Are Zippy Lipos safe with a Castle MMM Speedy?

[MrMin]

I agree. I also think zippy-r's are very impressive. The mmm is more powerful than the mm, but had some teething problems(which seem to be gone now) and now is pretty reliable. The mmm does not fail more than other (much more expensive) esc's. Chinese alternatives are coming out such as the 150A etc... i think the mmm should really have some more protection circuitry to prevent this, but IT really was expecting a much more luxurious environment.

I think the components are running nearing their limit on 6s, only when you brake, when and it blasts energy into your batts too fast(faster than it can absorb) then it will kill the capacitors(ripple current) and ESC FET circuitry up in smoke it will go. Fact is that the mmm requires good (expensive) low resistance good chemistry batteries because that is what it is expecting in order to operate.

I think castle is only saying that he would prefer it if you didn't use cheapo (not necessarily zippy) batteries because they do not want to replace ESCs exploding due to this. I'm personally working on a protection circuit to protect my mmm's just in case.

Less is more. more or less.

[lincpimp]

[QUOTE=kvrc;266512]

Originally Posted by lincpimp

Good advice...

Zippys are compareable to maxamps (performace, not price).

with all due respect i dont think that is an accurate statement. myself and many of my racing buddies have had maxamps packs and now zippy 4s 5000 h and r packs in our 1/8 scale racing buggys.
i can tell you that the zippy packs are much better at holding voltage under load and producing power. the guys i am speaking of have raced 1/8 buggys going on 3+ years in southeast michigan so we have a lot of time on them.
also many of these guys have the higher end enerland based packs as well and they say that those packs may stay in balance a little better if ran down close to dumping. but for twice as much money i guess they should.

Maybe not the best comparison I have made... I definately think zippy lipos are better than maxamps stuff... The chinese cells are getting much better. As far as cell design goes, the enerland cells are still better. The tabs bigger, twice the surface area, and at least 3 times as thick. Quality control is much better too. Zippy pack construction is iffy at times... The zippy r packs appear to be enerland cells, but I do not see them for sale anymore...

[shaunjohnson]

just when i thought zippies were good (well i knew the R-s were ok lol)
i was gonna go for a couple of flightmax cells.
it's not fair that the best lipo's are the most expensive :(

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by shaunjohnson

just when i thought zippies were good (well i knew the R-s were ok lol)
i was gonna go for a couple of flightmax cells.
it's not fair that the best lipo's are the most expensive :(

Nothing wrong with zippies, especially considering the price... If i was not good at buying lightly used enerland packs I would definately buy zippies. My only issue is that all of my setups demand the best lipos.

[Lee Estingoy]

Guys,

We're in a tough spot here. We have to live in the sandbox that everybody plays in. We can't call out products as being good or bad. In most cases, a battery will work as well as any other. You guys are not talking about most cases in these applications. These are the highest power setups in RC brushless at the moment, and then you guys are pushing them to the bleeding edge with your gearing.

Let's compare this to full size racing. Few expect to put lowest-bidder parts in their race cars. There's a reason racing is so expensive, high end performance requires that every component in the system be of equally matched capabilities.

I think all modelers learn the lesson that when you buy cheap you generally wind up buying twice. Unfortunately that lesson is often an expensive one. We are modelers too, we work very hard to bring top notch components to the market at a great price for value received.

All that we can say is that not all batteries are equal. Price is sometimes, but not always, an indicator of a battery pack's ability. There's generally plenty of guys on line who have experience -- both good and bad with cells. Unfortunately, we can't be the ones to comment on that.

The Monster setup will take all the power that you can give it. We suggest using the biggest, baddest batteries you can possibly put in the thing. If you aren't sure of the abilities of your packs, start small and work up. Start with 4S and a small pinion. Racers don't start out in Top Fuel or Formula One either!

Hope this makes sense.

Now for the guy who wants to put 1,800 mAh cells in his truck and call it good: I want to put Brembo red brake calipers on my Toyota minivan. Think they'll make it look faster?

Lee

[Finnster]

My little rant was more against HPI's specs, advertising and overall lack of detail in their advice for the Flux. For a RTR basher vehicle that will be sold to a lot of inexperienced people, the lack of good advice, and worse, the promotion of bad advice is irresponsible to their customers IMO and will cost everyone a lot of money needlessly.

