What corners are being cut with these Zippy batteries that they can sell them so cheap?And cause these issues?

I'm for the software Patrick - I'd rather have something trip or lower (but i'm sure acceptable) performance than a smoking esc.

I toasted a couple of MM early on and paid for them to be replaced as used in 1/8th scale - Even though well rated batteries in reality I believe a component was ripple - since the failures I then added extra caps and never had a failure since.

I would rather see the ESC limit instead of have it slowly get killed from ripples.

me too...+1 for the software....i take very care of all my mmm.....this kind of devise could it be a great solution for a bad set-up.....:yes:

An optional software updated for that would help the people who pay attention to their rigs know if they need to upgrade or not :yipi:

The stubborn people will argue that their 2C 500mAh batteries can handle their 1/8th scale no matter what :lol:

Patrick...I dont think it is fair for you to replace controller after controller if this really is the problem... Brian did a good "no load regen brake test" somewhere recently and made some pretty interesting observations wrt tvs, current voltage... Would like to know what the situation looks like under load :-) .. What numbers are we talking about in worst case?

I think it is a good idea to keeps in the safe zone with the ripple and batt checking....I personally run zippies and dont mind a little less power and more reliability...-> I can also however imagine there are some who want to squeeze every last drop of power out of it and run everything at the limits, hot & cold and exploding if needs be(though I imagine they will have better batts :-) )

Maybe those riskers can maybe disable this function (with the effect of guarantee loss).

Help..I'm gonna get flamed...

Patrick, that sounds like a great idea to me. It'd certainly help sift out the all the lower-quality packs out there too, as active performance-limiting would make it all the more obvious if a pack is struggling...as well as obviously preventing ripple deaths.

Perhaps it could be included as a check box in Castle Link? Allow people to turn off "Dynamic Power Limiting" (or whatever you'd call it) if they really want, but add a disclaimer that warns the user of possible damage to the ESC or battery if they're using cheap packs (and that Castle strongly recommend that the feature stays enabled)?

Maybe you could also add an LED flash code that warns the user if their packs are struggling too much while the feature's turned on? That way, it'd take the guess-work out of whether performance is being limited or not.

Yes, I'd definitely like this. And I'm sure it would help reduce warranty claims (and lost revenues on your end). Just be prepared to increase manpower on your tech support lines because I have a feeling there will be an influx of calls!

Seriously though, this IS a great idea!

One more suggestion; when the ESC limits performance because of ripple, have the LEDs blink some kind of error code so the user knows what to watch out for. And while you're at it, add similar error codes for temperature extremes, and any other condition you can measure. These codes should "latch" so that the code remains (even if the condition goes away) until the ESC is unplugged. It would be like a car's CEL. :smile:

And while you're in a receptive mood for suggestions, here is another thread to ponder over: http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18832 After all, gotta give your firmware developer something to do! :wink:

Hi Patrick,

IMHO, Batteries with poor quality ALREADY limit performance. Releasing a new version of software that measures this and protects the ESC is a great idea if you ask me.

If I understand what I'm reading correctly, this could actually lead us to match our systems better based on what the ESC can do safely.

How would it limit performance though? Acceleration isn't where the damaging ripple current occurs, is it? It's during braking.

I can only imagine what happens when all of that inertia from HARD acceleration, and a motor that's suddenly turned into a generator, comes crashing back through the ESC. With a poor quality battery, it just isn't going to accept the current. Things get critical.

If only Batteries could charge as quickly as they discharge.

Thanks Patrick, for giving me a better understanding of what's going on. I really do appreciate it. You have a way with words. A good teacher. :yes:

Even someone who does understand, and doesn't present it in an understandable way, only leads people to confusion or false assumptions.

i like that feature in a set up. It would be AWESOME if the user could choose to run it on or off

I'd be all for it, if my esc tripped out based on this protocol I'd know those packs aren't suitable.

Still I don't know if I should or shouldn't get these Zippy packs, they are 5000mah 3s rated 20c-30c (whatever that is) but maybe it's all too risky and I should stay on 2s

The switching is on the motors, not on the dc source. If the TVS spikes a big cap it should smooth it out - i suppose a batt is a big cap, so patrick and brian are correct. But I imagine when the motor throws too much back that the load has to be disipated somewhere....The bat is usually a good place. But cheaps batts will not handle it. Can't the excess be clamped off to a big resistor or light bulb or maybe some fireworks and pretty sparks ??

