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All things electric! Brushless motors, batts, ESCs and chargers!

43K views 105 replies 41 participants last post by  towie964 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi all,

Thought I'd put all the stuff I know about electrics in the one thread for easy access. Seen quite a few posts recently about people wanting to start racing electric, specifically 1/8 scale and mostly the same questions get asked, so here we are.

Feel free to add your own stuff. If we can get all the info in one place, that would be excellent. Please limit posting in the thread to questions/answers, or adding information to keep it clutter free. If you need to, please feel free to PM me.

Perhaps a mod can sticky this?

-Sid
 
#68 ·
okay then, the likelihood of me getting another rc imo is slim, and if I did it probably wouldn't be for a while. So multi purpose battery use is not a concern for me at this stage. Plus I like the idea of a single battery pack. Short sightedness perhaps, but I don't mind having to get another battery if the need .

What are peoples opinions of turnigy nano tech batteries? I looked at gensace but HK don't supply them and I like the fact that they have a distribution point in australia. Less chance of the product getting lost!

And even tho the hard case argument is a good one, I'll probably settle with a soft case. The battery compartment in the buggy looks study enough, and the battery should strap in there nice and tightly.
 
#70 ·
Earlier version of the HK Nanos (25 - 50c 6000mah) were nothing spcial, they claim the new ones have very low IR

Regular Turnigy 5000mah 40c packs work well

Gensace packs a bargain and ordering from Hobbypartz isnt an issue

Cheers
 
#74 ·
Some will argue, I know, but I think that hard case lipos are only marginally safer than soft case lipos. Hard case lipos are safe in smaller impacts (say droping off the bench) but in a bigger impact damage can still easily occur with in. I tihink that most important thing is to place the lipo inside your RC properly. Make sure that your battery tray has some cushioning inside of it. I have an old wetsuit I use for that. I cut strips off it to suit the inside of that battery tray. Also you should always have the wires pointing towards the back of the car. 90% of impacts that will damage a lipo are head on impacts like diving into the ground. Bottom of the cell is much stronger than the top where the tabs come out and soldered to each other or the board like in some lipos. I have a few cells in my ammo box that suffered similar damage where the tabs have broken off right at the base where they come out of the cell. Impossible to fix. (saving them for a fire works show:flame:)

Another thing is that hard case lipos will sometimes hide early signs of cell damage. A slightly puffed cell probably wouldn't be that obvious inside the hard case but easy to spot/feel on a soft case.

Not saying not to use a hard case lipo but just a few points to keep in mind. I have a couple of hard case lipos and am very happy with them. Just wanted to point out not to feel complacent just because you have hard case lipos.
 
#75 ·
Well my order from HK arrived the other day, got my imax b6 charger and turnigy 4s 5000mah 40c battery. Very happy with both. So thanks to everyone for their help.

my bl cage is an animal! Really am happy with it, although I crashed into a pole and broker my front left suspension. So off I raced to oz rc in virginia and picked up 2 new ones, (1 for a spare). Also got a deans plug soldered to my battery. Big help from old mate, can't remember his name, but apparently is the administrator for this site, has a pumpkin head for an avatar. Thanks again.

so yeah, car is up and running, just need to get a larger front guard I think, try to avoid snapping my suspension again! Can't wait to get home from work and let it rip.
 
#76 ·
All very very valid points, I have seen the example in the video posted earlier just too many times at tracks. To further expand on a point above, if the current draw is too high & too much heat is generated internal desoldering can occur (normally indicated when you charge the battery & get a connection break error on the screen of your charger). There are new packs on the way that make many of these issues a thing of the past
 
#77 ·
Capacity
So a 1000mAh battery has enough energy stored to be capable of providing 1000milliAmps (or 1A), and it could do this for 1 hour. If you increased the amp draw to 2A, it would take 30min to discharge the battery. If you increased the draw to 4A, it would take 15min to discharge. If you decreased the amp draw to .5A, it would take 2 hours to discharge. And so on.

I'm confused there, if 1A = 1 hour and 2A 30mins ( half ) and 4A = 15mins ( quarter ) then wouldn't 5A be 12mins ?
 
#79 ·
Lipo safety thermal bags??? What the hell are those? LOL. I used to store them in an old amo box but someone offered me $100 for it and I thought why the hell not. Now my lipos sit on a shelf. Not saying its the safest way of doing it bit lipo will not just break out in flames for no reason. If they did that I doubt they would be available for sale to the public.
Instead most lipo issues and fires come from missuse and incorect charging. Also a lot of the time selected lipo will be the wrong one for the job. All these things if considered will make lipo use safe.
I have over 20 lipos and only ever had one go up in flames. Firstly it was probably rated a little on the lower side in terms of capacity and discharge ability for the application but also it was second hand. Came in a trade I did and who knows how the previous owner treated it. That was the only lipo fire I have ever had thankfully. I have had huge crashes with my cars and never had a lipo go up in flames despite some of them being very damaged. Bent, squished and crunched but no fire.
Just go and do a bit of reading about lipo safety. I keep telling peopel lipos are not hand grenades but they are stored energy. If you look after them they are perfectly safe.

