Had ESC-problems this weekend
and I don't understand yet what went wrong.
Situation: Race kampenhout (Astro, high grip, medium track), 4WD, running the 410DARC (similar to DEX410).
Standard spur (87 with pinion 24 which gave me a ratio of about 8.9).
Thunderpower 6.5 with Tekin RS Pro.
first problems:
Trying to change the setup so I hooked it to my laptop. I had downloaded the latest Hotwire-soft-version saturday on a USB-stick and re-installed it on this laptop (had an older version installed previously).
When connecting the ESC I immediatly got the message that I needed to update the ESC-software which I OK'ed.
AFter this tinkered a bit with the setup: Brushless-delayed reverse, sensored only, no turbo , bit of boost (25), narrowed the neutral zone to 12, Current limit 80, ...
Clicked on APPLY SETTINGS and waited like a good boy untill that was done.
Closed the program, disconnected the ESC and back in the receiver.
==> blinking leds, no tones, nothing???
(Later out, with the help of Kevin Lee (*!) I figured out that this LED-code meant a problem with the engine).
I tried all kinds of things and found out that the blinking LED's stopped when disconnecting the motor. I then installed another older motor which I was sure it was fine .. but again this blinking.
So I re-did the whole thing: again update the software-version on the ESC .. then changed the settings again as described higher and this time no errors so I though all was well again.
Second problem later on that weekend: I had discovered that I forgot the revers-delayed function; so to eliminate problems during racing I hooked up the ESC to the laptop again and changed the setting to BL-FR.
but when reconnecting to the receiver I got the same error blinking LED's.
... one minute before my Q3
which I missed obviously
I asked Kevin Lee for advice and he knew that these LED's showed an engine-problem. But as I was sure the engine was OK, he looked further into the matter, pushed the buttons at a speed I could not follow and he found out that the car was set as BRUSHED ?!?
This was very strange as I was 99% sure of having selected BL-FR (checked it twice while working with the Hotwaire-program before APPLYing the settings to the ESC). I write 99% as one can never be 100% sure I guess.
Anyway, Kevin got it set to Brushless with the buttons on the ESC and I didn't want to change anything anymore as I allready missed one Qualification.
From there on the motor perfomed as expected. me = happy again.
.. but as the engine got very hot avery stint I thought I should try a larger pinion. The batteries were fine, the Tekin RsPro only showed 4 led's after every run, so I thought the engine might need some heavier workload.
I switched my 24-pinion to a 25 for F2.
Everything went great .. untill the 5 minutes-sign .. suddenly the car hesitated, then thermalled out and stopped. AFter some seconds I could continue again and limped in the last round with the car hesitating a few times.
The ESC reveiled blinking LEDs: HOT! .. which decended after a while to a normal temp.
Offcourse I switched the 25-pinion to the usual 24 again. I had run all my Q's and one Final with this pinion and never had problems, the ESC showing only 4 leds for the temp-reading.
.. but in the last final, the same happened again: at the 5 minute-sign, the car thermalled out, and I had to limp in again, loosing 3 places in this final round
After the race, I switched the pinion to a 23-pinion for a test-drive, but the car clearely lacked speed and thermalled again after 5 minutes (exactly?!?)
We checked on the drivetrain of the car but that was perfectly free and smooth.
Someone told me that maybe it was the capacitator that was dead and so the ESC had to do all the work on his own and overheated. Can this be correct?
To sum it up: 1: strange things happened when trying to setup the ESC through hotwire, the software not transferring the correct settings to the ESC
2: why the sudden overheating??
(*!) a BIIIIIG thank you for Kevin Lee who was there on several occasions for me when I had problems with the ESC. Always very helpfull and friendly advice.