:lol:
A great mind and one that has a spark of "oh that might be good" (me) think alike!

That 3/8 aluminum that I got for my new motor mount sure was hell on jig saw bladed. I went through 4!

I have both motor mount cut out and shaped. I drill & tapped 1 last night and I am headed out to do the other one now.

I bench tested my motor and ESC yesterday. The 10S sure did make a hell of a big arc when I hooked it up.

Kaz- you should look into doing this-
http://scriptasylum.com/rc_speed/_nospark.html

I'm thinking of that too... big sparks, does one hell of a damage on the bullets

i am definitely going to do that. my bullets on my truggy are pitted like a 16 yr old pimple-faced freak. i about shat myself when i connected my 10s to the hydra240. just wondering though, the scriptasylum says not to use this technique with the castle mamba controllers. do you think it will be ok to do on the hydra controller?

I think all castle escs do not like slow charging the caps.. I wouldnt risk it.. Or at least use a smaller bullet parralleledd with the larger ones.. so the spark can pit them and not your big bullets..

i am feeling a little more than pissed. i just re-wired the whole setup and put on new bullets and this time got the CC BEC Pro all connected. plugged in my battery and still just get one red blink and then nothing. my reciever and the BEC are getting power to them and seem to be fine so i dont know why this esc is givin me so much shi#. i am gonna go look at things one more time right now to see if i can find anything but i think this thing i gone.

plus, what i should have done is just hooked it up to castlelink to see if it would work with the bec instead of doing all the soldering and wasting so much time. because it didnt work on castle link last time that should have been a sign to me that the esc has an issue. or is the bec required to for it to work with casltelink also?

oh, and i didnt rig up the spark eliminator mod. i just set it up just like normal.

i think i may have just figured it out. be right back!

WOOHOOOO!!!! i finally ran the beast! like i have said before, i am not very knowledgeable when it comes to electrical stuff that requires more than plug and play it seems. so the problem was i had the red wire pulled out of the esc connector that goes into the rx. the guys at LHS said to do this and so did the diagram in the bec package. there wasnt any info about leaving the red wire in if the esc doesnt have a bec. holy shi# man! anyway, i found the necessary info online and finally got to run it. its a bit sketchy without brakes right now. so how did it run??

very quiet and smooth. way more quiet than i expected. it is only loud when coasting cuz the dogbones rattle but when on throttle you almost only hear the tires on the road.

its fast but geared too high for sure. i probably hit about 50mph and wasnt quite at full throttle. it is only about 50* F outside but motor hit 85*, esc was 101* and batteries were 73* after 15 minutes of run time. i didnt have any of my fans hooked up or the body on. i think that in the day time and with the body on that esc would be cooking so i might need to gear it down.

with the rampage buggy tires it is like a frickin drift car..except it sounds like a real car drifting. i am not kidding. i could totally drift it just with throttle input and it had great control with the 4wd. it was just "uuurrrrrrrrrrch" screeching around in circles for as long as i wanted. i definitely woke up some neighbors cuz i heard some kids start crying.

so the gearing right now is 15/40. i am gonna run again during day and if needed switch to 12/40 tomorrow. depends on how temps do then. i hope it works out. i know the motor is gonna be fine. its the esc i am worried about.

its got a great smooth, fast punch off the line. no cogging at all.

anyway... enuff said. a picture is worth a thousand words and as promised a video will be coming. but its gonna be a week or so. gotta have the brakes hooked up so i can actually rally it. i have to baby it without brakes right now.

AWESOME! man... glad you finally had the joy to start driving this think, I know it was a long *ss wait for you... Took you long enough to finish it... :lol:, took me less than a week :whistle:... When you try that beast on the track, you will love it. Tried my MT on the track yesterday, and it handled amazingly well.

Awesome, glad you got it running--even if it was at 3:00 AM:lol:

Nice... your neighbours must hate you... :lol:

i know. it has taken me a long time to build this. its been fun though. i love doing the builds. time to go drivin.

so i ran for about 10 minutes today with the same 15/40 gearing. temp is 75* outside. motor was 88* and esc was 120*. i was just running on asphalt and running at moderate speed. what do y'all think about the gearing and temps? i worry the esc is gonna get too hot when i actually run it in dirt and have the body and everything on but 120* isnt bad. just wondering if i should gear it a bit lower.

I think you hit the sweet spot because all your temps are well in check.

