ok, thanks. That makes sense Brian.. I wish I could manually set the cell count on the quark.. They're charging up fine now though, and then I'll take it out and try my new tires. Problem is trying to find a big patch of dirt to see what it does in the rough stuff =\

NICE tire-job A4DTM!! :018:

Looks like someone took my advice? That's exactly what I was thinking when I made the thread on the subject. Just a thought, maybe it would work even better if apply the shoe-goo first, then the fiberglass on that?

Let me know how well they work like that! :027:

word. I've got about 10 min left till my second pack peaks, then me and my cousin are going to try and find a pile of dirt or something. I'll get video for sure.
I thought about putting the shoe-goo on first, but it gets "tacky" rather quickly.. I found if I put a large amount on say 1/3 of the tire, and press it into the tape, it fills all the holes completely, just fine. I don't think I'll have any problems. If I did a bead around the entire tire, by the time I would go to press it into the tape, it was tacky, and would start to collect on the piece of plastic I was using, or just take the shoe-goo out of the holes..

Yeah, at anything over 3s, the controller has to make some assumptions about cells count - like that most people install fairly fresh battery packs that have a voltage of at least 4-4.2v/cell. I too wish you could set cell count to get rid of that possibility for error.

Also, Quark's LVC table goes as low as 2.2v/cell, but only as high as 3v. I don't know of anyone that runs that low! I suppose that cutoff would be good for A123 cells, but I'm sure the Quark is calculating cell count based on normal lipo cells, so that wouldn't really work either. I'd like to see cutoffs from no lower than 2.7v, but as high as 3.3v - much better range IMO.

Nice job on the tires too. I'm interested to see how they work as well, especially long-term.

Brian: Do you think my problems before could have been in part due to the LVC in the Quark? I did have it to NiMh High setting though. But a couple of times, when I reprogrammed, it would not save the settings. It's really frustrating.

Not really sure. There is a blurb in the Quark manual saying something about setting the LVC value and then changing back to NiMH...

I did notice that the Quark DOES hold the programming, but when you go back into programming mode, the default value is the first selection making it look like it isn't.

yeah, when I bought the quark, I was curious as to why 3v/cell was the highest, when either true-rc, or astroflight said 3.3v was the lowest they should be discharged..
I found a gold mine about 10 minutes from my house.. in a "rich" community right out of my town, they're building new homes.. more like mansions.. very rich community.
My cousin and I went to see if there was some dirt to play in, and as we went over one of the hills, we saw a peak of dirt.. from the top of the hill, you could see about a mile of nothing but dirt. dusty roads went down the hill, but I couldn't drive my 1:1 down it, so we walked.. there was 3 or 4 huge mounds of dirt and gravel.. It looks like a gravel pit, but mostly dirt :)
I got a very short video, before the camera's batteries died, as well as BOTH of my rear cvd pins came out, and dug about 1/4" into the rear hubs.. I need to go through, and threadlock every screw on this truck. no major damage, but it seems every time I run, something comes loose.. the cvd pins have flat spots on them, so I'm not sure if I lost the grub screw completely or not, havn't looked closely yet.
I didn't run on pavement, but the tires had no noticable ballooning as far as I could see. I'll get the hill climbing clip up sometime tommorow.

No, I really mean it didn't save a couple times. I tried no reverse setup, I had reverse after programing? :032:

I will check out this 'blurb' right away. :005:

OK, here is the "blurb" I was talking about:

short video until the camera died.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzCgbMWga2o

Brian, I slow-mo'd part of the video so you could see the non-balloonage.

Cool! The tires look like they are holding together well. I'm just looking for something that will last the life of the tire...

Oh man, you guys are scaring me. I ordered this Quark hoping that it would cure all of my woes. I don't need any more programming problems.

lol, relax AAngel! Just read the manual and you'll be fine. The "blurb" I referred to only applies if you set a manual cutoff, then switch back to an "lipo normal" or "lipo high" mode.

I know that this is probably common knowledge, but I've been running the Proline MTR tires. At track speeds, ballooning is minimal. Before I started running the MTRs, I used to blow my tires off the wheels pretty regularly. Since I've gone to the MTRs, I haven't had that problem. It's gotta mean something.

so I think I might have a lipo pack going bad?
one of the packs is fine, and takes maybe 10 minutes to balance, while the other pack..
cell 1,3,4,5 were all higher voltage than cell 2.. It's been balancing for 2.5 hours now, and cell 1 finally dropped to be in balance w/ cell 2.. but 3-5 are STILL discharging. (*EDIT-cells 1,3,4,5 are all still high.. 3+ hours later..) This pack has been abused much more than my other pack, but it still charged fine the last time I charged it, and the truck ran normal. If I can ever get the rest of the cells to balance, I'll see what the charger says, compared to the other pack.. I usually balance before and after charging, and this is the first time it's taken this long to balance, and it's still not balanced :(
Here's two pictures of the pack that is taking forever to balance. The pinion came loose on the motor shaft, and slid into the battery (batteries have yet to move), and kind of dented two of the cells, and "cut" into one of the cells a tiny bit.. but I've cycled the pack a few times since that happened, and never had a problem getting it to balance until tonight..
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/9...0592nh1.th.jpg
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/5...0594of1.th.jpg

How long does it normally take to balance your packs, if you balance off the charger? Think True-RC would be able to replace the 2nd cell if it is indeed bad?

Here's some other pictures of the truck. First picture, I had cracked part of the rear diff case, you can see the screw tried to rip out of the bulk. This made the front of the suspension arm raise, and was binding the suspension, so I went and ordered $125 worth of random extra parts, so I have less downtime in the future.
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/2223/p5200564tn9.jpg

fan/heatsink
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/5711/p5200565ze5.jpg

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8828/p5200568wt8.jpg

and my box-o-goodies :)
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/8946/p5200569jk6.jpg