RACING 1/8 BUGGY vid
 

Ok... here's the ONLY video I got from racing today. I really does not show the speed real well or the por condition of hte track which made for some "careful" driving in sertain spots. The surface was very bumpy and rutted in spots, like little ceral-bowl size moguls. :eek:

Anyway, it's not great camera work, sorry... but it's watchable to see a brushless on the track. There aren't many vids of that around.

Long story short... I @#@$& myself in 2 of 3 qualifiers so that left me bq (1st in b main) and had to bump up to get back in the A.

I should have been about 4th or 5th in the A but the first race I didn't get on the track in time and missed the first lap, got 3rd overall in second round, and then pulled my car off the track a lap early in the 3rd (I thought they said I was done). :007: :mad:1

So here's the start of the B Main... me in front in the green "silent" car. :004:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7c-ieY_VLc

the video should be live soon if it's not already....

still isnt workin


EDIT, never mid it works now, im watching it

SWEET!! u really dominated there!

Looks good, especially with the conditions.
Did you make it to the A Main?
How long were the Mains?
Did they have mandatory pits in the Mains?

Nice to see the electric dominate. No one even challenged you.

Good work. I could watch that stuff all day.

Are you the only one running electric at your track?

i see the 8ight handle the bump's and jump's well.
very nice domination indeed.
:D :p :dft012:

I liked that ALOT. It was funny at the start the way that other guys would kind of also catch you when you slowed down for the turns and then he'd just disappear from the video frame as you left him.

I was at my track the other night for some practice. One of the veteran drivers was there with his truggy. He is a much better driver than I am, but with the way our track is setup now, I left him so far behind on the straights that he couldn't catch me. I had almost lapped him when I crashed.

Awesome driving Glass. Very consistent.

Seems to me the mamba maxx worked fine that day.. :)

Nice. You was showing the nitro which was the stuff.

Really cool, thanks for the vid.

Yeah, thanks guys.. the car was working and I was keeping it pretty smooth except for the first jump at the start.... kissed the pipe and rolled it.

That was my first time at this track, and only the second time racing with teh 8ight. I was running against guys who run there all the time... one guy in this race is a full ride Mugen driver, lol. I was turning some pretty good lap times... only a couple guys had a better time all day than my best lap. One of the guys I went with had the fastest lap, .3 better than mine.

Bad news is that I had gone too loose with the gear mesh... I had it too tight one run and it was a little loud so I loosened it up but didn't double check it. I'm guessing it slipped a little when I tightened the screws, and made the mesh way too loose. Stupid mistake... and I stripped a gear while in the lead and DNFed. So no A main... I was bummed cause I really wanted to push it for 20 min.

Hi glassdoctor,

Inspirational stuff !

Regards,
Joe Ling

auch, that blows.
stripping your gear's.:mad:1

About the electronics:

I wanted to avoid the Neu cogging thing and find out how my old Hacker would do.

So I put the Hacker modded motor in it (C50 12L but screams) and geared it 10/46. It was fast as hell... easily the fastest thing I saw down the straight all day. I don't know what the deal is with this motor but it's always been fast... but runs hot. I thermalled with it in practice... motor and esc both over 200* :eek:

So it was back to the Neu. Now I didn't put the 1512 back in just as a trial, because last fall when I raced it with that motor and the MM that was still in the car, it would start shutting off (reboot, come back on) after a few minutes for no apparent reason... temps were low, not under big loads, etc.

So I tried the 1515 just to see if the motor was the problem. It did the same thing with the 1515 so something is wrong with the controller.

So I took both the 1515 and the MM out of my truggy and put them in the 8ight. Everything worked pretty well.

I only had it cogg at start up a couple times that were very noticeable... never a problem while racing.

BUT, I did see like two or three times where it did the "brake glitch" thing... where it seems to cog very breifly while running, not from a standstill.

Oh and after the races were over I took a couple laps with a fresh spur gear fix... and I may have done something to the controller. Not sure yet... gotta try it again today. :013:

Great vid! It must suck having to race indoors with nitro :032:.

no way MM, spanking them like he did must be sweet like sugar!

Um yeah... can you say ear plugs and eye drops?

It's very cold too so it's a mix of running heaters and having the window open for ventilation. Catch 22.... smoke or cold.

But it was good to race. Next time I'm bringing some headphones or plugs. A cool thing is that they broadcast the announcer via FM radio so you can listen to what's going on and block out some noise at the same time.

I didn't have a radio so I couldn't hear very well... thus the mistake i made thinking my race was over and pulled off early.

Jolly... yeah that was fun being competitive with the fast guys. I belonged in the A for sure, but no way I would have won the thing... I would have been thrilled with top 3. There are better drivers there than me... but my car was capable.. who knows maybe with a great run I could have challenged in the A.

But I need to sharpen my driving... or drive 20 min without a mistake.

Nice! I know I never want to race against you... at least for a while! Where was that?

Well lack of practice on the track don't help. I think you may have got better
and faster as night went on. Better luck next time.

Great driving GD! I love watching BL domination! Hope its better next time! Hopefully castle comes out with that new software!

Hey, I forgot to mention the temp and runtime data stuff.

Keep in mind the track was cold, like 40*, so it's way different than in the summer. I didn't use any fans.

And I kept the lipo pack nice and toasty in the pits. I kept the pack wrapped up in a little electric heating pad while charging and waiting to race... kinda like the tire warmers on road guys use. So the lipo stayed @80-90*. That looked funny but worked great. :)
motor temp, esc temp, mah charged back after the run:

1st heat: 125*, 120*, @1400mah
2nd heat: 162*,125*, 1680mah
3rd heat: 128*,128*, 1350mah

geared 16/46 every run... runtime varies a little depending on how many warm up laps I run etc.

