RE: Returned newbe - SPEED ELECTRIC
Nice boat, great in a straight line, not the best turning boat out there, long and skinny. Seen some hit some insane speeds in the straights though! I have a boat from a different company thats similar in length to width, hit near 60 mph on it's first day. In general a mono hull will handle rough water much better than a cat at speeds though.
Posted on: 9/15/2012 4:21 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11229102

RE: Hunter 69
The proteus motors are a Lehner knock off. Never said that the suppo was a bad motor, said it wasn't a made by Turnigy like everything else they sell! Pretty dumb to say Turningy makes great stuff when all they do is rebadge some quality merchandise and a lot of garbage and manufacture nothing. I'll gladly put my Lehners, Castle and Neu motors up against anything out there and amp for amp will out perform it and outlast it. I do own a few cheap motors including a t-600 1940kv version, and run them in sport setups, but they do not perform anywhere near the same as a high end motor. Data logger does not lie, nor does the GPS. Same props back to back runs with the same brand of batteries, higher amp draws and temps along with a slower boat, means less efficient motor! 60 mph is pointless when everybody your up against is doing 70! I can get over 60 out of a used UL-1 motor in my H&M Drifter S with the old version UL-1 esc!
Posted on: 9/8/2012 5:36 PM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11222185

RE: Hunter 69
Turnigy doesn't make anything! It's simply Hobby Kings house name. They rebrand everything. Some of their stuff is good other stuff isn't worth a damn! If you look around you can find the exact same products from other retailers with a different brand name on it. A lot of times they sell a knock off product that looks just like somebody else's high quality stuff but at half the price and quality with a Turnigy label on it. Just cause it looks like a Lehner doesn't mean it will perform like one! Those "Turnigy" T-600 motors are actually made by Suppo, you can also buy them as FighterCat Racing motors and a number of other places under different labels.
Posted on: 9/8/2012 7:13 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11221678

RE: LIPO Battery Swelling up
By your description about what happened you ran the batteries down to far and killed them. NEVER EVER run them below 20% remaining capacity. You should have called it quits as soon as the LVC kicked in, the cell voltage recovered a bit when it rested, this allowed the lvc to let the boat start running again because it saw more than 3v/cell. That boat should draw about an amp a minute ballpark, Depending on the setup you should run no more than about 4 minutes. Get some new batteries, charge them completely, run the boat for 1 minute, bring it back in and recharge the batteries, a good charger will tell you how many MAH went back into the battery. Now extrapolate that so you can figure out how many minutes you can run and still have minimum 20% capacity remaining. With my similar set up boats I set my TX timer to 3:30 and bring the boat in when the alarm goes off, usually put close to 4000mah back into 5000mah packs. You should figure out your own numbers though, I probably am not running the same props and more than likely a different setup, mine are set up to run well with a number of other boats on a course. I don't go for top speed I set up for consistancy and handling.
Posted on: 9/5/2012 5:51 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11218114

RE: VS1 with Proboat outboard
The OS leg is much better! because of class restriction I run a ul-1 motor on 4s, sorry can't help on motor selection for you. I,ve never run it on anything else.
Posted on: 9/4/2012 2:31 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11216629

RE: Bearings instead of brass tube for flex shaft
A proper sized brass stuffing tube has very little drag when running, the cable only contacts the tube in a couple spots. Plus it doesn't rust like bearing will. Maintenance is easy just pull the shaft at the end of the day and dry it off, reinstall it with fresh grease before next time you run, takes all of two minutes. Bearings do not last very long in water, the dirt and minerals will cause pitting really quick, then the bearings are on the way out. Also by using a tube big enough to fit the bearings the flex will thrash itself between the bearings causing vibration and noise.
Posted on: 8/29/2012 5:36 PM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11210867

RE: To UBEC or not to UBEC? (help)
Any esc should work, all mine still work with a 25+ year old futaba Magnum Sport. Was my backup radio until I picked up a used spektrum proboat radio. I have Swordfish, Proboat and Aquacraft esc's, no problems running any of them.
Posted on: 8/23/2012 4:31 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11203076