I notice also that patrick and brian never like band-aid solutions like fans and heat.. Rather be efficient and never generate the problem in the first place...typical two too good engineers :-).

I think software is a great idea. Actually, I think it is how it SHOULD be. And I would suggest that the people who lose performance and "cry foul" should be crying foul to themselves. If you buy a high end sports car, you want to run good gasoline. If you run it on pump gas, it won't perform well, may "ping" and foul plugs and generally will be less than desirable. Brushless is the same - good batteries = good fuel. Bad batteries = pump gas, "ping", fouled plugs and less desirable. :)

Patrick -- quick question -- are you using a transorb to clamp the overvoltage??

Yes -- but remember, there is a limit to how much power a transorb can absorb. They claim some really high amp clamps (which is true) but they can only absorb those high amperage for very very short periods of time.

I like the idea of making it a configurable option. Richard and Jon (my main software guys) are out of town until Friday, but I'll forward them the postings here. I'm sure they could add the voltage ripple detection limiting as a option (checkbox option) in Castle Link.

...ok so is that a yes or no to Mr Zippy?

and while I am here, can I run this flux with the 20t pinion, this thread here:
http://www.ausrc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15868

They are blaming a smoked esc on not running a 25t pinion on 6s, wheras on this forum I was under the understanding that more volts = gear down to get less amps and therefore less heat.

So what is it?

Are Polyquest 5000mah 25c 3s packs sufficient?

I've had my Flux for 2 wks this Fri and have been running it as 4S on pr of 2S 5000mah 25C NeuEnergy lipos - after 20+min run, esc, batts and motor are only warm, so I think that setup's been fine.

I've been looking at a 6S setup - a pr of 3S 5000mah, 25/50C PolyRC XP lipos. I have same question - these good enough?

.

I think the software limitation is a good idea. I would hazard to guess that 99% of the people that run these things dont have a clue about what we are talking about. They just want a reliable esc that will work with whatever they throw at it. Most people also cant afford the high end batteries to get the most out of these setups anyway and they could fall into a trap by using the cheaper batteries and gearing up. I have zippies, truerc batteries and dont have any problems with my 2 MMM. Its like patrick said, its running the system within its means. I dont go out and gear for extreme speeds with my batteries so I dont have any trouble. The typical person however has no clue that any of this could happen. The fact that C ratings also arent standardized just makes it even more difficult even for those of us that know what are doing.

+1^.....people that use zippy's or truerc's and gear-up for 65mph with a small motor in an 1/8 scale rc and do continuous speed runs up and down the block until the lvc cuts in or people that bash with ridiculous speeds on smaller lipos are the ones who ruin their setups....i feel that 50mph is plenty for bashing and 40-44mph on the track is more than enough...just because it says "65mph out of the box" doesn't mean you should constantly be pushing for that ridiculous mph pack after pack (you'll most likely break something on the car anyways:)).....i've been running both my MMM's on 4s 20-30c zippy's in both an sc8 and rc8t (geared 40mph&44mph respectively and both without fans) for a couple months now i've had great temps and run times.....the software would be a fantastic idea!!!

Back to the OP, the zippy packs you mention will do fine IF YOU GEAR IT BACK DOWN SO IT DOES AROUND 45MPH ON 6S

PLEASE RE-READ WHAT I JUST TYPED, SAY IT ALOUD A FEW TIMES TILL IT SINKS IN. WITH STOCK GEARING THOSE ZIPPYS WILL GET HOT AND PUFF!

A 5000 20c lipo should be able to output around 100amps. That would not be enough for an 1/8 MT geared for 45mph on 4s, you need 150amps or more for 4s useage with that gearing. Now on 6s those cells should be fine.

Look at it this way, a 4s 5000 20c lipo can do 1480watts (theoretical max, no losses factored for this number) at 75% it can do 1110 watts, or 1.5hp, not enough for a 12lb truck with tall gearing.

A 6s 5000 20c lipo can do 2200watts, factor in about 75% effecientcy, and you have 1650 watts, or 2.2 hp. I would not run a MT on 6s with any cell spec'd lower than the 5000 20c you mention. Unless you plan to run 35mph, then you can run less capable cells (maybe even maxamps).

A 12lb truck doing 45mph uses some juice. A good rule of thumb, is 150amps for 4s 125 for 5s, and 100 for 6s. If you plan to squeeze out the 60+ mph claim on the flux, 2 polyquest 6000 25c 3s packs in series will be the best bet... 2500watts after losses, or 3.3hp...

