..well another day another problem My Castle Field Link and MM Pro arrived today, so have hooked up the Card and Sidewinder to use Castle Link, all good, but out on a run I tried to use the card to change a setting and nothing. Receiver lead into card, plugged in battery, turn on, LED card has one green light on and green light is flashing on ESC. I know the card is fine as I was able to change settings on the MM Pro easily.

So, so far we have a Sidewinder SCT that:

Runs hot (140-150f running after 10 mins in an SCRT10 geared 13/46, Motor and Battery temps around 100f)
doesn't work on Castle Field Link
Has a Weak BEC (5V although unless you're running LED's pretty much a non issue)
Circuit board moves around inside the case.

Are my expectations unreasonably high?

Did you update the castle link firmware as per the Castle web site to work with the SCT controller!!!

3.27 Beta 10/14/10 11.1MB Added Sidewinder SCT V1.29 software
Added Thunderbird V3.24 software
Updated Car and Air Field Links for compatibility with latest software versions


Or are my expectations too high?


The temps are a little high but that is probably the biggest truck that this ESC is designed to support. So its not suprising that the temps are towards the upper range.

I would have prefferred and adjustable BEC but that would have just upped the price... This is intended as a V budget setup.

Wow....... Don't think you expectations are too high, but your whining is off the charts. For every one person that can't get it to work there is probably a hundred that it works great for. So what's the real issue here? I mean it's not like complaining makes it work right? Figure it out or get rid of it. Fishing for a magical solution or answer on the forum by complaining about everything YOU feel is wrong is disrespectful in my opinion. Bustin your chops a bit but c'mon man you got a few cars and some experience, use it. Don't expect your budget system to run like your race speedo either. As it's been said this is a spec system so how can you compare it to the mmpro?

Ah, I kinda like the feedback. Helps me on the next revision...

You do have to update the software in the field link for it to work with the Sidewinder SCT.

The ESC kinda feels cheap, cause it's kinda cheap. What do you want for $99 for a combo with a tremendous motor? :lol:

Really, the motor is about 70% of our cost. We were shooting for a ROAR legal (for SCT racing) motor and ESC. We know how much it cost to make the motor, so I designed an ESC that would give us the ability to hit a $99.00 street price, yet still perform well enough to handle the motor.

150F - 160F is nothing -- the ESC will handle about 300F without damage. It has a two level over-temp detection, which means it will punish you if you push it too hard (if it detects an extreme temperature ramp, it will shut down until temps settle down -- shows as a 30-40 second shutdown.) We use 200F as our heat sink maximum temperature for normal operation.

Just rambling...

Patrick

I prefer to think of the ESC as packaging... the motor is that good!

Makes sense Patrick. Just a little cranky now been up for 30 hours and laying in the bucket truck unable to sleep. Apologies to all. I will try to not be so harsh but no promises.

300F ?!?!!??!? What MOSFETs are these? (Tell me what FETs you use please - if I can learn , there may be secret...:whistle:)

As always, good info Pat.

So how long do the FETs last at 200f? 1000 hours?

The MOSFET is made specifically for Castle Creations by On Semiconductor. It's a NTMFS4901 --

Its threads like this that I buy exclusively CC products for my ESCs, and mostly for motors when appropriate. The amount of personal attention that Patrick provides, especially considering he is busy, along with the support of CC is beyond the call.

100 Dollar Brushless combo can't be beat, considering the what the motor can do.

Would you believe that the Onsemi rep wouldn't tell me what fets Castle is using! Pat must of loaded the guy with pizza to keep him quiet.

Mate no issues on value, as I have said before the motor is worth the price alone.

I have tried updating the software on the fieldlink using castlelink, didn't make any difference. This is on the latest software I downloaded last night.

Good info on the ESC temps tho, guess I'm a bit old school in that I dont like my ESC temps over 110f if I can at all help it

Just pulled my MMPro out of my SC10 and put the SidewinderSC esc in with the 1410 1y. Running the same gearing I was with a Ballistic 13.5 and the MMPro for racing. with the 13.5T it was geared for 31MPH without any ballooning, with the 1410 its 35MPH. I can wheelie from a roll of about 10MPH and the temperature didn't break 80* on the esc or motor. Yes it's only about 35* out but the temp before I went outside was about 75* and I immedietly started running it hard, wideopen and going through the grass. Unfortunately the only other gearing I have puts this setup at about 50MPH I may try it but don't want to push my luck to much, plus it's 1:30AM and I don't think my neighbors would appreciate a 50MPH flip and skid on the lid! Overall, CC hit a homerun. Maybe the esc isn't perfect but it's pretty good and for the price it's damn good!

Is the 1410 from the SCT package same 4-pole as the 1406's but with longer rotor? (so more torque?)

I guess this would be the best option for a Rustler?

Yes the 1410 is a 4 pole motor and has a kv value of 3800. It is a longer rotor as well, otherwise similar to the 1406 motors. As long as you can gear it for the speed you want on the voltage you want I think this would be the better choice for a motor. It should run cooler since it's bigger and it would be faster than a vxl with the same gearing and should be much cooler as well. Hands down this motor is awesome and for the price I can't complain about the esc either. I'm running it in my sc10 and am hoping my track will make some rule changes to allow this motor instead of a piddly 540 13.5t motor in sc racing. I smoked two motors last year because of inferior designs and low power output of those motors