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krisby

Baja King overheated

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A mate got a baja before I did and was saying it chewed through batteries, like, under 5 minutes. I just figured he had old batteries. When I got my vintage Baja King earlier this year, and had the opportunity to tidy it up during lockdown, I put a new ESC in it, a Tamiya RZ 23T motor and a new battery and went out onto my street for a full speed shake down, sure enough, after about 4 minutes, suddenly slowed, but man was it quick.

I had a run another time too and found it was cutting in an out, checked everything at home, all good, no obvious worries I could see. Took it for another run at the beach and it was cutting going into limp again, then coming out 20 seconds later, then limp, then it stopped and I noticed smoke coming from the battery connector, I managed to pull it apart, and just as well I did it whilst hot, cos if it had cooled down it might have been considerably harder pulling molten plastic apart.

Richards never got to this point with his, but he was still running stock silver can, but for it to kill his battery so quick, and then to basically melt the connector and overheat the ESC, seems to be a design flaw. I've had other 4WDs that don't eat the batteries that quick, or cause that much heat, so I am now assuming in my stupidity, that the pinion is probably geared too high, which, I would understand for mine, but not Richards with his stock everything. 

Is this a common problem with the Baja King? I haven't been able to find anything else specific to this car.

Obviously I'll reduce the pinion, but it still seems odd that Richard is having the same problem with a stock motor. 

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Could be because this car is based on a touring chassis so the hearing is all wrong for a buggy.  You may not be able to get a small enough pinion for that motor

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I have a tl01b (baja king/baja champ) and used to run a super stock bz in it - which is very similar to the rz. The motor used to run really hot, to the point it melted the solder on the motor connecting wire one time. That said, I never got magic smoke or battery connectors melting.

What ESC are you using? What battery (lipo/nimh)? What sort of connector are you using to connect your battery to your ESC? Are you using stock(ish) wheels/tyres ie not monster truck  wheels and tyres?

At a guess I would say your battery/esc connectors are not up to the job. It also sounds like your ESC is going into thermal protection mode and cutting power to prevent internal damage to your ESC.

You could try the smallest pinion (19t I think?) And also cut a bit out of your shell to promote airflow/cooling over the ESC like I've done here..

1597145430791885195924065852267.thumb.jpg.e5b204d2976005f8e8bdf680d170adb8.jpg

I cut out the the rectangular section underneath the topcad sticker and glued a very thin piece of foam there, the idea being air goes in when moving but dust/crud stays out. Seems to be working so far.

I would also solder different connectors. I've used Dean's connectors for years without issue, but other suitable alternatives are available.

Most of this is guess work though without know what electronics you've actually go installed. 🙂

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cooling might be an idea, I don't remember the ESC in mine, might be stock Tamiya, or a 1060, but just a Giant Power Nimh battery with Tamiya connectors, which I think don't help at all, I have been looking to change to deans, but with so many runners that will be a bitch, so might be a summer project to do that I think.

Same with Richards though, a stock tamiya, with a silver can, both running stock gearing and wheels, mine only got to the point of melding the plastic, cos I kept letting it recover from thermal protecting, then going again.

Not sure what pinion, so I will drop it down and see if that helps. It was rapid on the 23t, awesome fast in fact, so perhaps I might move that motor to another car and just stick with stock.

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