Put me in for testing.

I take it you have never met Bob B. from Astro Flight.....

Nope :no:. What's the scoop with that guy?

He's a bit....gruff

That's all I'm sayin'

is there really a update on the way for 08, i hope so, i really like my hvmaxx but went with the wrong gearing :slap:

Replay From Castle Creations
 

This is a mail that castle creations wrote me on yestarday answering my questions about MM:

"The stuff about a change in the Mamba Max that makes it not work with over a 4s pack is not true. It has not been changed and it has always been the case that if you plug in a 5s pack there is a good chance that the ESC will quit working and be damaged. Some will withstand this and work OK on 5s. Either way they are out of warranty. There is no check that makes them not work on a 4s pack. Be careful with technical details presented as fact on discussion groups. The person that started this rumor has no contact with us and if we made a change like this, we would let people know. We do say that if the Mamba Max is used with 4s it is out of warranty but this is not an ESC
limit, 4s will destroy our high Kv motors. The ESC is actually OK on 4s, but
still out of warranty."

What I don't get is how is the 4600 rated to run 12 NiMh cells on the MM under warranty, but 4S Lipo voids your warranty? Apparently the guys at Castle have no idea just how much voltage a lot of the newer NiMh cells are supplying these days.

They should know that some fully charged NiCd or NiMH cells put out 1.4V+- and 12 cells at 1.4V= 16.8 and it is the same as a fully charged 4S lipo. I know some of us are no engineers, but it seems that some company's engineers need to go back and learn more. If I was the owner of CC or Novak and had to pay my engineer to make things work, he better do it. He gats paid for that. Like I said in other threads and forums, "What are you guys paying your engineers to do?" Have you guys seen the new crop of "CAR" BL controllers coming out of Asia? If the product is good, you know people will go for it.

Yeah, I've always said that 12 cells or 4s lipo is practically same:

4s lipo nominal charge @ 3.7v/cell: 14.8v
12 cells nominal charge @ 1.2v/cell: 14.4v

4s lipo "right off the charger" @ 4.2v/cell: 16.8v
12 cells "right off the charger" @ 1.4v/cell: 16.8v

Manufacturers probably figure that a "good" lipo pack maintains a higher voltage under heavy load than NiMH.

so maybe the people that this is not working for had bad solder joints or ?????

Or what indeed. We know the fets in use are different now- what are they rated for compared to the old ones? I would have thought though that changing the fets wouldnt stop it being 14cell capable, but changing something in the brains or programming would? 'Tis weird.

Yeah, I don't think just changing the FETs changed anything, but they might have done something at the same time that affected the voltage capability. Everyone says they didn't change anything, but I know for a fact they did change the FETs, so what else didn't they change?

From what I have been told, the 4s rating is out of warranty because the lipo packs keep a higher voltage over the life of the pack. This leads to more heat buildup, and the motors that Castle sells with the mamba max wont take 4s WOT either.

wow, im reall getting confused. Howd things go to novak and such?

Im planning to run a MM with a 8xl on 14-cells. so are hte "new" able to handle 14cell or will it just fry up like the earlier ones?