RE: Is it the EPC or the motor?
Use a multimeter and measure the resistance across all 3 of the motor leads, they should all read the same. That sounds like a motor that has shorted out the windings to me. It's not bearings no point in checking that! You also may not actually be able to see the short in the windings unless it really charred. You need a multimeter to check a motor. Doesn't quite sound like a demagged motor but if it got hot enough it may have lost some of the gauss. Chicken or egg, motor could have taken out the original esc or the original esc may have taken out the motor. Best of luck
Posted on: 8/22/2012 1:38 PM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11202432

RE: big electric boats
It's a 56 x someting (82?) Leopard. Show how many people actually look at pictures before popping in with their 2 cents! You think it would be easy enough to open up the picture and read the cooler! The guy is a nitro or gas dude, he isn't going to know the technical aspects of motor naming! BTW sweet looking cat!
Posted on: 8/20/2012 8:09 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11199623

RE: High C rating Nano's desoldering my wires.
A properly soldered ec5 is rated for 150 amps, not saying they won't get hot at that but they won't melt solder, I used to regularly put 110-125 amps through them logged on an eagletree and they never unsoldered. There is no such thing as an adequate solder job, it's either good or bad, kinda like packing a parachute! Your solder joints keep failing, your soldering must not be adequate, doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out! That picture is an EC5 connector that used to be part of a harness, that is what used to see those numbers.
Posted on: 8/19/2012 8:35 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11198629

RE: High C rating Nano's desoldering my wires.
You can see how much smoother and shinier the one I posted looks, that is a good solder joint.
Posted on: 8/18/2012 11:23 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11197899

RE: High C rating Nano's desoldering my wires.
Those are terrible solder joints again! Those are both cold joints.
Posted on: 8/18/2012 11:22 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11197898

RE: High C rating Nano's desoldering my wires.
That pic showing the black wire soldered into the plug. Looks like a bad solder joint to me, it's not shiny and smooth, in the pic it looks lumpy, grainy and dull. The solder should flow smoothly around everything and be a bright shiny silver. If it is at all dull or grainy looking you have a cold joint. Once you remove the iron you cannot move the wires until the joint has cooled. Also if you are using a small pencil iron you need something a bit bigger, or at least a bigger tip. I use an 80 watt iron with a fairly large chisel tip, can do a bullet in a few seconds once the iron is hot. A cold joint has much higher resistance than a good joint.
Posted on: 8/18/2012 3:45 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11197598

RE: High C rating Nano's desoldering my wires.
Common sense!
Posted on: 8/17/2012 12:09 PM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11197053

RE: High C rating Nano's desoldering my wires.
EC5's suck plain and simple!, get some good bullets. Also not the greatest packs, they are known to have a large voltage sag. Last year somebody did some comprehensive battery testing, on his own, bought the batteries he tested and posted all the on water test data. The Nano techs were pretty bad! The regular turnigy packs tested much better! Last week I was running some 35c gens ace packs and 25C Polyquests, back to back runs, no changes to the boat at all. In every run the Gens Ace sagged by a bit more than a volt more than the lower C high quality packs. Voltage was dropping to about 12.6 volts and staying there, the Polys stayed just over 13.5 for the runs Don't care what the C rating is cheap batteries are cheap batteries! That 1 volt difference made a difference in the temps of all the components. Not huge but it things were hotter. BTW the average amp draws were about 68-69 amps so it wasn't a massive load on the batteries, just a Motley Crew running a UL-1 motor and esc.
Posted on: 8/17/2012 8:22 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11196818

RE: Batteries
I guess if you don't get to use your boats it works. We're out weekly for at least half a day 10+ runs easy. Sometimes we get a Wednesday evening in. We use a generator, have a bunch of guys charging off it, also have laptops for data loggers, esc programming etc. Now we can get about 10 boats out for a run, most of us have a couple each.
Posted on: 8/17/2012 8:05 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11196800

RE: Batteries
I`d be careful running off your car battery. Chargers can draw some good current, you might kill your car battery at the pond. Car batteries are not deep cycle, they do not like a long slow discharge. They are designed to give a high burst for a short period of time to start your vehicle. You can do it but be sure to start the car a few times to keep the battery charge high. A plain old computer power supply works great as a home power supply, I got 3 free used ones for asking from a computer shop near me. I guess they just send the out to be recycled.
Posted on: 8/17/2012 2:19 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11196556