However, the comments I see coming out of Castle are also confusing.
This is all the relevant specs I see of the MMM combo the Flux is based on:

ESC:
Cells: 6s LiPo
Continuous: 120A* (I guess they've done away with the ambiguous "More than you can handle" )
Motor:
Max Input Volts: 25.2
Amp Rating*: 120

The Flux manual just says upto 3S batts and recommends 25C batts. No where does capacity get mentioned. CC's site says little about batteries other than Brian @ Tanic can make you A123 packs (which I swear to God at one point I saw people blaming A123s for MMM poofing back at the v1 era.)

Not only that, you get information from CC guys themselves that further the confusion:

Previous post

Sorry guys,

I think this was a misunderstanding on the part of one of our Tech support guys -- he wasn't aware of the newer Maxamps packs that could handle more than 15C.

The official stand of Castle is that any pack that can handle 75A continuous, and 150A peak is sufficient for use with the MMM.

Austin -- Sorry about that! You are right, there was a misunderstanding and it wasn't meant to target Maxamps in particular.

Patrick

Patrick del Castillo
President, Principle Engineer
Castle Creations

So that was a little while ago, but the same problem is still on going. The MMM manual says nothing other than to look for "low resistance" cells, and not use Tamiya connectors, and better batts give better results.

Nowhere, nowhere does anyone give some useful information in an absolute sense. Everything is relativistic. Todays "cheap" cells (like zippies and others) would have been kings just a few years ago when the MM came out. Then the expensive packs were 20C. So are 20C FP and TP packs crap now and will blow up a MMM? Seriously.

How is someone just going to a LHS (or even running one) supposed to make good decisions? Not only are these batts prolly not even available at LHSs, but the people working there are not likely experts on highend lipos and "ripple voltages" in ESCs. On top of that you have CC guys running around the internet saying you can void your warr by using sh1tty cells, but won't say what are the sh1tty cells and which are not.

By reading what Patrick wrote once upon a time, a 10C/15C TrueRc 8000 mah pack should be plenty for a MMM. Those are cheap cells, prolly fairly high resistance, but they meet the specs. So does a 30C/50C 2500 mah pack. Really? I have one from Neu I use on a CRT.5, but I wouldn't trust it on a Flux w/ a 1Y on 6S. (and happens to put out no more power than a 25C 2100 pack from zippy on the ET...)


Ok, I understand why CC wants to not disqualify some vendors packs, and can't be expected to test every cell out there. But, that doesn't mean they should just then be vague and expect people to listen to others online (who may or may not be FOS.)
Why can't CC at least have a few "Tested and Approved Packs" list to go with the hardware. I've worked with a lot of computer components, and at least they give a few part#s that have been tested and known to work. An end user can find those, or try to use his own that meet the same specs, but its considered untested at that point.
EG.: A motherboard maker: MB x123 has been tested with Ram modules:
Patriot #23423 1gb CL2 168pin 3.3V
Crucial #34534 512mb CL2
Infineon #234234 1gb CL2
Etc etc.
They are not endorsing or slandering any particular Ram, but at least give end users information and practical specs and examples to go by. Right now information just seems dodgy. "Oh, your MMM flamed out on XyZ batts? What C rating? 22C?! Ohh... Yeah you should know not to use those. Too bad you just ruined $200 worth of equipment... Better luck next time. Make sure you spend a lot more on the next ones"

[Pdelcast]

Finnster --

Unfortunately, there are literally hundreds of thousands of combinations of pinions, spurs, batteries, tires, etc... that we can't "rubber stamp" every possible combination -- or even a subset of 'em.

Use common sense. Don't gear for 120mph on a 16lb truck. Don't start with the largest pinion you can find because "it'll be really fast dude!" Check you temps after runs, and make sure you aren't exceeding safe temperatures.

You could potentially damage ANY ESC and motor WITH ANY BATTERY if you are not careful with the setup.

So testing and approving a list of cells would be useless - - - I can hear the tech support call now...

