Just Received My Lipo And Brushless

[Snakehands]

You can feel it. I've used telemetry as have a number of others and it tells you nothing that you can't tell already from watching the car, watching the laptimes and checking the temps afterwards. Cars are very different to planes. Planes run at steady throttle, cars are constantly pulsing between full throttle and no throttle. And that is only the start of it.

Ok, so people ARE using telemetry to measure what's happening electrically. Thank you. That's what I wanted to know.

[sosidge]

Ok, so people ARE using telemetry to measure what's happening electrically. Thank you. That's what I wanted to know.

I think you are reading something into my statement that I did not say...

I HAVE USED telemetry. In 2004 when a certain system was released. It has little to no value, certainly not in terms of the power source (although it has value for measuring the receiver battery condition). Nobody uses it now.

[Snakehands]

I think you are reading something into my statement that I did not say...

I HAVE USED telemetry. In 2004 when a certain system was released. It has little to no value, certainly not in terms of the power source (although it has value for measuring the receiver battery condition). Nobody uses it now.

Just to be clear: no one on the planet? Or no one you know?

[Spetz83]

I read through the manual for the brushless setup and it says what options I have and what are the default settings.

But to be clear, there is no need to cycle the batteries or break in the motor?

PS. I realize it's too much power for the FF01 but it'll only be there to "test" it as my TB01 which is the car intended for this setup is out of commission and I'm awaiting parts (rather still need to order them)

[Snakehands]

But to be clear, there is no need to cycle the batteries or break in the motor?

No, no need for any of that with this technology.

One thing you definitely want to obsess over, though, is the cell balance.

[tamiya monkey]

yeh make sure you balance charge your lipo's for sure, some will tell you to balance them once every other charges some will tell you different, i balance mine every charge, as for your brushless fit it and run it, just make sure you have the lipo cut-off set and your ready to go.

[Snakehands]

Also, you might like to get something like this: http://www.brchobbies.co.uk/?page=shop&amp...em&item=319

Very handy for checking the voltage on each cell and the whole pack.

[sosidge]

Also, you might like to get something like this: http://www.brchobbies.co.uk/?page=shop&amp...em&item=319

Very handy for checking the voltage on each cell and the whole pack.

Oh dear, another electric flight gadget that is completely unnecessary!

[Snakehands]

It's just a volt meter, so you can check to see if there is any imbalance in the pack. How do you check for imbalance? It's not like they cost much.

Just out of interest, do you work in a model shop?

[hoppi05]

Spetz83 i am thinking of going brushless can i ask how much did it all cost the motor, battery and charger?

cheers....

[terry.sc]

So you don't want to know how many Amps are being drawn?

With electric RC planes, all components have a relationship with, and an effect on, each other. This is why watt meters are important, to keep within limits. Is the same not true of rc cars? Do none of you use a watt meter?

No, totally irrelevant to r/c cars.

Just to be clear: no one on the planet? Or no one you know?

The only place any sort of metering is used is amongst the speed record cars, and that's only so they have some idea of top speed when practising so they just use a gps. The Eagle Tree data logger has been around for years, but really no one in racing uses them. As he used to import them to the UK years ago sosidge should know how useful they are more than anyone.

Aircraft run with a constant load on the motor from the drag on the prop, car motors have a heavy load when accelerating from standstill, then a much smaller load (can be down as low as 10%) when running at speed, and no load at all when slowing for a corner. There's a world of difference between running on a track and the motor in a plane. Using a watt meter in a race car won't give you any useful information, for example a very high peak current might happen once or twice in a 5 minute race while on another track you could have a lower peak current but occurring more often, which has a better chance of overheating the motor. You also have to factor in that race spec car ESCs have fully programmable throttle profiles, so you can tune the power sent to the motor at high frequencies, so the reading your watt meter gives you can bear no relation to what the ESC is actually pumping out to the motor. The only way a watt meter can give any useful information to a car racer is to enable you to download the full real time information to a computer so you can see what it's doing, and quite frankly it has been shown with the Eagle Tree system that it's a lot of work for something that's not really relevant.

It's the same thing with ESCs. Aircraft ESCs are rated by current drawn, car ESCs are rated by motor wind as there isn't a constant power delivery to the motor. Car ESCs used to be rated by current draw, but some high performance ESCs could handle an instantaneous current of over 1500amps and 400amps constant, yet were still damaged due to back EMF problems when braking and voltage spikes from the high speed switching. Kind of hard to explain to an aircraft flyer that a 400A rated ESC is overloaded by a 50A rated motor.

It's just a volt meter, so you can check to see if there is any imbalance in the pack. How do you check for imbalance? It's not like they cost much.

We don't check for imbalance, we just use decent balance chargers and we don't use no name soft pack lipos in cars. In fact if you are ever planning on racing you will find there's strict lists of which packs have been tested by the BRCA to ensure they are safe for racing and only those on the list are allowed to be used.