RE: Batteries
Don't waste your time on NiMh batteries. The key is a charger than has some power behind it, this isn't really cheap. You have to look at the watt rating of the charger, you can get quite a few cheap chargers that have only 50 watts, will take a LONG time to charge. Same with batteries, higher quality can be charged faster. I'd take a good look at Gens Ace batteries from HobbyPartz, much better quality batteries than ANY of the Turnigy packs.
Posted on: 8/15/2012 3:32 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11194091

RE: Batteries
The key is a good charger and quality batteries, I can run all day on 2 sets of 2s packs. Takes about 15 minutes to charge a set. By the time you plug everything in, tape up the boat, bring it back in, untape it, remove the batteries you are close to charged, by the time the motor and esc cool down you're ready to go again. I used to have more cheaper batteries, now I'm much happier with fewer packs of much higher quality, my boats are happier as well.
Posted on: 8/14/2012 7:03 PM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11193770

RE: getting started
LOL to each their own on that one, I love running nitro but electric is more popular around here now so I run it more. If you know your way around internal combustion engines thats pretty easy. More CAN go wrong with electric if you really don't know what your doing. I'm still more worried about cooking an electric setup than I've ever been running nitro, easy to tell in a few feet if the mixture is wrong, electric you know something is wrong when it lets the smoke out. For a first boat go with a cat or mono hull. Outboard tunnels have to be set up near perfectly to run right, one of my favorites to run but take a lot of tuning and testing to get it right, but what fun when it is right! Hydros are somewhere in between in terms of difficulty, need to be set up well to run right, they are more sensitive to an improper setup than a cat or mono but easier to setup than a tunnel hull. A mono will handle chop better than any other hull design. If you would like to try your hand at racing I would suggest a mono hull, can be run in mono and offshore class with the same hull, just usually a prop change. All three are a little out of your budget range but I really suggest saving for another week or two and looking at either the Revolt, Impulse or my first choice would be a Pursuit mono from Kinetec or Offshore Electrics. Much better motor and esc and a few inches longer, would be best to run a pair of 4s packs in it due to the slightly bigger boat and motor. Plus it's a proven race winning hull design, even if you don't want to race the hull handles great and is faster out of the box than the other two. A lot of people upgrade the other two with the motor and esc combo out of the Pursuit, that says something right there!
Posted on: 8/9/2012 8:15 PM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11187723

RE: Converting to boatism
Most HV esc's need either a big BEC or an external receiver pack, no big deal to run a pack in a big boat. Also not really recommended to use the built in esc's when you're running 6s on a lv esc, they use a very primative circuit and tend to fail, but the rest of the esc works. LOL all part of the reason I stick with 4s setups, depending on the hull can still go over 60mph easily, can use cheaper esc's and batteries, smaller hardware costs less.
Posted on: 8/8/2012 6:09 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11185369

RE: Converting to boatism
Getting into 8s means a HV esc, that =$ even for a chinese one. ONce again Swordfish or one of the Ts. I have a feeling the hulls are almost the same, maybe some cosmetic differences? The maker of that hull (TFL) lets retailers name the hull whatever they choose. His bling rocket is also knows as Pursuit and a few other names. Leopard makes a pretty good motor but far from the best LOL, if you want some sticker shock look at NEU or Lehner motors! They also deliver the power though. Castle also makes a very good motor, swapped out a leopard for a Castle and couldn't believe the difference. I have one of the Fighter cat outrunners I still haven't used, a buddy of mine runs one on 6s and it really goes for a relatively cheap motor. They are made by a Chinese company called Suppo, and also available from HK as the T500 or T600 line of outrunners. LOL a pair of 3740 outrunners running 6s would make that cat you're looking at fly! I have no experience with the FC esc line, can't say anything good or bad about them.
Posted on: 8/8/2012 6:02 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11185361