Sent from my GT-I9210T using Tapatalk 2
 
#81 ·
rc nitro car

hi i have a nitro rc car ezrun s10 rtr and basically i put my battery on charge one day and when i connected it back to the car, the esc cooling fan began spinning faster than normal and there was a consistent green light on the esc which hasnt gone away even when you turn off and turn back on. i have tried pressing the set key and doing all the other stuff but when you click the set key nothing happens the green light is still there. also i have noticed that the esc cooling fan has become hot even after a few seconds what i wanted to know is that if i replace the esc cooling fan will the green light go away if not how can i make it go away
thanks
 
#82 ·
Atomik Brian Deegan Metal Mulisha MM 450 RC Dirtbike

Hey im going to go ahead and buy myself this rc dirt bike it looks awesome but one thing i would like to ask is will i be able to charge this little beast here in Australia or will the charger be us or euro spasific, i do need to know,. Thx
 
#83 ·
you should be good mate, just buy yourself a lipo charger when your at the local hobby shop and you'll be set. if your not sure, take the battery out, and go down and see them, most lhs's will happily guide you through charging your battery, especially if your going to buy the charger off them.
 
#85 ·
Font Sleeve Electric blue Graphics Logo


I grabbed one of these the other day and find it to be a very good charger for the money. Heres some spec's
Turnigy 4x6S can charge four batteries packs simultaneously!
A quality designed charger with accurate balancing and a familiar, intuitive menu system.
The Turnigy 4x6 is equipped with 4 high accuracy microprocessors to charge each battery individually. Its efficient cooling system ensures safe operation throughout the charge cycle.
With the Turnigy 4x6 you are able to balance charge a lipoly pack on Port-1 while series charging a LiFePo4 or NiMH battery on Port-2. All ports work independently of each other, and can provide up to 100W charging power each.
Specification:
Operating voltage range: DC11.0-18.0V
Charge power: 400W (100W per channel)
Discharger power: 32W
Charge current range: 0.1A-10A
Discharge current range: 0.1A-5A
Weight: 1100g
Dimensions: 190x153x60mm
Cell count: 1-15 NiCd/NiMH cells
1-6 LiPo/Lilon/LiFe cells
1-10 Lead-Acid cells (2V-20V)

 
#86 ·
View attachment 19577

I grabbed one of these the other day and find it to be a very good charger for the money. Heres some spec's
Turnigy 4x6S can charge four batteries packs simultaneously!
A quality designed charger with accurate balancing and a familiar, intuitive menu system.
The Turnigy 4x6 is equipped with 4 high accuracy microprocessors to charge each battery individually. Its efficient cooling system ensures safe operation throughout the charge cycle.
With the Turnigy 4x6 you are able to balance charge a lipoly pack on Port-1 while series charging a LiFePo4 or NiMH battery on Port-2. All ports work independently of each other, and can provide up to 100W charging power each.
Specification:
Operating voltage range: DC11.0-18.0V
Charge power: 400W (100W per channel)
Discharger power: 32W
Charge current range: 0.1A-10A
Discharge current range: 0.1A-5A
Weight: 1100g
Dimensions: 190x153x60mm
Cell count: 1-15 NiCd/NiMH cells
1-6 LiPo/Lilon/LiFe cells
1-10 Lead-Acid cells (2V-20V)

Unless they improved balancing circuit in that charger (and by a lot) I wouldn't be too impressed with it. The one I bought for my mate is a joke with as much as 0.5V variance across six cells and it was pretty much the same for all four channels. It was a joke and now it pretty much serves as just a Ni-MH charger. Not too good at that either as a lot of times it false peaks but eventually after a couple of resets it will charge it.
Also the passive balancing circuit is barely adequate. For smaller packs it might be ok but larger capacity packs it will take for ever unless the cells are very close to each other.
Hope there has been some improvment since about year ago as I was much less than impressed with that unit. Cheap chargers are usually cheap for a reason but then again there is some expensive garbage out there too.

Sent from my GT-I9210T using Tapatalk 2
 
#88 ·
i dont like the HK chargers either, their balancing is rubbish!

i had .15V different on 6S packs!!
 
#89 ·
awesome thread! I had a vxl-3s set up and the stock velineon 3500kv motor seized up, I replaced it with a cc 1410 3800kv motor which ran like it had a rev limiter briefly before the esc died, I was told the esc did not support 4 pole motors. I have ordered a hobbywing sc8 wp esc to replace it but how do people know what esc will work with 4 pole motors? theres no specs stating if it will work with 4 pole motors on all esc's I read up on (some esc's do say not for use with 4 pole motors)
 
#90 ·
Usually they will state it if they can't work with 4 pole motors. If they dont then there is a fair chance that you will have no issues using a four poler on them. Actually to be honest, any even average ESC should be fine with a 4pole motor. The VXL-3S is actually a pile of crap IMO as far as reliable, tunable and functional ESCs go. I pretty much hate them. Other than being waterproofed they really dont have much going for then.
The SC8 WP is a great little ESC and very unlikely you will have problems with it. It certainly can turn a 4 pole motor and even a 6 pole motor. My mate has the Tenshock X802 6 pole motor in his Slash with that exact ESC and has no issues.

