Wife burned up my Mamba Max on 5S over the holiday... :(
 

Well it finally happened, the MMax went down on 5S lipos in less than 10 secs in my wife's hands.:007: :036:

To her credit I'm teasing a bit, tho it really was like 10 secs. I had been driving all over the TG holiday and the BL Revo was my last truck standing out of 3. Crawling over lumber, high speed street and grass runs, some yard racing vs my bro in laws stock rustler (yet he still won alot :mad:1 :005:, small track and tight turns, lots of me going too fast, wheels falling off, or breaking stuff :) .)

So she says "I want a to drive it, I want to do a race"
-"Ok dear, just be very, very careful. It has alot of power, just be easy on the throttle until you get used to it. It can get away on you really fast."
"Alright, I'll be careful"

[sets cars up for race]

1...2...3..go!

Up the hill it goes, drives into the tree which is turn 1. She hits reverse to back up, then tries to go forward, then I hear a grinding sound.
-"Woah woah woah, stop!" (thinking its the spur or diffs) then I hear the esc making the start up beeps. Uhoh.

Run over and I smell smoke. Don't see any, but unplug everything and look at it. Plug just the 2S batt in, red led comes on, but esc won't arm or beep. Looks like a FET may be burned, but hard to tell.

Either way the stock Rusty won the race again...

She didn't do anything I hadn't done many times w/ the truck. A stick was kinda stuck in the wheel, so its possible the rotor may have been locked and the amp surge killed it. Its supposed to have protection for that, but I doubt its perfect, and 5S may have been to close to the margins anyway for the esc to have a good chance of shutting itself down in time. Aw damn.

Guess its time to send her in (edit: the esc, not the wife, she's non-refundable ;) ). I'll prolly still run it carefully on 5s when I get it back, but its almost too much power anyway (if that exists. 0_o )The only time I can go WOT is on the street on straight aways, but everywhere else its a bit nutty. 4S would be just fine, tho I am waiting for the MMonsterMax to come out, and def looking to upgrade to that for more safety on 5s.

Perhaps I'll upload a really short vid of one of the races someone cought on the digi cam. Its pretty funny putting the 1500W BL 4wd Revo versus the 100W stock Rusty, however slow and steady often wins the race (and brakes far fewer parts.)

Makes sense if the drive train was locked and she didn't let up on the power. It will draw ALOT of amps REALLY fast and on 5s it didn't stand a chance.

So the MM is not invincable. This is the first report I have heard of someone actually frying one. Good to know the limits. What size motor were you running on 5s.

I'm working on a 1/8 buggy project that I'm planning on running on 5s also.

I know the feeling....my wifr is non- returnable as well...lol....Ihave only let her drive my truck a few times, so...so far im pretty lucky.....good luck with the controller

Well, every superman has its kryptonite, and for the MMax its women :P


Kidding kidding kidding....

It actually happened so fast that she didnt really do anything, she just got very unlucky. At least I can keep it in my back pocket if she gives me trouble about RCs, I can remind her of her destructive tendencies. :)

yes you can...and that is to funny...

I think that the sudden reverse/braking, had its role in destroying the Mamba Dude. Braking heats up the controller pretty fast and castle creations recommended not to use the brakes alot with the MambaMax while running on 5s.

lol...the way you put it is as if Castle doesn't mind that you are using it on 5s in the first place...

That kind of stinks. One reason I dont let anyone drive my trucks...except my dad and brother...

For some wierd reason, my dad, brother, and I can give my trucks a pounding without an issue. The instant the controller falls into anyone else's hand my truck breaks.

Probably it has something to do with your spiritual relationship. Your truck feels comfortable under your control and if someone strange out of the family's blood, it would simply break down.:p

I have never had trouble with letting other people drive mine, I just have one rule; "You break it, you buy the parts to fix it, or buy the totaled wreck" People respect your stuff when they realize how much to fix and their money is on the line

Cap. Harlock

LOL Ya, no kidding! My brother, he's 32, he is the only one that stuff breaks on my truck. But the thing is he doesnt even run that hard, or crash, it just breaks?!

HAHA

I guess have to keep wife off next one. ;)

I've been doing some testing on a mamba 25 5s, blew it also. Extended part throttle operation seems to be about the worst thing you can do to that controller, especialy on 5s. I did test full reverse-full gas-full-reverse back and forth 4ft. passes up to 4 passes to heat up controller. Continuos 2cnd gear full throttle runs (in grass geared high enough I had to take of in 1st then shift to 2cnd) didn't heat it up enough to worry about. However something that doesn't apear to be abusive (extended part throttle runs) really put the heat to it. Higher voltage made it happen even quicker, and gearing down so as 5s top speed matches 4s top speed didn't help either. This test with a fresh pack killed my speedo quick (20-30ft at very low throttle input).

The m.m. manual even stresses gear down don't cut back throttle end points.

I know the m.m. is a much diffrent controller than the 25, but imagine they have the same tendancys.

Is there any chance it went puff because your wife was trying to take it easy on the truck? If this looks like a possible cause to you, it might save some other peoples controllers to keep this in mind.

WOW! Did you really try a Mamba 25 in an EMaxx?? On 5S??

that would be something to see huh?
phil

Yeah. I mean it's a Mamba 25, as in 25 amps continuous. This controller is smaller as an UBEC!!

What motor was on it, Cheater? A CM-2080?? LOL

I know what ya mean used to run a mamba in my rc18t.. lol not my maxx.
phil:027:

roughly speed 400 size motor, but only 850kv (lots of torque per amp). setups like this on 2 or 3s are used by rock crawlers, their old setups were like 55 turn lathe motors and 6cell nimh.

My original idea was something like a 4 to 6 pole inrunner 2000-3000kv 400 size on 4 or 5s 1500-1800 lipo in a tenth scale t.c. or stadium truck. I'm currently racing T.C. with a M.M. 5700 geared low on 6cell nimh and only using 2300-2800mah for a 5 min. race. Thats around 250watts average. I wanted to switch to lipo and got to thinking, if voltage is optimized for a particular motor the motor wouldn,t have to be nearly as big physicaly, and with lipos + a smaller motor, the 50 oz. T.C. would be easily 10 oz. lighter, so if the new setup could handle 200watt. average it would be great, + less tire wear, and less likely to break when bouncing of the walls of our tight carpet track. Then started calculating average amp draws @ diffrent voltages (5s roughly 200watt/17volt=12amp. The mamba 25 is rated at 25amp continuos and I believe 50amp burst with way higher short spikes.
The #s sound good, but not many people are trying stuff like this with the little controler, so I didn't want to buy a motor and new batts. if it wouldn't work. I had the outrunner on an airplane (the only motor I own that could live with 5s) and the 25 in my rc18t + some old 1800 2 and 3s packs. I couldn,t easily get enough gear in my tenth scales to effectively test the controller with this motor(850kv), so I stuck it in the e-maxx and started of with a crawler setup. Then slowly added more gear and more voltage trying to get a feel for what this controller could handle and stay cool. 5s worked for a little while, dead now. considering going back to 3 or 4s getting good bats and motor and trying again, in the stadium truck, would like to hear some more opinions and any details of any similair setups. http://rc-monster.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4823