But in general I was running about 3 laps warm up and the race is about 6 minutes once the time is up and you take the last lap. So I would say @ 7 minutes ave. track time. The thrid one I stopped early and the first one I think I was taking it easy.

So it looks like I was using around 230mah per minute... very happy with that. In a 30 minute main at this rate I would only use 6900mah.

NO DOUBT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This shows me more than ever that we need the new software... and more so the Monster Max.

EDIT: because I still had issues even though it worked well for the most part... shows the potential IF they can iron out the bugs.

Thanks guys....]

BG, they have the sportsman class too... there was like 20 buggies in that class too. Some of those boys can't make a single lap without crashing at least twice, lol....

This was up at Waterloo...

Lol, that sounds like me! I should have made my username "crash". I think I'll stick to HobbyHaven for a while. :)

Ahhh Yes! Sportsmans class... Thats more my driving level too.:032:

When I see folks drive like you did in that video you make it look so easy. Then when I get out on the track and try it myself its a total mess.

I love it. Brushless domination all the way!!! lol Looks to be running good all day. I also think you should have been in the A-main. You just killed everybody there, lol.

Nice driving. When I have my brushless out on the track I have the problem of too much power, and always end up dialing it down via the radio. After selling my brushless 1/8th, this new mamba maxx is making me regret it.

looks good, I hope my 8ight will look that good when it finally hits the track. also great idea about keeping the lipo warm. I know I have tried my 8ight outside lately and the performance is not nearly the same now that its 10-20 degrees out.

I have had a similar situation and it turned out to be the deans connectors. At first it seemed to have a lot of carbon on the male side of the deans so I kept cleaning it off, but in the end I had to change both the female side and male side. I'm not sure if this is the problem your having but it might be worth a check.

Thanks for the tip... I will definitely check it out. Hmm, I'm pretty sure I did install this controller in a hurry at that race last fall.

Greetings glassdoctor from one of your neighbors to the north, your buggy looks really good on the track!! I'm in the process of doing a buggy conversion and trying to spur interest for a class at a new track opening this spring in MN.

I have a question for you. I see that your average current draw is approximately 230mAH/minute in a race setting. Have you done any testing with a data logger to see what your peak current draw is? I'll be using a 5S A123 pack and a Neu 1512 2.5d and I'm curious if I can get by with a 1P or if I'll need to use a 2P configuration. I'll do some testing of my own once I'm further along in the conversion process but was wondering if you had any data to share.

Cartwheels,

When I saw your post, I remembered that my buggy was cogging for no apparent reason the last time I was at the track. Since you mentioned it, I realized that the Deans on my ESC has been on there since the day I first got my MM, which was right after they were released. With the salty humid weather down here, I thought it might to change it and what do you know? No more cogging. This time I applied some electrical grease. This stuff actually helps conductivity.

Thanks.

I'm glad I could help. I never had any problems with Deans on the 1/10 stuff but, I've seen it a couple of times now on my 1/8 cars. It must have something to do with the increased voltage and current. In time there gets be a black smudge on the contacts and it's hard to get off. It's easier to clean off the male side but very hard to clean the female side if not impossible.

I'm obviously not glassdoctor, but I recall him saying he got 120-130A peaks according to his Eagletree on one of his buggies (running 4s and a Neu motor). I think you'll probably want 2p on that A123 pack. A 1p pack at 30C would only be delivering ~60-65A and with a decent voltage drop.

Yep... depending on gearing and traction, you can pull over 100amp spikes. My truggy with the 1515 hit over 120.
I think the highest I saw with the 1512/buggy was just under 120. But I don't use the eagle tree all the time.

But I have had runs in the street and lower traction tracks that showed peaks around 70-90amps.

At full speed the amps drop to around 30ish but every time you yank throttle and accelrate it will hit at least 50-60amps until the load drops (stops acclerating).

And average for the whole run is like @15amps.

Thanks for the info

UPDATE... race #2
 

Ok, here's dome stuff from last weekends race. (2nd time racing with the 8ight)

Setup changes from before:
Different MM esc... other one cogging bad... I think I killed it. :036:
Direct hardwired the motor wires...no stock 4mm gold cons.
Replaced the 1515 1700kv with the 1512 1900kv.
Dropped the gear from 16/46 to 14/46 with the motor swap.
Ran the new maxamps 5000mah 4s pack in quals... 8000 pack in the main, to be safe.

Ok... biggest mistake was not working on the car, checking ride height, etc. It was riding low in the rear already and when I put the bigger pack in for the main it messed things up on some of the jumps... bad nose over from chassis slap. Also, the shocks needed rebuilt bad... they had been leaking and I never got that done.

Anyway... I did ok in qualifying but not great. Some bad runs and dnfs by some fast guys helped me qualify 4th out of 28 buggies. But the main was rough for me... one jump wrecked me almost every lap, lol...

Gotta go get some 3's... brb

The awesome thing was that the setup I ran was getting great runtime.

I could have geared up a tooth to get a little more top end and may hurt the runtimes a bit. But here's what I got:

first run 1350mah
second run 1225mah
third run was around 1300ish... didn't write it down.... hectic day. :019:

So I was using about 180mah per minute on average based on a 7 or 7.5 minute run. Last time it was using 1400-1600mah per run with the 1515.

I'm surprised to see the efficiency improve. Gearing was just barely lower (when adjusted for kv change... the 16/46 @1700kv would equal 14.25/46 @1900kv... I ran 14/46) The esc settings may have something to do with the improvement.

ALSO, the temps were even lower than before also... I only checked it once, after the last qualifier and I was surprised:
Motor: 97*F
ESC: 115*F

Track temps were probably in the 50's I would guess... no fan on motor/esc.