Are Zippy Lipos safe with a Castle MMM Speedy?

[JThiessen]

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

Sadly, I know of several myself that would go out and drop 1K on something that will impress their friends. They dont look at it as something that they need to learn and understand - its simply the biggest, baddest, fastest thing the drone behind the counter sells. The same sales guy that sells a rustler to a kid while telling him that "yeah it will run fine in grass" will also sell one of these with no questions asked.

I know quite a few RC'ers that have never looked at information online for the hobby. They rely completely on what their LHS tells them. When I ask them questions, they get that same blank look that my LHS guys give me when I ask them about certain products we here know in depth.

Linc, I think you may be on to something with your idea on the "tuning" instructions. Knowledge is power.

This is all great stuff... somewhat dis-heartening, but good stuff. I would consider myself a newbie, with SOME experience. I purchased an E-Firestorm and dropped in a Castle 5700 (with NIMH), followed that with a nitro PE, then an E-Revo (stock), then an 18R and added the brushless and a LIPO... THEN, bought the big boy (for me), the CC MM Combo for the E-Revo. Having the Firestorm and the 18R as brushless, yes, they prepare you some what for the bigger truck, but there is no way I would have had the desire (and possibly the need to) view a forum or a thread such as this. It wouldn't have been relevant. The cars and motors on the smaller stuff is much more "disposable" if that is fair. As stated above, now that there is a grand into this car... I'm going to make damn sure I'm doing some research. There should be a huge disclaimer that, a. you need to know what your doing, and b. you need to know what your doing. I have Zippy's with all stock gearing (19/68) and I'm increadibly concerned that my batteries may now kill my ESC. From the sound of this thread, if that happens, that's just too bad for me. If you read the misc threads found here and on other forums (tx), numerous people are geared up much higher than I am... and promoting it. If you are a newbie and reading and trusting these forums, you're destine to destroy these parts.

My two cents.

I do appreciate the knowledge in this forum as well as the responses from Castle and those users that have the experience and the electrical knowledge to back it up.

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by JThiessen

Linc, I think you may be on to something with your idea on the "tuning" instructions. Knowledge is power.

Yep. You have that right big guy!

I can safely say that there are not many inexpensive 4s lipos that can run a monster combo... Unless you plan to parallel a pair of 4s 3000+mah 20c lipos...

5s and lower gearing is a much better choice for the 2200 motor, as it opens up some pack choices. 6s I am not so sure about. Spins the motor a bit faster than I like, but I guess it is ok. With 6s and lower gearing I am sure a pair of 5000mah 20-25c 3s lipos wil do fine.

[JThiessen]

Originally Posted by lincpimp

5s and lower gearing is a much better choice for the 2200 motor, as it opens up some pack choices. 6s I am not so sure about. Spins the motor a bit faster than I like, but I guess it is ok. With 6s and lower gearing I am sure a pair of 5000mah 20-25c 3s lipos wil do fine.

Was that a sales pitch?!?!?! I REALLY like the idea of 5S also - which is also a down fall of these new trucks - so far, one is limited to either 2x2S or 2x3S. I'm thinking 5S saddle style packs.......

[hemiblas]

6S and lower gearing for around 40-45mph would be a great setup and I agree some 20C 5000mah lipos would work great. I'm running 5S on my 2200 and I like it too for runtime and temps. I think 4S for an MT is an absolute min and you are at risk over overheating the motor, but not the MMM from what I have seen. Heck so even the guy with the 1800mah 25C lipo will be ok as long as he gears down and is within spec for what his battery and can put out. When I got started I bought some ebay 10C lipos, ran my calcs and thought everything would work out great. After I started testing the batteries they were good for more like 3C instead of 10C. Even someone that knows how to run the calcs and knows what he is doing can get burnt. Its really taken a lot of reading on this forum and others in addition to a lot of testing, measuring temps etc etc to really figure out how to correctly run this stuff.

