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rwordenjr

Trackstar ESC/Motor Programming Suggestions

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Hooked up my esc/motor combo today and it works ! Now I’m lost in the programming options 😵 what would you guys recommend ? 

3BE8DBB6-C9B0-4E4E-99A9-2C30DFED5CF9.jpeg

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Probably gonna need a bit more info to provide a useful answer...

What motor will you be using - turn/kv? Sensored/sensorless?

What car? 2wd/4wd vintage/re re or modern?

What application? Bashing/racing? Surface? Grass/beach/tarmac etc?

My advice would be if you're just bashing go with default and adjust from there - although I would make my low voltage cut off higher than 3.2 v  - I usually go for the highest. Better safe than sorry and all that.

If you're doing anything else then it does really rather depend on what. I would also say if you're putting it in a re re or vintage I would probably turn the punch down too. It's easy to forget this stuff has been designed for modern, tough RC cars/truggies etc and not 80s tamiya stuff 😁

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im definitely interested in this topic, hope to get some replies here.  

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10 hours ago, Silver-Can said:

Probably gonna need a bit more info to provide a useful answer...

What motor will you be using - turn/kv? Sensored/sensorless?

What car? 2wd/4wd vintage/re re or modern?

What application? Bashing/racing? Surface? Grass/beach/tarmac etc?

My advice would be if you're just bashing go with default and adjust from there - although I would make my low voltage cut off higher than 3.2 v  - I usually go for the highest. Better safe than sorry and all that.

If you're doing anything else then it does really rather depend on what. I would also say if you're putting it in a re re or vintage I would probably turn the punch down too. It's easy to forget this stuff has been designed for modern, tough RC cars/truggies etc and not 80s tamiya stuff 😁

Hey there !

13.5T/3040KV

Sensored 

2WD Zahhak

Bashing/Fun driving 

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5 hours ago, rwordenjr said:

Hey there !

13.5T/3040KV

Sensored 

2WD Zahhak

Bashing/Fun driving 

Hi mate. So the DN 01 is a relatively modern, capable chassis but is also light and 2wd. It is also worth noting that aside from ESC settings, such things as gearing, suspension setup and tyres will have an impact on how your car will drive however, if it were me, I would set up the ESC as follows;

Operation mode - i would leave this as is allowing for forward, reverse and brakes.

Initial brake - this is a preference thing. It's designed to smooth out the overall braking curve. Typically, I leave it as =drag brake to provide a smooth transition from no braking to full braking.

Drag brake - is designed to mimic the effect of releasing the throttle when using old brushed motors and the 'drag' effect of the brushes on the comm to slow the car down. This is a preference thing too. I typically like this to be quite pronounced so would go for a higher value. Just to note that if you set initial brake to =drag brake this should lead to nice progressive braking.

Brake strength - I like nice strong brakes so tend to go for higher values. Just be aware if you use more aggressive braking you risk damaging gears, typically the spur gear.

Low voltage cut off - 3.2 is too low for me. I tend to go with a higher value. This may reduce run time but will increase longevity of my lipos 😁

Punch - basically how aggressive you want your acceleration. The higher the value, the more aggressive the acceleration. Again there are pros and cons. High grip surface with grippy tyres you will just wheelie and back flip (I don't think the DN 01 has a slipper to compensatefor this). You also risk mashing your gears too. Low grip surfaces will just induce wheel spin and wear out you tyres. I would suggest a happy medium of something like level 5 and see how it goes when you run it.

Neutral headband  - gap between forward and brake. I'd leave this as default.

Boost timing  - apparently, the higher the value the more bottom end to mid range power you get. Change to your own preference. 

Turbo slope  - essentially, how aggressively the turbo kicks in. Higher value = more aggressive and higher temps. Again, adjust to suit preference. 

Turbo timing  - higher value = higher top end. Adjust to suit.

Turbo rpm - not too sure about this one. Have a play and see what happens.

Turbo delay - fairly self explanatory.

Boost timing acc - no idea about this I'm afraid.

Drive and break frequency  - basically low = more aggressive/punchy and higher = smoother.

 

Most of these settings have trade offs in terms of motor temp or ESC temp. 

At the end of the day, experiment with different settings to find a setup that suits your driving style and surfaces you drive on. I have quite a few brushless lipo cars and have them set up to drive like brushed cars, just faster as that suits my driving style. To be honest, for bashing I don't really notice much in the way of boost and turbo and all that. It's not like someone pressing the nos button in need for speed - much to my disappointment 😁

My race cars are setup completely differently in terms of brakes in particular.

Anyway, long post over. Hope that helps some. 👍

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To add to the great previous reply the easy way to understand boost and turbo is that while both are dynamically applied increased timings (more power but lower efficiency), boost starts at a specific RPM while turbo starts at maximum throttle after a defined delay.

In other words boost can be used to compensate otherwise not powerful enough motor while turbo is used to achieve higher top speed in long straight sections.

Generally a 3000kV 13.5T motor is quite powerful enough for a buggy like Zahhak. Hence I would absolutely keep boost disabled (timing at 0 degress) but if wishing for higher top speed, start experimenting with turbo of 10 degress.

All that said, before tinkering with boost/turbo, you should try to find gearing ratio most suitable for your driving style and location.

