Quark fried, blown capacitor...

plumslow, thanks for the info. The more the better.

As for your getting into a brushless truggy, I really can't speak highly enough of the performance of the Mamba Max on 4S lipo with a two pole motor. The Feigaos run really well, but suffer from excessive heat; but what do you want from a system that goes for less than $200. If you have the money, the MM and a Lehner 1940 8 or 9 hi amp would be a killer setup. If you want to go with a four pole motor, the Neu/Quark combo seems to be the hot item among most here.

Due to personal experiences, I'd recommend the MM/Lehner combo.

[zeropointbug]

AAngel, haven't we gone over the whole cap thing before? :005:

What a couple ppl said about too large a cap, I can't see it, maybe they just meant for plugging in sparks? The more caps/larger you use, the better.

AAngel, also I find that weird that the MM would see such a benefit for you, and not the Quark. The MM already has more 'capacitor' (3x 330uF) than the Quark, CC doesn't even recommend them for these large R/C's, S&T DOES recommend them, and from your experience the Quark doesn't really benefit from them temp wise. But maybe temp is only part of it then? Adding more caps to the Quark will definitely save the stock caps from blowing, but we don't know yet if it makes for more efficient switching with it.

I will have to see.

BTW, I just ordered a DX 2.0 for my maxx, so it will most likely be night and day for me as far as radios go...

I looked at the MM caps. Although they are 330uf, I belive that they are only rated to 25v. That may have made a difference. I wonder what would happen if you replaced the stock caps with the 35v version.

I run Spektrum in all of my vehicles. I have three of them...A DX3, DX2 and DX2.0. They do work well for me.

[zeropointbug]

Yes, but that is still more than what you use (4s Lipo typically), and having three will have a lower ESR impedance than having 2 of higher voltage.

I did a test of these caps, I reverse polarity, slowly increase voltage until I got to ~16v, then they quickly inflated and blew out.... stinky, don't try at home. :020:

I'm sure the Spektrum will work great for me, especially coming from the TQ-3.

[bdebde]

Love my Spektrum too!

[zeropointbug]

I received my Quark back yesterday, my Spektrum dx2.0 today, S&T also sent the PRO-BEC (very nice). The PRO-BEC is made by S&T and looks to be very well made, and is very small, about 1/3 the UBEC.

I attached the Quark naked board to a decent sized heatsink with the stock thermal sticky pads, and then shrink wrapped it, as well as adding two extra caps on the input bar, opposite of the stock caps. (this is temporary)

Even with a large heasink on there, and moderate driving the Quark got very hot. The heatsink got very hot and just almost as hot as the output wires, but no thermals, and the caps stayed only slightly warm to touch.

http://picasaweb.google.com/SethHuls...49267617195762
http://picasaweb.google.com/SethHuls...49267617195746
http://picasaweb.google.com/SethHuls...49271912163074
http://picasaweb.google.com/SethHuls...49271912163090

AAngel: With my Spektrum radio now, I don't have the low speed capability I had with the stock TQ-3 radio, it's definitely not a snails crawl anymore, which I miss... but no more glitching!

[Serum]

Seth; have you got more pics of that BEC?

surprising that the controller still gets that hot. Good thing the thermal shutdowns are history.

[zeropointbug]

There you go. :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/SethHuls...60047985108770

http://picasaweb.google.com/SethHuls...60047985108786

And yes, this Quark surely dissipates mucho heat! One high speed run and it's warmed up good. I am paranoid now over the Quark after the big ordeal.

[smhertzog]

I've been running what I call my Frankenquark for a while now. It originally had a bunch of heat sinks on it but I found they were not necessary. It always ran very cool but the caps would always get very hot as high as 200 f. Well after blowing a few caps I decided to try the sky extra cap idea. So far so good. The piece of angle gets 105 f directly over the fets and were the two pieces of angle overlap and bolt to the chassis they got up to 145 f. I thought that was a little odd. I thought the angle directly over the fets would be the hottest area? The wires and the area were the caps are soldered to the wires also got up to 145 f. This is without a fan in a crt geared 15/46 with big tires driven very hard for three straight sets of orion 4800 4s lipo packs (about 40-45 minutes of continuous racing).