[lincpimp]

Originally Posted by hemiblas

6S and lower gearing for around 40-45mph would be a great setup and I agree some 20C 5000mah lipos would work great. I'm running 5S on my 2200 and I like it too for runtime and temps. I think 4S for an MT is an absolute min and you are at risk over overheating the motor, but not the MMM from what I have seen. Heck so even the guy with the 1800mah 25C lipo will be ok as long as he gears down and is within spec for what his battery and can put out. When I got started I bought some ebay 10C lipos, ran my calcs and thought everything would work out great. After I started testing the batteries they were good for more like 3C instead of 10C. Even someone that knows how to run the calcs and knows what he is doing can get burnt. Its really taken a lot of reading on this forum and others in addition to a lot of testing, measuring temps etc etc to really figure out how to correctly run this stuff.

You just contradicted yourself. You say that the 1800 25c lipos will be fine, then say your 10c lipos were not up to spec... Your last line is pure truth though!

[Finnster]

@FDK: I wouldn't put it quite like that. I seriously doubt you will kill your esc just bc you run zippies. I'm sure Patrick is right that the failure rate is actually quite low. I have run cheap packs in all the various 1/8 BL and other vehicles I've had over the last few years and have yet to kill one of them. Just be careful with them and have a temp gun handy to watch things until you get the system setup right and reliable.
Over geared speed runs, loose slippers, towing and WOT in sand are things that kill BL fastest.

But yes, you do need to know what you are doing, and the manuals and LHS are very little help. Its said to use common sense, but these big and powerful BL 1/8th systems are not that common yet, so few have much experience, and some have little sense. When it doubt, treat it like a $1K truck and don't abuse it (despite what OEMs are telling you to do with it.)

Otherwise, I'm not going to push this point forever. One gets my point and agrees with it or doesn't. In my experience, there are few people who know how these things really work, few that have used them, and so good info is a bit scarce. Even on the internet. The people at my LHS knew nothing of BL aside from helis and some planes, but never about larger cars. When in doubt they went by website info or manuals (later on when the VXLs came out and whatnot.) Sort of like this comedy of errors. So many wrong theories and info its a bit funny, but I see the RCM crew was there to jump in and help out. At my LHS, they would ask me if I was around and I could talk to customers better than they could. It wasn't uncommon to see some parent or guy buy a truck, not know how to run it, constantly going back for repairs/parts, get pissed and become a former customer.

Furthermore, how many RC mag articles have we seen now that have totally wrong/misleading info? They use batts totally undersized for the job. Look at even the Flux review in Xtreme RC this month. They used 3200 or 3600 lipos for the 6S testing. Runtime a whopping 7mins. Great return on a $1k investment. Watch out for the nitro convert stampede. How long do you think those batts would live like that? No rationale to why those batts were chosen. Not a terrible review tho. Compare that to the Fine Design LST done a while back using a 4S 3200 lipo pack. Did 50mph for 6 glorious minutes, and the lipo pack was too hot to hold when it came out the truck. But it kicked ass and was only $1200. 0_o And these are supposed to be the guys teaching people stuff.

I think a good and detailed BL primer would be of great help to someone just jumping into large scale BL, either new to RC, nitro converts, or someone who just saw it in a mag and got pumped. TRX gives a whole DVD on breaking and tuning a nitro motor with their RTRs, as they know plenty of n00bs buy RTR kits and don't want pissed off people wanting replacements on broken parts b/c they didn't know what they were doing yet. BL is just as complicated, and you need to know what to look for and troubleshoot and what to change when. Doesn't need to be a PhD course, but at least BL 101. A.) Battery selection. B.) Gearing C.) Temperatures D.) Troubleshooting & Maintenance

[shaunjohnson]

if only there was a way to get this important info out to the newbies out there...
i mean...WHO in their right mind would use 18 cell nimh batts????
there need to be gearing guidelines, maby a gearing chart?
in the castle manual or castle link CD a link to brian G's gearing calculator?

BUT after hearing the above castle rep stating that the return rate is very low...that makes me very happy :D

Finnster: Thanks, feel a little better. I mostly bash in front of my house in the street. I think the only thing I'll absolutely change is my breaking. I'll soften it up a bit. In dirt/off-road, I think the motor will see less stress. Temp gun... it's been in my hand from the beginning. So far, I've seen good numbers, ~110-150 degrees.

