Castle Mamba Monster + Zippy Lipo's = SMOKED
02-23-2009, 02:26 PM
#31
I had the first version of monster when it came out, I've followed its progression up till V3. Castle has and always will blame the battery Mfg. Mine never went thermal, I sold the truck it was in, but seems the V3's are doing pretty good now with the occasional one that still melts down. They always come on rcmonster and say it was the battery to blame, some sort of ripple effect from the batteries makes the capaciters blow up. Good news is that Castle will repair it, bad news is that it may happen again. I've heard of guys going through 3-4 of these until the problem was solved, but honestly lots of those people were having BEC failures.
Funny thing is later that night same thing happened to my buddy and 2 others. My buddy got the same story zip tie yad yada yada and they sent him a new one. So far we were pleased but still baffled at the design.
The tech told him since this is the second ESC he is replacing that if it blows up again they cannot send him another and he also said to not zip tie it in
anyways this just kinda sucks.
02-23-2009, 02:44 PM
#32
I am not defending or attacking anyone. Just educated and protecting ourselves since this is a real issue we will likely face as well.
Why do you think some 1/10 controller have a gas can sized capacitor or array of capacitors and are only rated to 7cells when they have the same fets as these controllers? We are doing some pretty amazing things with a lot of power in this application. It is reasonable to require a decent power supply to make it happen reliably.
02-23-2009, 02:46 PM
#33
Tech Regular
iTrader: (62)
theyll be more companys coming out with speedos in the next few months castle is not the only company out there guys ......my two speedos from castle have had many problems shorted fan wires board problems .....give it time some one will come out with a better speed controller......
02-23-2009, 02:52 PM
#34
Tech Regular
iTrader: (62)
Bingo! Basic V/R=I Divide 14volts by the resistance of your motor, should be a couple thousand amps which obviously does not happen, but some other pretty aggressive things do. It is not the power from the battery or a huge current draw that would puff the battery and cook the fets. It is a voltage ripple that happens almost instantaneously. Things turn on that should not be on and then the big current flows causing the excitement.
I am not defending or attacking anyone. Just educated and protecting ourselves since this is a real issue we will likely face as well.
I am not defending or attacking anyone. Just educated and protecting ourselves since this is a real issue we will likely face as well.
02-23-2009, 02:54 PM
#35
I will not claim that any products are junk and will not work, but it is a technical fact that lower quality batteries are hard on electronics. They are a concern and liability for those of us that make controllers. If a battery is over rated or over stressed the voltage will bounce to very high levels and stress the caps. If the caps blow the voltage spikes can exceed the limits of the fets and the speedo will blow. Many of you are looking at things with data loggers that take 20 samples per second or less. We are talking about voltage ripple that happens in micro seconds that can bounce off the scope thousands of times per second with no caps. The fets are only rated to 30V.
Like it or not it is a real engineering problem to deal with in car controllers. Airplane controllers are not the same animals and are not switching the same in most cases. They also do not freeze the motor with brakes and slam full throttle on a 1 turn motor.
Tekin Prez
Like it or not it is a real engineering problem to deal with in car controllers. Airplane controllers are not the same animals and are not switching the same in most cases. They also do not freeze the motor with brakes and slam full throttle on a 1 turn motor.
Tekin Prez
We do the opposite of a brushless esc at work and we have to protect our filters very carefully. A 4MW power supply feels no pain destroying just about any filter that is put onto it. We have to use excessive ripple and excessive 60Hz trips along with circuit breakers on the cap bank in order to keep things in one piece.
02-23-2009, 03:04 PM
#36
02-23-2009, 03:09 PM
#37
If the motor just locked up out of nowhere... Either something got stuck in the gears, and fell out once the power was lost and not keeping it between the gears...
I don't think I've ever seen an ESC pop and slam on the brakes, usually it just coasts to a stop...
Unless the voltage ripple locked up the brakes, or slammed it into full reverse.
I don't think I've ever seen an ESC pop and slam on the brakes, usually it just coasts to a stop...
Unless the voltage ripple locked up the brakes, or slammed it into full reverse.
02-23-2009, 03:13 PM
#38
Heya,
Good thread, running the zippy 5000mah 4s with MMM and 2200kv, smoked the zippy, but not due to the battery spiking. The tray ripped out and the lipo hit the steering post and shorted. I since created a case to avoid this user error.
As reviewing the hobbycity website I concur on all the positive feedback that is posted there, but I also believe that all of us are running pretty new untested by the masses power systems. By anymeans we may be the Beta testers for some of the companies. I believe Castle puts out a quality product and stands behind it with great service because they know it hasn't be tested in ALL vehicles.
This is why we have the "expert" forum, we try new stuff and we do not test lightly and we take the risk of losing some cash and a car.
My offroad kit now has a welding glove and a nice bucket of beach sand.
Never going nitro...too slow...too messy....too noisy....too expensive....