Sent from my GT-I9210T using Tapatalk 2
 
#92 ·
Hot tip to newbies RE: Lipo's

About a year ago I stocked up on lipo's in anticipation of running 4x 6s packs per run in a boat, I bought 12 lipos so I'd have 3 sets to get through the day. The boat build was put aside and I used a few packs in other toys but left 6 packs balanced at 3.8v (storage level) unused. I've got back into the boat build and yesterday pulled the batteries out of storage and hooked them up to my charger to re balance. To my dissapointment, 3 of the 6 packs I left unsed now have dead cells. Moral of the story is, Only buy lipo's that you intend to use on a regular bacis, you don't need waste more money than you have to.
 
#95 ·
About a year ago I stocked up on lipo's in anticipation of running 4x 6s packs per run in a boat, I bought 12 lipos so I'd have 3 sets to get through the day. The boat build was put aside and I used a few packs in other toys but left 6 packs balanced at 3.8v (storage level) unused. I've got back into the boat build and yesterday pulled the batteries out of storage and hooked them up to my charger to re balance. To my dissapointment, 3 of the 6 packs I left unsed now have dead cells. Moral of the story is, Only buy lipo's that you intend to use on a regular bacis, you don't need waste more money than you have to.
What do you think you might do with the packs that have dead cells?

Sent from my GT-I9210T using Tapatalk 2
 
#93 ·
Im nearly tempted to leave my batts fully charged and use them then charge em up again to sit there, I have had a few batteries drop a cell while being in storage mode

I would rather keep them fully charged and only get a year out of them then 6 months or so I got when I put them in storage, I don't use my Rc's as often anymore, maybe I got a bad batch of battery's a couple of times or maybe turnigy batteries aren't what they used to be, from now on I'll only buy 2 sets to use

Hey Millzy what brand where they?
 
#97 ·
I have a 2S pack that needs to be repaired, a balance wire same off somewhere and it wont charge because of it. I am too afraid to pull it open and fix it, i think i might end up exploding myself. Besides, splitting hard case packs is not simple.
 
#99 ·
You cant use normal soldier on the batteries, i use silver bearing soldier, needs alot higher temp to melt so need a decent soldiering iron to get it done quick. You have to be careful not to short between tabs but other than they are simple to do if you have a steady hand
 
#101 ·
I have 9 packs so far that have been modified to suit my needs that have dead cells, or were just to bug for an application. I run 2p in all of my setups so only need 3s packs at most. Makes it easy when you push your packs to the limit and need to.replace cells occasionally
 
#104 ·
motor cogging

Excellent! You sir, are a guiding light, shining bright, lol. The amount of google searches I done, the number of hobby shops I asked, none, not one explained it like this and I was left very unsure as to whether it was a faulty motor or not.
Granted gerrard from ozrc at geebung said there was nothing wrong with it, but didn't explain why.
Again mate, great work. Ive just bookmarked this page. Cheers
 
#105 ·
yooooo

Hey everyone, very new to the rc drifting hobby and have a bought a RTR set with a team orion 1800mah 7.2V Ni-MH battery pack (which is absolutely useless) takes 5 hours to charge fully and lasts 10 - 15 mins not even blasting full throttle the entire time. i honestly know next to nothing about electric motors other than the fact that mine is a brushless motor with "ripper 3900kv IBL36/39" written on it (not sure what any of that means) but im on here to ask on some expert knowledge, i know obviously i can buy a longer lasting battery e.g. 5100mah etc. how do i know which ones if any will rape my car and which ones will work? if anyones willing to give a detailed answer/explanation id greatly appreciate it. or if anyone could link me a new very long lasting battery and a quicker charger, money isnt an issue but i dont want to spend unnecessary money where it isnt needed, thanks yall
 
#106 ·
Ok first things first....

Your brushless combo....the only number that of any concern are the 3900KV and the 36....the 36 = motor diameter which is 36mm....the appropriate motor for a 1/10 scale car/small truck/buggy

The 3900KV...this number tells you the speed or output of the motor, it is also used to calculate the engines overall top speed along with the battery voltage

The battery you are using is completely wrong for the system you are running, it is too small in capacity and while technically correct, it really is the wrong chemistry for your system to perform at optimum levels

There is another number you will need...on the ESC (speed control) there will (or should be) an Amp rating, this number will tell you what amount of punishment you can give your system, and also allows to calculate the best or most appropriate battery for your complete system

Based on the motor you have...I would suggest a 5000mah 2 cell lipo would give you a huge performance upgrade....you would also need a new charger, due to NiMH and Lipo batteries charge in different way.
 
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