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15deg boost timing and 15deg turbo timing with stock 16deg end bell timing is where I’m at right now. I’m happy with it. Temps still very low so probably could push even more but it’s very fast right now !

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On 8/28/2020 at 2:26 AM, Silver-Can said:

Hi mate. So the DN 01 is a relatively modern, capable chassis but is also light and 2wd. It is also worth noting that aside from ESC settings, such things as gearing, suspension setup and tyres will have an impact on how your car will drive however, if it were me, I would set up the ESC as follows;

Operation mode - i would leave this as is allowing for forward, reverse and brakes.

Initial brake - this is a preference thing. It's designed to smooth out the overall braking curve. Typically, I leave it as =drag brake to provide a smooth transition from no braking to full braking.

Drag brake - is designed to mimic the effect of releasing the throttle when using old brushed motors and the 'drag' effect of the brushes on the comm to slow the car down. This is a preference thing too. I typically like this to be quite pronounced so would go for a higher value. Just to note that if you set initial brake to =drag brake this should lead to nice progressive braking.

Brake strength - I like nice strong brakes so tend to go for higher values. Just be aware if you use more aggressive braking you risk damaging gears, typically the spur gear.

Low voltage cut off - 3.2 is too low for me. I tend to go with a higher value. This may reduce run time but will increase longevity of my lipos 😁

Punch - basically how aggressive you want your acceleration. The higher the value, the more aggressive the acceleration. Again there are pros and cons. High grip surface with grippy tyres you will just wheelie and back flip (I don't think the DN 01 has a slipper to compensatefor this). You also risk mashing your gears too. Low grip surfaces will just induce wheel spin and wear out you tyres. I would suggest a happy medium of something like level 5 and see how it goes when you run it.

Neutral headband  - gap between forward and brake. I'd leave this as default.

Boost timing  - apparently, the higher the value the more bottom end to mid range power you get. Change to your own preference. 

Turbo slope  - essentially, how aggressively the turbo kicks in. Higher value = more aggressive and higher temps. Again, adjust to suit preference. 

Turbo timing  - higher value = higher top end. Adjust to suit.

Turbo rpm - not too sure about this one. Have a play and see what happens.

Turbo delay - fairly self explanatory.

Boost timing acc - no idea about this I'm afraid.

Drive and break frequency  - basically low = more aggressive/punchy and higher = smoother.

 

Most of these settings have trade offs in terms of motor temp or ESC temp. 

At the end of the day, experiment with different settings to find a setup that suits your driving style and surfaces you drive on. I have quite a few brushless lipo cars and have them set up to drive like brushed cars, just faster as that suits my driving style. To be honest, for bashing I don't really notice much in the way of boost and turbo and all that. It's not like someone pressing the nos button in need for speed - much to my disappointment 😁

My race cars are setup completely differently in terms of brakes in particular.

Anyway, long post over. Hope that helps some. 👍

Thanks for your help! The turbo is actually like NOS on this combo ! Right before full throttle, the turbo engages and it speeds up like a rocket 

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Ha ha glad you've got it sorted to your liking. Might have to dig my programme cards out and have a play with the settings as I'm all for that NOS effect 😀 👍

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10 hours ago, Silver-Can said:

Ha ha glad you've got it sorted to your liking. Might have to dig my programme cards out and have a play with the settings as I'm all for that NOS effect 😀 👍

Very pleased with the combo. The sensorless GOOL rc stuff is trash compared to this. Can’t even drive at low speeds with those 

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1 hour ago, rwordenjr said:

Very pleased with the combo. The sensorless GOOL rc stuff is trash compared to this. Can’t even drive at low speeds with those 

Agreed. I bought a gool combo and the ESC died on the first run (was at the beach mind) and the motor seized. I've managed to revive the motor by judicious use of mallet and gt 85 but the ESC was an ex parrot 🦜. I too have a trackstar turbo combo but it's a waterproof sensorless one and I don't think it has as many bells and whistles as yours. It's currently in my baja champ/king and it does fly! 🚀

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3 hours ago, Silver-Can said:

Agreed. I bought a gool combo and the ESC died on the first run (was at the beach mind) and the motor seized. I've managed to revive the motor by judicious use of mallet and gt 85 but the ESC was an ex parrot 🦜. I too have a trackstar turbo combo but it's a waterproof sensorless one and I don't think it has as many bells and whistles as yours. It's currently in my baja champ/king and it does fly! 🚀

Does your Trackstar sensorless “cog” at low speeds ? AKA you can’t drive it because it’s sensorless and trying to guess.

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Idk if that’s a GoolRc sensorless issue or sensorless motor period issue. I’m staying away from sensorless for now and only getting tamiya brushed or other brand sensored motors 

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5 hours ago, rwordenjr said:

Does your Trackstar sensorless “cog” at low speeds ? AKA you can’t drive it because it’s sensorless and trying to guess.

Yep it sure does. To be honest, it sounds like a bag of spanners when trying to do low speed maneuvers and initially I was concerned I might be damaging stuff but I've had it in there for 2 or 3 years and it's still going strong and not noticed any damaged gears etc. I have other sensorless and sensored systems and the trackstar combo is the worst for cogging by far, although my other sensorless systems do it too. All sensorless systems do it to a greater or lesser extent due to guessing where the rota is, like you say. It doesn't really bother me now but you can't beat that buttery smooth delivery of a sensored system.

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