[jhautz]

Originally Posted by zeropointbug

I received my Quark back yesterday, my Spektrum dx2.0 today, S&T also sent the PRO-BEC (very nice). The PRO-BEC is made by S&T and looks to be very well made, and is very small, about 1/3 the UBEC.

I attached the Quark naked board to a decent sized heatsink with the stock thermal sticky pads, and then shrink wrapped it, as well as adding two extra caps on the input bar, opposite of the stock caps. (this is temporary)

Even with a large heasink on there, and moderate driving the Quark got very hot. The heatsink got very hot and just almost as hot as the output wires, but no thermals, and the caps stayed only slightly warm to touch.

http://picasaweb.google.com/SethHuls...49267617195762
http://picasaweb.google.com/SethHuls...49267617195746
http://picasaweb.google.com/SethHuls...49271912163074
http://picasaweb.google.com/SethHuls...49271912163090

AAngel: With my Spektrum radio now, I don't have the low speed capability I had with the stock TQ-3 radio, it's definitely not a snails crawl anymore, which I miss... but no more glitching!

Looks good ZPB. How hot is hot? Did you temp it?

One thing though, it looks like the shrink is all the way around the heatsink. You might want to allow some better air flow over the heat sink fins so it can get rid of the heat.

zpb, my Quark still gets hot too. Much hotter than my MM esc. That's why I was thinking that the caps weren't helping, but since I added the caps, I haven't blown anything and the cooling mod did stop the thermals.

I might go the my LHS and pick up a "better" radio. Didn't someone else just release a nice radio?

I need to get the new radio because MGM says that there wasn't anything wrong with my Compro. They are blaming my problems on the Spektrum, so I'll have to see.

[jhautz]

Originally Posted by AAngel

I might go the my LHS and pick up a "better" radio. Didn't someone else just release a nice radio?

I need to get the new radio because MGM says that there wasn't anything wrong with my Compro. They are blaming my problems on the Spektrum, so I'll have to see.

Thats wierd. I just set up my MGM 160-24 with spektrum and didnt have any problems.

I did have a probem with mine onlyu beeping when I plugged it in, but I figured out that the 160-24 doesnt have a BEC built in an when you unplug the red middle red wire it just doesnt work. Once I plugged in the center wire, it was all good.

[zeropointbug]

Yeah, I am going to cut a larger hole on the other side of the heatsink, there is only a small hole there now. I am sure that has something to do with it, and the fact that the stock thermal pads plain suck... I need to get that heatspreader clamp from my machinist, waiting.... :025:

But yes, no blow ups yet!

SMHertz dog, do both the top and bottom FET's on your heatsink get to the same temp? Maybe it's not touching some of the FETs?

AAngel, I have been playing around with the radio last night and with all the EPA and stuff, and got almost all low speed capability back now, but still not what it was, there isn't near as much travel in the spektrum, I like more travel. (throttle trigger)

Now if there was only a way to test high voltage before I get the Neu 3D.

[smhertzog]

Originally Posted by zeropointbug

SMHertz dog, do both the top and bottom FET's on your heatsink get to the same temp? Maybe it's not touching some of the FETs?

Yes.

I used artic ceramique on the fets/angle on both boards/angles, but I used heat tape between the chassis and the angle maybe thats were the bottle neck is?
The chassis measured from under the truggy in the area were the angle is bolted measures 125 f.

[suicideneil]

ZPB, one idea to get more throttle travel, or at least more perceived sensitivity, is to have a longer trigger- how you might do this mod is another thing though. And I noticed your A123 packs dont have balancing taps (may be going blind though), does it make any difference, or is it just not really required with the Li-ion cells?