The only monitoring equipment you will find in any car racers pit is a temperature monitor to see how hot the motor has got at the end of a race, to see whether you can go faster by gearing up. In the old days when nimhs had a smaller capacity, any serious racer had a discharger specifically to see how much capacity was left in the cells again to see if you can gear up for more speed and last the race without dumping.

No car racer is going to be too concerned by keeping within safety parameters, when they know increasing motor timing, motor timing boost, throttle profile or gear ratio will give them more speed with a small risk of damaging anything.

[TA-Mark]

Well said Terry! Planes and cars are worlds apart, just as boats different again.

Brushless motors have nothing to 'run-in', the only moving part is the bearings.

Setup the ESC to match the chassis and the pack. The instruction sheet that came with the system will describe well each setting. The lowest you can take each Li-Po cell is 3.0v before damage will occur. Setting it to stop at 3.1v per cell gives you a safety barrier. A 2S pack has 2 cells (2 x 3.1v for cut-off) a 3S pack has 3 cells (3 x 3.1v for cut-off).

Really it's easy to use technology, just need to read the instruction sheets that come with the systems (and most times with the hard case 'car' packs).

The only real maintenence needed for them is to balance charge the pack to keep the 2 cells equal, and to lubricate the bearings on the motor.

[Snakehands]

Cheers, Terry, for the explanation. Much better than the other one I got, "Not a chance of needing one of those." rather blunt and autistic as it was.

No plans to race cars. Interesting to note, though, that metering and telemetry has been tried in car racing.

Regarding planes and load: my power glider motors are only under load when the prop is turning and of course the ESC works less hard at full throttle. I use the small volt meter for quick checking of the pack at the field. I assumed bashers would check their packs from time to time and use something like that.

[Spetz83]

Spetz83 i am thinking of going brushless can i ask how much did it all cost the motor, battery and charger?

cheers....

I bought everything from hobbyking.com and the prices were really good.

I paid 99US for the motor/ESC/Program card, 25USD per battery and about 20odd USD for the charger which was on special.

Overall the prices are hobbyking are amazing in comparison to other places and I thought shipping would take a really long time but it took just over 2 weeks which is the same time I wait for my Towerhobbies goods too

[hoppi05]

I bought everything from hobbyking.com and the prices were really good.

I paid 99US for the motor/ESC/Program card, 25USD per battery and about 20odd USD for the charger which was on special.

Overall the prices are hobbyking are amazing in comparison to other places and I thought shipping would take a really long time but it took just over 2 weeks which is the same time I wait for my Towerhobbies goods too

Cheers i think its brushless for me by the end of this year

[kaiser]

i just want to clarify something that was dismissed on page 1.

you can compare turns and kv in car motors, all the manufactures do.

17.5t = 1900kv with most brands.

some brands don't use the turn# they just use kv, so if a company lists a motor as 1900kv, you can run that in a 17.5 class.

this is based on 7.4 volt 2s racing rules.

[Spetz83]

I forgot to ask...

The ESC has no connectors on it, so this is my question:

-I am planning on using Deans plugs for the battery, this will be ok for brushless?

-It seems like the ESC should be directly soldered to the motor, but I would rather keep it like Tamiya standard motors that can be "unclipped". Is this an ok idea? And if so, which clips should I be using? I thought of deans plugs again but the motor takes 3 wires not 2.

Thanks

[tonysmini]

Spetz83, what parts do you need for your TB01?

I've got 4 and a box of bits so chances are I may have what you need to get yours going.

Just give me a pm with your list and I'll see what I've got.

Tony

[djmcnz]

I forgot to ask...

The ESC has no connectors on it, so this is my question:

-I am planning on using Deans plugs for the battery, this will be ok for brushless?

-It seems like the ESC should be directly soldered to the motor, but I would rather keep it like Tamiya standard motors that can be "unclipped". Is this an ok idea? And if so, which clips should I be using? I thought of deans plugs again but the motor takes 3 wires not 2.

Thanks

1. Deans = yes

2. Direct solder really... how often do you need to disconnect?

[Spetz83]

Well, for all the times the pinion will be changed, or bearings lubed or any other work done to the motor it'd be more convenient to be able to disconnect from the ESC.

[tonysmini]

What I do is have the ESC connected to the chassis with heavy duty velcro, so when I take the motor out I can pull the ESC out too.

When you have to take it out of your TB01 you have to half strip the car anyway, so you may as well solder the wires on, you get a better connection too.

[kaiser]

FWIW the new ezrun victory motors have removable bullets on the motor.

you solder your wires to the connectors but then you can just pull them off when you want to.

i just picked up 2 8.5t victory's, they are quite nice for the price.