RE: Converting to boatism
Thats a pretty good straight line hull, it's long and skinny, they aren't the best for high speed cornering. I have a smaller hull thats similar in L/W ratio, goes like stink in a straight line but I have to slow down a lot to make it around a turn. Knew what I was getting into so thats OK in my situation, I wanted to try my hand t all out straight line speed. I've never ordered from R2, seems they are a bit hit and miss, you can buy the genisis from Fightercat Racing for 76$! And get customer service as well as hardware tested and recommended for that boat, no guessing. I'd stay away from that esc, by far the best value for an esc is the T180 for what you need, the other option is a Swordfish 200 but you need to do a bit of preventative water proofing to those, I really like them though. A bit more than twice the price but a failed esc can take out your motor and batteries with it! The new version of swordfish comes with data logging built in, this alone can save you a pile of money as you know exactly what is happening out on the water. Check out the for sale section on the OSE forum, quite a few nice boats get posted every week, a good option for getting an assembled tested boat at a good price. Just bought a Whiplash 20 hydo kit last week. Going to keep my eye out for a UL-1 motor and esc, that should be about 100$, about another 100$ for hardware and finishing supplies. For under 300$ I'll have a race proven winning Limited Sport Hydro. Thats less batteries, charger radio etc already have that stuff. Once you have the basic support equipment and batteries with a bit of waiting and being ready to jump when what you want comes up for sale you can build some killer boats for cheap. Try to buy stuff with an eye to the future if you can, if something just does the job now what about in 2 years when you have a new faster bigger boat? If it's a matter of 15 or 20$ save for another week and get the better one, shipping will be the same, you only have to pay it once and you've only spent a little more money.
Posted on: 8/8/2012 5:01 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11185302

RE: Ordering lipos...
Thats voltage under load, when tested again at rest they should be at 3.6-3.7V which is safe. That unit is plugged in and operating while the boat is on the water, buzzes when the batteries get low. I'd time your runs anyway, see how long it takes for the buzzer to go off, then set a countdown timer on your phone or watch and run the boat for 30 seconds less than the time it took the buzzer to go off. I don't normally use a lvc but I have a data logger that gives me accurate info about the run so I can easily calculate my run time then use a timer. Better safe than sorry one serious over discharge can kill a lipo, sometimes they can be brought back IF you have a programmable charger. To me it's safer to bin it and get another battery, cheaper than burning my house or a boat! I also store them in a heavy metal box I got from a surplus store, it's not an ammo box I don't think, no seals and simple latches. I keep that on a concrete floor away from anything flammable. For a couple smaller batteries a cash box works.
Posted on: 8/7/2012 5:42 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11184031

RE: Ordering lipos...
1C is a safe charge rate for any lipo, won't damage the battery at all. What will shorten it's life a bit is not storing it at proper voltage when your done. Any more than a few days and I bring mine down to 3.8V/cell, or charge them to that when I'm done. Never really thought about this until now but I wonder if it's storing them fully charged or in a discharged state that damages them, just always followed the directions and stored them at 3.8. Your boat has brushed motors doesn't it? Do you know if the esc has a low voltage cutoff? Lipos do not like being discharged beyond 20% remaining capacity. If it isn't lipo ready I'd suggest something like this low voltage buzzer for 4$ http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/%5F%5F7223%5F%5FHobby%5FKing%5FBattery%5FMonitor%5F3S.html I just linked the first one I found, you have to get the right one for you cell count they come in 1S,2S etc. I've never used one so I really don't know how loud it is. For more money you can get a unit called a lipo shield, acts just like the LVC in an esc, think they are about 18$.
Posted on: 8/7/2012 3:22 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11183930

RE: Aquacraft Revolt 30
I only use those cheap battery checkers to make sure my I'm grabbing charged packs, Just about all my buddies have them including me and they all give different readings on the same battery! Mine doesn't even read the same between the cells in 2s packs! I know it's the checker as I tested it against my DVM. Does your charger not have a display to tell you pack voltage and how much amperage went back in? We get about 4 minutes of full speed running out of our RTR boats around here with 5000mah, There are UL-1's Stilettos, SV-27s, Revolts (well one now!), Motley Crews. All draw about the same current.
Posted on: 8/6/2012 8:15 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11182825