Good thread, running the zippy 5000mah 4s with MMM and 2200kv, smoked the zippy, but not due to the battery spiking. The tray ripped out and the lipo hit the steering post and shorted. I since created a case to avoid this user error.
As reviewing the hobbycity website I concur on all the positive feedback that is posted there, but I also believe that all of us are running pretty new untested by the masses power systems. By anymeans we may be the Beta testers for some of the companies. I believe Castle puts out a quality product and stands behind it with great service because they know it hasn't be tested in ALL vehicles.
This is why we have the "expert" forum, we try new stuff and we do not test lightly and we take the risk of losing some cash and a car.
My offroad kit now has a welding glove and a nice bucket of beach sand.
Never going nitro...too slow...too messy....too noisy....too expensive....
02-23-2009, 03:16 PM
#39
Oneblackram – Cheap shot. We are not having problems. I am just stating the facts from an engineering standpoint.
NovakTwo - Too Funny, sorry about the gas can comment. I was making a point that it must be diffcult to deal with.
Well you have the 3 companies that actually design controllers for a living here. You can learn or argue opinions and bash. It’s real and a challenge for all of us. Some here obviously understand it and hopefully other non posting readers are getting it also.
NovakTwo - Too Funny, sorry about the gas can comment. I was making a point that it must be diffcult to deal with.
Well you have the 3 companies that actually design controllers for a living here. You can learn or argue opinions and bash. It’s real and a challenge for all of us. Some here obviously understand it and hopefully other non posting readers are getting it also.
02-23-2009, 03:26 PM
#40
Oneblackram – Cheap shot. We are not having problems. I am just stating the facts from an engineering standpoint.
NovakTwo - Too Funny, sorry about the gas can comment. I was making a point that it must be diffcult to deal with.
Well you have the 3 companies that actually design controllers for a living here. You can learn or argue opinions and bash. It’s real and a challenge for all of us. Some here obviously understand it and hopefully other non posting readers are getting it also.
NovakTwo - Too Funny, sorry about the gas can comment. I was making a point that it must be diffcult to deal with.
Well you have the 3 companies that actually design controllers for a living here. You can learn or argue opinions and bash. It’s real and a challenge for all of us. Some here obviously understand it and hopefully other non posting readers are getting it also.
02-23-2009, 03:32 PM
#41
Tech Regular
iTrader: (62)
Oneblackram – Cheap shot. We are not having problems. I am just stating the facts from an engineering standpoint.
NovakTwo - Too Funny, sorry about the gas can comment. I was making a point that it must be diffcult to deal with.
Well you have the 3 companies that actually design controllers for a living here. You can learn or argue opinions and bash. It’s real and a challenge for all of us. Some here obviously understand it and hopefully other non posting readers are getting it also.
NovakTwo - Too Funny, sorry about the gas can comment. I was making a point that it must be diffcult to deal with.
Well you have the 3 companies that actually design controllers for a living here. You can learn or argue opinions and bash. It’s real and a challenge for all of us. Some here obviously understand it and hopefully other non posting readers are getting it also.
02-23-2009, 03:41 PM
#42
sorry team tekin ill be trying your stuff also when it comes out just like everybody else is doing .....i know it just takes time and money ...i do hope that your case is screwed in not snapped in like the castle ......were all spending lots of money also out here ..and face it some of these things are going to blow up its the nature of these beasts .......tekin has always made great products raced them for years till they closed down ......ive ran most all of them ....
02-23-2009, 03:53 PM
#43
Tech Regular
iTrader: (62)
How bad is that design on the Mamba monster. Plastic clips. Especially here in socal where tracks are like supercross tracks. I cannot belive they did not use screws to hold the ESC case together. No joke I was on the driver stand and told another guy running a mamba "hey you might want to secure your esc with more than the double face tape, mine blew apart" 5 seconds later his did the same thing.
02-23-2009, 04:07 PM
#45
so far I have seen a guy start a thread based on "what his buddy said and did
and people push SMC batteries to the utmost, last pack of SMC I had was IB4200 matched Nimhs and one cell vented and another exploded, so no battery company is perfect.
I've emailed castle myself as I was looking at Zippy packs for my Savage flux, and will go on their advice as to whether or not these packs are usable with the speedy.
But inevitably sometimes a speedy can just blow, it happens thats why there are warranties, dry solder connections, faulty components etc it can happen. Isn't it possible that's the case here?
and people push SMC batteries to the utmost, last pack of SMC I had was IB4200 matched Nimhs and one cell vented and another exploded, so no battery company is perfect.
I've emailed castle myself as I was looking at Zippy packs for my Savage flux, and will go on their advice as to whether or not these packs are usable with the speedy.
But inevitably sometimes a speedy can just blow, it happens thats why there are warranties, dry solder connections, faulty components etc it can happen. Isn't it possible that's the case here?