sosidge

I'm now certain that a software issue is the cause of the bad brakes on the 508_NO_TIMING software.

The question is whether Hobbywing are going to bother addressing this issue now that the V3 is out.

I've been getting nailed under braking all season, last weekend's BRCA Clubman's meeting was the nadir.

So I put the car on the bench and had a play. ESC is an Xtreme Stock. Radio is Futaba and correctly calibrated with no funny settings.

Straight away I noticed that when going from full throttle to full brake, there was a delay in the green (full brake) light illuminating, and a distinct soft sound to the braking.

If I paused at neutral briefly, then pulled full brake, the green light illuminated immediately and the braking was sharp.

Obviously you can't pause at neutral before braking when you are on the track.

I then tried some different softwares. 205MOD lit up the green almost immediately and the braking was sharp. 930STOCK also lit up the green immediately with sharp braking - I also set the boost and turbo to zero to get a closer comparison and the braking remained sharp.

I then dug up the 120A V2.0 that I have in my buggy. This has the quad cap fitted. Switched to the 508_NO_TIMING software, and the soft delay on full brake remained. Tried the quad cap on the Xtreme Stock - no difference.

I've basically lost faith in the HW ESCs now. Which is frustrating for a number of reasons - not least of which is that I have recommended the ESC to a number of other people because of the quality of the hardware and the value it represents. I'd heard a lot of talk trackside about weak brakes and never felt it had been an issue for me - and it wasn't, until I started to do more racing on fast outdoor tracks that need heavy braking.

HW clearly know how to program strong brakes into the ESC - 205MOD has them. So will there be an update soon to the V2.0/V2.1 software, or do I have to sell my ESCs and move to a different brand?