RE: Ordering lipos...
Still not enough wattage to drop the charge time that much, you end up about an hour with a 50 watt charger, you'd be able to at least get a 1c charge rate for 3s 2.2 AH batteries. With more power you can also charge multiple packs at the same time. I wire them up in series and charge as a bigger pack with the same capacity, eg 2 2s 5000mah wired in series to make a 4s 5000mah pack. My charger has the power to be able to charge the "4s pack" in the same time as a single 2s pack. Not a fan at all of parallel charging, takes longer to put 10 000 mah into a 2s battery than 5000mah into a 4s, and I don't like trying to balance 2 cells at the same time, safer to go series so each cell is being balanced by itself, all you need is a proper balancing adapter to go series.
Posted on: 8/6/2012 4:37 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11182606

RE: Ordering lipos...
Spend some money on a better charger, that thing won't even charge the packs your buying at 1C, nowhere near enough wattage. That thing is made for charging mico heli batteries that are under 1000mah. Probably take 1 1/2 hours to charge a battery with that charger. There are a number of HK eco 6-10 200w chargers being used around here under varying vendors labels, pretty good charger for under 40$.
Posted on: 8/6/2012 4:16 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11182594

RE: Boat cuts out at just over half throttle
4s lipos showing under 15 volts charged? Thats not right, you should be seeing 4.2V per cell fully charged, 3.7ish discharged to 20% remaining. Either you're not fully charging them or you have bad packs (unlikely for 2 to do the exact same thing). Pretty sure under load you are hitting the LVC due to voltage sag, about the only reason you would suddenly be slowing down after a minute or so. You also may have damaged the batteries if they are not reaching full charge and you keep running them after the LVC kicks in, lipo batteries do not like being run down beyond 20% remaining capacity. What kind of charger are you using? Does it tell you how many MAH have gone into the battery during the charge? A decent lipo charger should tell you the starting voltage, mah put into the pack and the voltage at the end of the charge. If you are certain the packs a fully charging to 4.2v/cell I'd try a short run with the LVC disabled, some chinese escs are notorious for having LVC issues. I personally do not run the LVC on any of my boats, I do a few timed runs, see how much juice goes into the batteries each time, then extrapolate and time my runs. My radio has a built in timer, some of the guys use a little egg timer velcroed to their radio.
Posted on: 8/6/2012 3:57 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11182579

RE: Aquacraft Revolt 30
With 5000mah 2s packs you will get about 4 minutes runtime, packs will then be at about 3.7x volts resting voltage and will take close to 80% of the capacity. Don't charge your batteries unattended and charge on a fire proof surface just in case something does happen, it's very rare if you use common sense. Bring them down to storage voltage (3.8v) when you're done with them and they will last longer. I don't balance charge at the pond, no need if you use good quality batteries, the manufacturer matches the cells better in quality packs and they discharge/charge evenly. I balacne charge before heading out then it just a normal charge. Higher quality batteries can also stand higher charge rates. I used to have more batteries until the cheapies started failing, now I'd rather buy one set of good batteries instead of a few sets of cheapies. The other thing that changed my mind was getting a data logger, I thought some of my batteries were better than they were until I saw the voltage sag under load. Congrats on the Revolt, a new guy came out last weekend with one, very nice running boat, I really like the red ones but thats usually my favorite colour anyway. His ran pretty well right out of the box, a couple little adjustments and it flew! I've actually tried to get a few old packs to go up in flames, no luck, had some heat and smoke but thats it. Shot one with a pellet gun, cut one almost in half with a shovel, left one lying in my driveway for a couple weeks. Nothing! I know fires do happen on occasion and it used to happen more often I just haven't been able to cause one intentionally! Maybe they have to have more of a charge to have anything happen. You're on the right track, you've got a good boat and quality packs, charge em up and have at it! Time to have a morning flight, enjoy some coffee and figure out what to do with my Civic Holiday! Beautiful calm sunny morning for flying. Maybe go boating this afternoon. Spoiled! I can fly out my backdoor and have a nice spot to run boats less than a half mile away.
Posted on: 8/6/2012 3:30 AM by Author "siberianhusky" in the forum "Speed - Electric"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=11182557