I would if dropping to the 12t would be too much reduction tho...

ok so i just tried the 12t pinion and ran moderately for 15 minutes. it is now 85* outside. motor was 110* esc was 130* and one battery was 91* and the other 100*. i didnt like the performance of the 12t as much as the 15t. the motor temps definitely jumped and it seemed the esc was a little cooler. everything just ran hotter now though cuz ambient temp is up and i pushed it a bit harder. i am still worried about that esc though. i know when i get in hills and actually run it hard it would probably hit 175* real quick. next i need to test with the fans on and body on etc. RTR.

what is the danger zone on this hydra esc? i would like to never see it over 150-160* but ideally i want my motor and esc to be in the 120-130* range. also, should i be concerned that one pack was 10* hotter than the other? is that saying something?


i talked with kulangflow from the forum today. he is the HD video master and if weather permits we have scheduled a to film this thursday. i wont have breaks by then so we will find a wide open area hopefully so we can open it up...perhaps a golf course??? hehehe:diablo:

oh, can anyone tell me how else i could get my esc temps lower aside from gearing? i dont have any other gearing options. 40t spur is the largest i can go. i have been looking at a different Neu motor. i am probably going to buy the Neu 2220 2y 550kv. my current motor is 750kv. i know this would make the motor cooler but what about the esc? or would going up to 12s instead of 10s make any difference? i would get a much lower kv motor if i go 12s though. anyway, what else could drive esc temps down?

Ryu: "find a wide open area hopefully so we can open it up...perhaps a golf course??? hehehe"

I can think of NO better use for a well manicured waste of real estate...

Do it up!

I think it'll be ok on the 15/40 gearing. There is only one way to find out though... Try er out with fans and different driving conditions and see how it fares before buying a new motor. I still think it'll be ok...

Seasons are changing too. You'll be great over the winter if you choose to run then.

Sounds like you aren't putting enough load on the motor with the 12T, motor temps with the 15T sounded excellent! That Hydra is meant to be water cooled, I'd run a fan or two on it if you're going to be pushing it hard up in the mountains.

You should test your vehicle the same way with both gearing so you can have an idea of what will work better.

only other option is to get a lower KV Motor and run 12S....
with the 12T your motor should be same temp or cooler, especially with the same voltage.... I think the 85 Deg. temps made the ESC and Motor temps go up not the gearing.. imagine that day if you had the 15T pinnion, you're esc would be close or higher than 150 Deg. Stay with the 15T if you get a lower KV motor......if the ESC is less than 150 Deg, you should be alright man...

yeah good point. i am going to get try to get all my fans hooked up tonight and get the body done so tomorrow i can run it RTR and test both pinions mid day and then see how things look. tomorrow is supposed to be in the 80's again but then wed. we drop down to a high of 50* and cold weather the rest of the week.

A fair test/ comparison is key- I would use a pair of cones placed some distance apart, then drive figure of eights around them for a fixed length of time. That way, you have a very easy to repeat test and easy way to see which gearing setup produces the best temps (just use fresh batts each time).

Let us know how it works out for you man...

will know shortly
 

i am heading out to the garage at this moment to get everything hooked up and do isolated tests. i will report my findings shortly. over and out.

so it took me a bit to get everything wired up but just tested it RTR with the 12t pinion and i was totally surprised. i thought because i have the esc in that enclosed box that there was no way the temp would stay low. plus i have wires galore in there, my rx and my 2s battery mounted on top of the box all contributing to heat. i do have 2 fans mounted to the box. one on each side of the esc aluminum pipes for direct cooling. but only one of the fans was working. so i ran it anyway. after 5 minutes all the temps were the same: 85* for motor, batts, esc, and bec. i ran another 5 and motor was 95* batts 90* and esc 87*. i ran another 10 minutes and motor was 100*, batts 90* and esc 90*. after that i was pretty convinced that things are gonna work out. i am now gonna try the 15t and see how things hold up cuz i like the 15t performance much better. based on what happened last time i think its gonna work but i really think a 14t pinion would be the sweet spot. with the 15t i expect the motor temps to go down about 5* and esc to go up 10-15*. we'll see.

why not run 12S with the 12T... ? or would that ruin your whole battery configurations...

as before the 15t just performs so much better. it is so much quieter than the longshank 12t pinion, has more punch off the line and more top end of course. it is super smooth. it was a balmy 70* today and temps with the 15t were great. again, after moderate running the esc hadnt broke 95* so i rallied it pretty good for about 7 minutes doing donuts and drifting and taking through the grass at high speeds. i checked temps and esc was 105*, motor was 114* and batts and bec were 85*. i am gonna stick with the 15t and although i know i can get the temps higher when i get out and run it hard when i have brakes i am confident things will stay in the ideal temperature range. i am very happy. for the most part it performs like my truggies in just about every way but the steering servo has hardly any throw at all. it sucks. i think i am gonna rig a way to just use my JR9100HVT for steering. it has way more torque than the hpi large servo and a lot more throw also.