Someone at the traxxas forums is setting a Revo land speed record with the MMM 2200 combo and some hobbycity lipos.
Quote:
The good news is that everything held together! The bad news is (and only if you call it bad news) I didn't hit 80. It did 76.7 I think that is all the stock truck will do with the cheap 3s Zippy Rhino 4900mah 20c batteries. I used 26t pinion and a 53t spur. I have on order a 25t mod1 pinion and a 34t mod 1 spur. Plug those numbers into the calc for the fun of it. Here is a pic of the ride height.
end Quote

The zippy's cant be that bad if they just set the speed record for an E-Revo. lol
At the end of the day that thread is good publicity and will get people excited about this stuff. The last thing they want to see is a post about how he is going to blow his MMM due to ripple currents. Sometimes doing great things on a budget is more satisfying than dumping hundreds of dollars on some quality batteries that we know will break the record. After that last post everyone is going to be putting MMM's in their trucks trying to beat that last guys record. I'm not sure if thats a good thing or not though.

Ok, so this genius is going to go from sucessfully running gearing that specs out at 78mph with no tire ballooning, to gearing that specs out at 117mph... Wow, this guy is a sharp one... Going up a few teeth at a time is the way to do it. I doubt his new gearing will do as well as the old setup, as it will most likely stress the batts to the point they will puff, or worse.

I would like to see him run those packs till they hit the lvc and see what kind of mah he can put back in them, if they even hold up. I have a feeling that he may get half of their rated capacity back in, if that. A few runs is all they will give him, which is fine as speed trials are not ususally done repeatedly without a charge and cool down period.

So what has he proved? Newer lipo formulation resists puffing better than the old stuff. Sure he got his revo to go fast, and if that is his thing so be it. That setup will not have good temps and the lipo will not give many cycles at that load. So he is effectively ruining a good lipo, and putting the rest of the system at risk in the process. All so that a bunch of whining kids can "congratulate" him on having the fastest erevo. Kinda like being the worlds tallest midget IMO.

Now if he had used better packs he would have hit over 80mph, and not overtaxed his packs. So his battery investment would actually be an investment.

Bottom line is that we do not see Nic Case overgearing his setups and using cheaper batts to achieve his goals... Going fast costs money, and wears components out quickly. Not trying to rain on anyones parade here, just want to shhow things for what they are. Every noob that sees what he is doing will think that he has a solid setup, and waste their money on it too.

dont know about you guys but i find my E-revo geared for 45 is plenty fast for bashing....then again im not one to just drive in straight line. to each there own but i am simply uninterested in trying to get my E-revo up to 80 mph as the only i could do with it is drive in a straight line a couple times before bringing it in to cool down....Ill take my 25-30 min of playtime as a reasonable speed any day.

+1^:yes:

You make a lot of good points in your post. Speed costs money and if you cant pay then dont play. Just trying to provide some insight on why Castle needs to protect the speed controllers by whatever means they see fit.

I still think its funny that a pair of 4900mah Rhinos hold the record over there.

Yeah if he used better packs he will go faster. But still I can't get my erevo over 60 without it wheelieing and I use better packs 30c 5000's and a neumotor. If he where to use some poly quest or neuenergy packs he could see 80 possibly 85 mph but it's impossible to explain all of this stuff to the trx msg b members with out them crying or giving birth

I use only Zippys in both my E-Maxx and E-Revo. I've bumped up the gearing quite a bit on the E-Revo sometimes to 22/58 and do a one or two speed runs a week, perhaps for about 5 minutes each session. The batteries have held up fine. I agree Zippys aren't the greatest by any stretch, but at the price they are an extremely viable alternative and perfect for bashing with proper gearing. The only issue I've been having with them is one of my 4S packs has a cell which holds about 0.01v less than the rest. I'm pretty anal when it comes to balancing, and need the tolerance to be +-0.005V

Are you sure that is a real issue? Balancers are not 100% accurate either. Even components with 1% value tolerance can easily introduce enough variance to account for 0.01v. Heck, even dirty balance connectors can cause an erroneous reading. I would measure each cell with a multimeter to be sure.