[fastbaja5b]

Wow I let a cat out here didn't I?

The main reason I initially asked is that when I bought my Flux (my 32nd RC to be blunt, and only one I still have now) I thought I had a bit of knowledge on me, 2 MMM's down, 4 MM's, a Brushless E-Savage that I had running uber sweet, and then this manual tells me to GEAR UP for 6s? The Manual even states 4s - use 20t pinion, 6s - use 25t pinion, I mean WTF?

I know my 5000mah 30C 2s Lipos haul the truck around happily on 4s with the 20t pinion (on a 100 degree day the packs come off after 20-25 minutes at 130 max), my intention was to run 6s with say an 18t pinion, which is contrary to the manual, and locally the HPI distributor in Australia has been implying that if you run anything "other" than the 25t pinion on 6s you may be out of warranty? This all stemmed from someone running Maxcramp packs on a 6s set up with a 20t pinion and blowing the ESC.

So my query was, could I, on stock gearing (20/44) run a 6s Lipo set up - Dual Zippy H 5000mah 3s 20-30C and be "reasonably within spec"

I know if I gear down to 18t I'd pull less amps, but I was concerned that the HPI Australia distributor and the Manual were telling me to run 25t

so I wondered, had I missed something?

As it stands now? I do wish to try a 6s set up, but am thinking 18/47 is a better starting point and really watch my temps.

Is this reasonable or do I need my head examined?

...my last RC was a Baja, so it's possible all that two stroke got to me!

...my last RC was a Baja, so it's possible all that two stroke got to me!

I'm debating on whether my "next" rc should be the baja.

If I do... I'll make sure to read the

[fastbaja5b]

mate get the 5T, it's on my list once I move to an area more suited to running them.

The manual on the Baja's isn't too bad actually.

and they're a s#it load of fun!

[JThiessen]

Originally Posted by fastbaja5b

As it stands now? I do wish to try a 6s set up, but am thinking 18/47 is a better starting point and really watch my temps.

Is this reasonable or do I need my head examined?

...my last RC was a Baja, so it's possible all that two stroke got to me!

Just my .02...you have been asking and re-asking this same question on multiple forums. I have read where you have recieved an answer, but you dont seem to want to hear it. I'm not trying to insult you, but it's apparent that if you want to operate within warrantable parameters, HPI's stance is you run 6S on 25T (and it appears that Castle is backing that same claim). Its either that, or run it how you want, and take your own warranty out (your wallet), which is how most of us have ran our stuff for many years.
I too have run mine with the 6S/20T, and I liked how it ran - but it was a bit on the uncontrollable side. I'd like to take some of the pep out of it - and the 25T may just do that (as opposed to 4S, which just seemed too tame for me). However, that is going to make it a PIA to run both 4S and 6S in one outing. So I need to rethink and make a commitment to one pack set up - which kinda sucks IMHO.

[skellyo]

Originally Posted by JThiessen

I too have run mine with the 6S/20T, and I liked how it ran - but it was a bit on the uncontrollable side. I'd like to take some of the pep out of it - and the 25T may just do that (as opposed to 4S, which just seemed too tame for me). However, that is going to make it a PIA to run both 4S and 6S in one outing. So I need to rethink and make a commitment to one pack set up - which kinda sucks IMHO.

If you want to take the pep out of it, either gear way down or drop your voltage down from 6S. Putting the 25T pinion on it is like trying to slow down a drag racer by putting monster truck tires on it...it's just not an intelligent solution to the problem. All you'll do is increase the current draw and start potentially causing heat issues.

The whole point behind what the guys from Castle are saying is to use common sense when gearing these trucks regardless of what the manual says. This post backs that up:
http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/show...&postcount=111

[Finnster]

Yeah, the only time I would consider going up in the gear is by also going to much smaller tires and using for speed runs on street only. With the lighter tires and lower rollout, the motor load may actually drop. No way to know w/o testing, but I'd start with the lighter tires and smaller gearing and work my way up from there.