While recently running into high current issues with my 4WD SCT, I am starting to appreciate the need for a data logger and current limiter which are not included in my ESC.

While my motor and ESC temps are normal, 140° and 100° respectively after an 8 min main, I have recently been experiencing excessive current drain which have un-soldered my battery terminals at both the positive and negative terminals, the heat has also deformed the plastic around the terminals:



I regularly maintain my truck by cleaning the bearings and making sure there is no binding anywhere in the system. The battery is about 6 months old with IR around 5mΩ respectively for each cell. in the pack. I made no changes to the setup which worked fine for the past 6 months and then mysteriously started drawing excess current.

I have been trying to mitigate the issue by reducing the punch from 9 to 4, increased the expo on the throttle from 0% to 25% and decreased the EPA from 100% to 90% and now I can make it through a race without unsoldering the terminals anymore, but my battery temps are still higher than normal where in the past 6 months the battery would average around 100° but now it's in the 130° range after a race

That said the pack is way over rated for the specs and it worked flawlessly for 6 months, but now there is some sort of gremlin that I am chasing down. I am thinking there is a problem with the ESC which lacks a "current limiter" feature which I believe would prevent this problem of excessive current drain on my battery.


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Because I am cheap, and the track in my area does not enforce ROAR, I plan to resolve the issue by replacing the 3660-4300KV motor with a 3660-3200KV motor (26% reduction in KV) and running it on 3S (33% increase in Voltage) which will be more cost effective than investing in a new ESC with a current limiter... by switching to 3S, I will reduce the current draw by 30% (averaging KV and Voltage changes) and should be able to keep the same gearing and increase my EPA back to 100% and get roughly the same net power draw as before.