickly to remove power in case of an overload.
If you reach a stall current on any Legacy or ElectricRR boards, the MOSFETS will fry in short order. The best way to protect the board is with the polyfuse that GRJ mentions.
Experiment, burn a few boards up, learn, and enjoy running your trains.