Caller: "I was using an approved battery and the MMM failed"
Tech support: "What was the gear ratio you were using?"
Caller: "Oh, I was using a 35 tooth pinion and a 35 tooth spur, so 1:1"
<Sound of the Tech Support guy beating his head against the keyboard>


And it's not that "Brand A" 30C batteries always work, and "Brand C" 30C batteries never work -- that's the point I've been trying to make. Pretty much any batteries will work if you use them within their limits. It's just that the limits change from battery type to battery type.

Our return rates on the MMM are EXTREMELY LOW, so very very few people are having issues of any kind. It may seem high, but we have shipped almost 12,000 Mamba Monsters to date -- and have seen VERY VERY few problems.

If you are careful with your setups, measure temperatures, run conservative gearing, you won't have problems.

If you constantly push the system, don't measure temps, and abuse everything, you will have problems.

It's that simple.

[BrianG]

Patrick, just require users to take an IQ test prior to purchase (or honoring warranty claims) and do not sell to anyone with a result lower than 100. Should weed out the inbreeders.

[JThiessen]

This is very similar to auto makers and recommendations on fuel. They will not tell you which brands are good/bad, but in some cases you are informed on what octane level to use (minimum 89 or 92). And we all know that at some point in time, you have put 87 in that tank....."nobody will ever know"....! Castle as a company, has to reserve the right to evaluate a situation to the best of their ability, and determine a failure root cause. Yes, 90% of the time its the idiot on the other end of the credit card. I've been that idiot, and likely will be again. And while I may be frustrated with a seemingly low amount of information available to me, I will be able to understand the warranty limitations.

Finnster - I too feel for the average shmo buying a Flux or ERBL from a hobby shop. The knowledge base in hobby shops is typically so low, I can only imagine what type of battery systems a sticker shocked soccer mom is going to buy for her spoiled yup-yup son, let alone what Venom chrger are they going to end up with for that pair of Trackpowers (assuming they pop for some of the better, more common packs LHS carry). I'd be a little concerned if I were CC, HPI, or Traxxas.

BTW, This has actually been a very informative thread for me to read, despite the obvious frustrations some are having.

[Unsullied_Spy]

Back off the timing/gearing and the low grade stuff usually works fine.

[lincpimp]

I think we need to keep in mind that the flux and erbl are "step up" vehicles... So most urchasers have some idea about electric rc prior to getting them. Most are not going to drop close to a grand if they do not know what they are getting into.

I do agree that the instructions should have sme sort of "gearing while testing" info that would accompany using a temp gauge. Something well written like the traxxas nitro break in instructions. Baseline info for gearing could be attached, along with the formulas (or a link to BG's site) to calculate speed and gearing... This is about the only way to work around the various falsly claimed lipos.

CC does provide a pinion with the monster combos, I am guessing it is an 18t or so, to give good all around performance in an emaxx or erevo...

Hpi's manual is quite poor, and really needs to address the gearing a bit more. Std gearing advice is necessary, such as start low, and temp frequently.

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by Unsullied_Spy

Don't buy Shell gas and you'll be OK Back off the timing/gearing and the low grade stuff usually works fine.

We must be related somehow, I hate Shell gas too... I also notice that Shell is always more expensive than exxon, despite exxon producing better results...

[Lee Estingoy]

Are there that many newbies starting out with a $1k brushless truck? What ever happened to working your way up to the big toys?

Lee

[RC-Monster Mike]

I think it is mostly a different kind of newbie - not the kid just getting into it - dad buys him an xl5 rustler and buys himself the Flux or BL ERevo. Still a newbie - but one with discretionary income. :)

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by Lee Estingoy

Are there that many newbies starting out with a $1k brushless truck? What ever happened to working your way up to the big toys?

Lee

Instant gratification! Or sometimes rich people get curious!

Originally Posted by RC-Monster Mike

I think it is mostly a different kind of newbie - not the kid just getting into it - dad buys him an xl5 rustler and buys himself the Flux or BL ERevo. Still a newbie - but one with discretionary income. :)

Good for the hobby, we need more pestering kids to get their dads into buying the really good stuff. That way when they break it and try to sell it used i can get some great deals!!!

In all seriousness maybe we should get together and write up some guidelines to properly setting up the MMM combo and see if CC will incorporate it somehow into their instructions? Just a thought...