And even if the cells are 0.01v off, that's nothing to worry about at all. Believe me, I'm pretty anal about having things properly matched. If you are worried that a cell could get above 4.2v because of this, just set your charger CC/CV threshold to 4.15v/cell, if it supports this feature. You lose VERY little runtime. Actually, I have my Xtrema set to this value for this very reason.

i like this thread a lot of good info on here abour ripple current and TVC.

yes overdrawing the batteries is REALLY bad...but upping the voltage and running 6s will increase the watts that can go in and out of the battery but can do this at lower amps, correct?

so running 6s zippys-H or 6s zippy flightmax SHOULD be alright.
if you do not gear it high then that also lowers amp draw...we gear our revo for 40mph max.
temps stay cold all round.

so riple current is silved by getting top quality batteries or changing the way you drive or cranking it up to 6s and gearing down (same watts of power...less amps).

will relay all this info to my fellow noobies (no i wont tell any "idiot forum" members about here LOL)

[QUOTE=Dagger Thrasher;264723]Patrick, that sounds like a great idea to me. It'd certainly help sift out the all the lower-quality packs out there too, as active performance-limiting would make it all the more obvious if a pack is struggling...as well as obviously preventing ripple deaths.

Perhaps it could be included as a check box in Castle Link? Allow people to turn off "Dynamic Power Limiting" (or whatever you'd call it) if they really want, but add a disclaimer that warns the user of possible damage to the ESC or battery if they're using cheap packs (and that Castle strongly recommend that the feature stays enabled)?
QUOTE]

yes i highly like this idea!!!:yipi:
because of the people who do KNOW about these ripple issues can turn it off to get good performance...but doing so knowing the limits of the battery.
so if i were to run 6s 5000mah zippies then i could turn off the power limiting so i dont lose performance, but i'd be gearing it down anyway as not to get any ripple current.

very good idea...yeah it's not fair at all that castle has had to replace all of these ESC's:diablo:
shaun

Brian, I do measure my packs with my multimeter during and after charging. That's how I discovered the variance in voltage. I know it's probably nothing, but the pack in question has been doing this regularly for the past month. My charging setup is rather primitive, being just a Triton Jr with an Astro Blinky. I'm seriously considering investing in a Turnigy Accucel-6.

Ok, what about the balancer tolerance? Does it balance the cell you measured as 0.01v difference? I know my blinky doesn't. The most accurate balancer I have is the LBA10 (it actually seems almost too sensitive).

For your level of "anal" (:wink:), I wonder if the FMA charger would be a better choice. Has a high power limit, balance charges, and also measures cell condition/quality. To do that last item, it must be quite accurate.

I think I would get the Icharger 1010B+. I've been reading there MUCH better than the Turnigy. Most of the cheap chargers at places like Hobbycity are VERY inaccurate on the voltage. The new 1010B+ and the 106 are better calibrated from the factory. For $190, you get a hell of a charger. 10S BALANCING charger with all kinds of features and stuff. Can't beat it.

at that price just get the fma cell pro 10s its a wail of a charger, for 190$ charges up to in our case 2c with a 10amp max output.
http://www.fmadirect.com/new_applica...0s_charger.htm

The 1010B+ is also 10A and seems to have more features.

Ok so I understand this yet here in Australia they are being told that ESC's are blowing as they are running the 20t pinion in a flux and not the 25t for 6s? I mean WTF? By your logic I should go down to a 14-15 pinion to lower the amps, by their logic I'll blow everything up!

What is increasingly frustrating is the lack of response to my direct questions on this matter by email to castle creations, there are more and more savage flux - ESC go boom - videos coming onto You Tube, yet I can't get any clarification on this matter, just a lot of theorising.

You can run smaller pinions, but you may find the motor undergeared, and it may run warm because of that. Otherwise it should be fine. If I were to buy a savage flux I would run 5s lipo and regear it to do around 42-45mph. That would most likely mean dropping 2 teeth on the pinion to a 23t. You can run it however you want, just take temps regularly and you will see what is not working. If you plan to run 6s, I would gear down a few teeth. Then keep an eye on the batts and if they get too hot you will need to drop a few more teeth. A MT on 6s that is geared for more than 55mph is generally a handful. That is why most of us gear for 45mph or so.

But if you go by this thread:

http://www.ausrc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15868

He's being told his esc blew as he ran the 20t pinion (stock gearing) and not the 25t pinion (optional included)

so doesn't that contradict what you are saying?

By your logic he should have gone down to a 12/13 perhaps, by theirs, the smaller pinion is what fried the esc

The Flux already does 41mph on 4S with a 20T pinion and a little tire ballooning. Going to 5S, you'll want to drop 2T-3T from the 20T to get back down in the mid 40mph range if you account for ballooning.