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That looks SWEET!!.. I'm sure you'll be fine with the 15T pinion man... How is the custom made spur holding up?...

GREAT job and congrats:party:

See you were all worried about nothin'!

Except for the lack of brakes....?

:mdr:

You should take a pic with your radio sitting on the roof, for scale. That there be a big truuuuuck...

thanks dude. spur is holding up great. i dont expect any issues from it.

you mentioned running yours at the track. what kind of track is it? is it a large scale track or roughly how big is it? it was hard to tell from video.

as you wish redshift
 

here are some pics RTR with the radio next to it for size comparison. i had the upgrade rc wrap that i had bought for a 5t body laying around. i wanted to save to use on the gun metal body i plan to do but i couldnt resist and needed to add something to this body. the redcat stock stickers are pretty boring so i went with the wrap. i am not so sure what i think yet. it would have looked amazing on black but i think its growing on me. i must say though that these upgrade-rc wraps are amazing. they are not stickers. they are like a real wrap. they stretch like a wrap, cut like a wrap and even peel and re-stick if needed. i was very impressed with the quality. they are super thick. i highly recommend them.
so tomorrow i am gonna make some mudguards and put screen mesh in the windows. i also want to order some yellow beadlocks. i only have one pair of black and one pair of white at the moment. its all ready for video on thursday though. big storm is supposed to hit tomorrow so i hope it only lasts one day.


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hey kaz,
how is yours coming along? are you building more than one motor mount? did you pick up some pinions from RCM or just that 12t from SDP? Mike has as low as 15t mod 1.5 pinions avail. i would consider getting one of those. for some reason it runs so much better. i think the long shank pinion has more binding with chassis flex and i could tell it was putting a lot of stress on the motor shaft. and i have aluminum front and rear chassis braces. anyway, just a thought. if your setup weighs in at about 30lbs or less you should be fine with the 15t as i have found out. if you are closer to the 38lb mark like aqwuts then you may want to gear down. one thing you could do that i had thought about is cutting the 12t pinion in half. just cut off a section to make it smaller and that could help too. anyway, keep us up to date on how things are coming.

Here's a video of the track where we run at...
[YOUTUBE]Hfd5lGHNSFw[/YOUTUBE]

That's older video, it has the offroad section finished...
But the truck looks good in Yellow, my favourite colour... The Yellow Beadlocks will make it even more Sick!... Great Job on the truck man, I'm glad you're having a hell of a good time with it.. Now we're still waiting for a video from you and Kaz... :yes:

Once I sell some stuff off to make room, I'll be doing a TT like yours.. I've already ordered some big tires and adapters to make my firehammer MT use the same tires as the Rampage MT... Those tires grip really well and are HUGE.. the firehammer lacks weight on the wheels, so these big babies will help out for sure...

Are you promoting someone else's energy drink? :whistle:

Thanks for the pics! Really does need to be next to something to get a good idea of the size, that helps a lot.

Looks choice!

that track looks fun. i have yet to drive a baja but they always look like so much fun in videos. i want to get one this winter and i am torn. i want to convert it but i also want to run it gas since i have never tried a gas rc before. what do think aqwut? you have both now. which do you think is more fun for you? your brushless ramp or your gas 1/5s?

so are you getting another TT and a baja? you have mentioned converting a baja using a 2230. which do you think you will do first?

i knew someone would say that about the energy drink.:lol: i didnt want to use the wrap for that reason but i dont have any FC wraps or stickers yet. We have designed some sticker but need to print still. I have 200k cans in a warehouse waiting to be filled with the drink. All the ingredients have come in and now we are just waiting for some big wig to fly in to oversee this first production run since it will be for public consumption. So the energy drink is still in the works and i really want to sponosor as much RC as possible. I have already talked with the guys that run a major RC event here in the west (dont want to say which one until its official) about sponsoring the event next year and as long as everything is ready to go it should be on. Anyway, i am committin adultery with this Rockstar wrap. oh well.

Hehe just razzin' ya...

Good to hear you're close on that project as well, wish you prosperity!

Does FC taste nice, comparable to Relentless? :whistle: