The big fat juicy run time thread

[novicelad]

Hi All,

On another thread me and @MadInventor have gone a bit off topic and started comparing run times, so I thought maybe we could start a thread up to discuss what configurations we have and what sort of run times we get. There is no format required just describe your setup and the environment and type of usage, it will be interesting to see how similar setups vary. I will start with my most recent known run time its a bit of a wildcard as its unlikely anyone will have a similar car to run but will give you an idea.

Tamiya TNX Brushless

• 4 pole Brushless 4068 Motor & 120amp ESC (unamed model)
• Mod1 14t Pinion and 35t Spur (unknown gear ratio)
• 4s 4000mah 30c lipo (2 2s's in series)
• No lipo alarm but cut off at 3.1 but when measured cells they were at about 3.4 so normal
• Running in a car park bashing about 
• Cold day 5 degrees celcius
• 35 minutes run time 
• Motor hardly warm 
• Top speed TBC  

 

[Wooders28]

Tbh, if i'm bashing, i've normally broke them before the battery runs flat!

But,

Schumacher KF2se

Reedy m3 6.5t 

24t /82 spur.

Absima 3200

Practice on carpet race track

7 mins.

 

[racer1]

Grasshopper 2 -Stock except for street tires on the rear. 

Stock 380 motor.

Stock Gearing. 

Turnigy 2S 5200 hardpack.  Had to sand down the sides of the battery compartment to make it fit. Still very tight due to length but it does fit with a little effort. 

Took it to the forest preserve where we do our walking/biking. path is a little over 7.7 miles. Takes us a little over 2 hrs to complete the walk. Still had juice in the battery and the LVA had not started making noise yet.  At normal running/bashing speeds the same pack lasts 50/60 mins. 

[novicelad]

2 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

Tbh, if i'm bashing, i've normally broke them before the battery runs flat!

But,

Schumacher KF2se

Reedy m3 6.5t 

24t /82 spur.

Absima 3200

Practice on carpet race track

7 mins.

 

Thats quick I would have thought that runtime would be extended on carpet?

[Wooders28]

28 minutes ago, novicelad said:

Thats quick I would have thought that runtime would be extended on carpet?

I'm gearing to suit, if running on grass, i'd use lower gearing.

I could use larger, heavier lipos with higher mah, but the 3200mah last a 5 min race so thats all i need! 

[nowinaminute]

I've never really timed it. I expect my run times would be shorter than I imagine though. 

Compared to the old days of 1200mah packs dying in 5-10 minutes, a 4000+mah lipo seems to last forever.

I bet what feels like 40 mins is only really 20 in reality.

I tend to drive on grass and sand etc a lot though so that would probably effect run times a lot.

[TurnipJF]

F103

21.5t Trackstar motor

TBLE-02 ESC

4000mAH Core RC LiPo

18t pinion, stock spur

Indoor carpet track

20 mins free practice + 3 X 5 min heats + 2 X 7 min finals = 49 minutes runtime, no sound from LiPo alarm

[InsaneJim69]

Tamiya FF03

Speed Passion Reventon Pro ESC

Vampire Racing AB+ 5.5T Brushless (trimmed down to 60%)

Turnigy Nanotech 6500 2s lipo.

Usually have a good 30 minute run and the motor is Luke warm.  Pop the lipo back on charge and it says it still had 3.86v per cell. So probably good for 45mins or more. Although that would go down if I removed the 60% limiter.

James.

James.

 

 

[GooneyBird]

Sure, I'll chime in.

Surprisingly, most of my track cars use roughly the same amount of battery, despite being quite different.

TRF419
Muchmore Fleta Euro
17.5 Trackstar sensored
FDR of 5.0
Intellect 5200 mAh 2S LiPo
Indoor carpet track. Motor is lukewarm to warm, depending how heavy I'm into the throttle.
 2 x 10 minutes of free practice heats, and then I usually have about 3.6V per cell left. Usually the battery then takes a charge of about 3000 mAh. So roughly 2/3rd of a battery. I recharge because after the battery dips below the ~7.5V the car sorta loses 'punch' coming out of the corners.

When racing, I recharge after every heat. So I wouldn't know how much that uses.

And then there's my CC01
Hobbywing QR1060
55T RC4WD brushed motor
16T pinion, stock spur
3000 mAh NiMH pack
I take this truck on walks. Usually upwards of 2 hours, at which point I tend to get winded more than the Pajero.

[Grastens]

In the earliest days, I was a conservative type:

Tamiya Toyota GT-One (F103RS)

• Sport-Tuned motor and Dynamite Tazer 10T ESC
• 0.6 mod. 17T pinion, 63T spur
• Reedy Wolfpack 2400 mAh 7.2V Ni-MH battery
• Bash session at asphalt schoolyard
• 14 degrees Celsius
• 70 minutes run time

I was a rookie on a technical circuit - I remember not too many chances to reach top speed out there. The F103 is also a lightweight car, so I really did not tax it too much out there.

Compare to:

Tamiya Lancia Rally (ORV Chassis)

• Sport-Tuned motor and MTroniks Sport-Tuned 20 ESC
• 0.8 mod. 19T pinion, 49T spur
• Venom Racing 3000 mAh 7.2V Ni-MH battery
• Bash session at ice track
• -25 degrees Celsius
• 0.25 minutes run time

It was so cold, even my battery did not want to be outside!

[Jonathon Gillham]

On 3/17/2018 at 9:31 AM, TurnipJF said:

F103

21.5t Trackstar motor

TBLE-02 ESC

4000mAH Core RC LiPo

18t pinion, stock spur

Indoor carpet track

20 mins free practice + 3 X 5 min heats + 2 X 7 min finals = 49 minutes runtime, no sound from LiPo alarm

Interesting, the manual says the kit spur is 93T, so thats a pretty high FDR (I know I should work in rollout with foams).  I run a 73T spur and 30T pinion in my TRF102 and that seems about right, temps are around 50deg so could possibly go higher.

TRF102

21.5T Speed Passion MMM v3

Speed Passion Reventon Pro 1.1

30T pinion, 73T spur

F103 wheels front and back

Indoor carpet track

5000mah Orion 110C shorty

Runtime - forever.  I checked the battery after a 5min race and it was 8.21v, down from the full charge of 8.4v.

 

TT02B Plasma Edge

Standard except for bearings, so torque tuned and TBLE-02S.

3800mah NiMH

Runtime - 30mins on grass

These used to run closer to 40mins but the batteries are about 15 months old and probably do about 3 cycles per week, so they aren't as good as they used to be.

[TurnipJF]

40 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Interesting, the manual says the kit spur is 93T, so thats a pretty high FDR (I know I should work in rollout with foams).

I use the stock 0.6 module F103 gears, so my 18 pinion teeth are a lot bigger and chunkier than the ones on your TRF, and my stock spur has only 63 teeth.

[Jonathon Gillham]

12 minutes ago, TurnipJF said:

I use the stock 0.6 module F103 gears, so my 18 pinion teeth are a lot bigger and chunkier than the ones on your TRF, and my stock spur has only 63 teeth.

Ahh ok, that explains it.  I changed to 48dp on my TRF102 from .4mod so it matches the rest of my race cars so I just carry one toolbox with all my spare pinions.  Its a shame that they all use different types of spurs though so I can't mix and match those.  The TRF102 has the ball diff one, the Lazer has a slipper clutch etc.

[InsaneJim69]

4 hours ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Interesting, the manual says the kit spur is 93T, so thats a pretty high FDR (I know I should work in rollout with foams).  I run a 73T spur and 30T pinion in my TRF102 and that seems about right, temps are around 50deg so could possibly go higher.

TRF102

21.5T Speed Passion MMM v3

Speed Passion Reventon Pro 1.1

30T pinion, 73T spur

F103 wheels front and back

Indoor carpet track

5000mah Orion 110C shorty

Runtime - forever.  I checked the battery after a 5min race and it was 8.21v, down from the full charge of 8.4v.

 

TT02B Plasma Edge

Standard except for bearings, so torque tuned and TBLE-02S.

3800mah NiMH

Runtime - 30mins on grass

These used to run closer to 40mins but the batteries are about 15 months old and probably do about 3 cycles per week, so they aren't as good as they used to be.

8.4v is pretty high is it not? When my charger does my lipos they peak at 8.21v at the very most and that's Turnigy Nano Tech Lipos. Or maybe I need to update my batteries. No swelling, no drop off and are stable as anything 

James.

[Jonathon Gillham]

1 hour ago, InsaneJim69 said:

8.4v is pretty high is it not? When my charger does my lipos they peak at 8.21v at the very most and that's Turnigy Nano Tech Lipos. Or maybe I need to update my batteries. No swelling, no drop off and are stable as anything 

James.

Thats what mine charge to on my Hyperion 606 charger, its not an HV charger or battery or anything. I fhought thats what all go to?

[nowinaminute]

2 hours ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Thats what mine charge to on my Hyperion 606 charger, its not an HV charger or battery or anything. I fhought thats what all go to?

4.2v per cell is normal.

I think you can change it on some chargers though or they sometimes have a li-ion mode at 4.1v per cell because some old li-ions cells topped out at 4.1v (all modern ones are 4.2 though)

[InsaneJim69]

Just checked, yeah it's 4.21v per cell 👍stupid me having a blonde moment 😂

James.

[Phil5556]

I'm just back from running my Top Force. 10.5 Turnigy Trackstar V2 motor, 4000mAh Core RC LiPo just gave me about 25 minutes running on grass.

Spent most of the time either flat out or upside down

So much better than the 5 to 10 minutes I used to get out of my original Top Force 20 years ago. And that was assuming I hadn't melted yet another Tamiya plug together.

[Chicken Man]

Wild One

stock silvercan with biggest pinion

2s 4000mah turnigy

general bashing but heaps of full throttle gets me around 30min run time with a little left over

[novicelad]

So update on my car on a field flat out 

As yesterday just wanted a quick run over the field I set the lipo alarrm to 3.8 so the battery was back down to storage charge 

• 4 pole Brushless 4068 Motor & 120amp ESC (unamed model)
• Mod1 14t Pinion and 35t Spur (unknown gear ratio)
• 4s 5000mah 30c lipo 
• Lipo alarm 3.8
• on a grass playing field 
• 10 degress Celsius 
• 18 minutes run time 
• Top speed 30 MPH 

[nowinaminute]

Interesting just how big of an effect the vehicle size, drivetrain etc has on run time using the same gear.

I got a cheap 1/8 scale Chinese monster truck a while back and was looking for a mild brushless option that wouldn't kill the gears. I was looking around on Youtube to see how small a motor you could realistically get away with, I was thinking 550 size as a bare minimum but I found some nutter using a finned 380 in a Traxxas E-Maxx!! I could barely believe what I was seeing but sure enough it hauled the truck around fine and the temps were ok too. 

So with that in mind I put my 3300KV in there and gave it a try. I was hugely skeptical but sure enough it actually worked! I know brushless is super efficient but this still seems like voodoo, that's essentially a 380/390 size motor in there and it still has enough grunt to lift the front wheels up when you launch hard into a turn.
 

The interesting part is that when I use this motor with the same ESC and 4000mah 2s battery in my Grasshopper where it barely breaks a sweat I can get 40+ minutes of run time.

The same setup in that big truck which makes the motor work hard sees about 12 minutes!

[novicelad]

1 hour ago, nowinaminute said:

Interesting just how big of an effect the vehicle size, drivetrain etc has on run time using the same gear.

I got a cheap 1/8 scale Chinese monster truck a while back and was looking for a mild brushless option that wouldn't kill the gears. I was looking around on Youtube to see how small a motor you could realistically get away with, I was thinking 550 size as a bare minimum but I found some nutter using a finned 380 in a Traxxas E-Maxx!! I could barely believe what I was seeing but sure enough it hauled the truck around fine and the temps were ok too. 

So with that in mind I put my 3300KV in there and gave it a try. I was hugely skeptical but sure enough it actually worked! I know brushless is super efficient but this still seems like voodoo, that's essentially a 380/390 size motor in there and it still has enough grunt to lift the front wheels up when you launch hard into a turn.
 

The interesting part is that when I use this motor with the same ESC and 4000mah 2s battery in my Grasshopper where it barely breaks a sweat I can get 40+ minutes of run time.

The same setup in that big truck which makes the motor work hard sees about 12 minutes!

Got completely distracted by another video on youtube after yours called skaters girls vs longboard girls and I'm not even into skateboarding! 

Anyway that's pretty cool, what motor is it your using? 

[nowinaminute]

1 hour ago, novicelad said:

Got completely distracted by another video on youtube after yours called skaters girls vs longboard girls and I'm not even into skateboarding! 

Anyway that's pretty cool, what motor is it your using? 

Just a little SkyRC Leopard 3300KV 

 

Amazed how well it works for its size but I'll probably be putting in a 3665 size motor. Compared to people running 1/8 scale motors on 4-6s I'm sure a 550 size brushless on 2s will still be relatively easy on the drivetrain if I keep the punch turned down.

I certainly wouldn't hesitate about putting the finned motor in any of my 1/10 trucks though, talk about punching above your weight!

Just for reference, here's the video that inspired me to try it. Same type of motor but 4300KV and running on 3s in a Traxxas E-Maxx:

 

[novicelad]

5 hours ago, nowinaminute said:

Just a little SkyRC Leopard 3300KV 

 

Amazed how well it works for its size but I'll probably be putting in a 3665 size motor. Compared to people running 1/8 scale motors on 4-6s I'm sure a 550 size brushless on 2s will still be relatively easy on the drivetrain if I keep the punch turned down.

I certainly wouldn't hesitate about putting the finned motor in any of my 1/10 trucks though, talk about punching above your weight!

Just for reference, here's the video that inspired me to try it. Same type of motor but 4300KV and running on 3s in a Traxxas E-Maxx:

 

Wow that's very cool for such a small motor