Got my XL, 2028 Motor & Castle Baja Conversion Kit all hooked up and calibrated...Two brand new Hyperion G3 35-65c 5500mah 4s Lipos to equal 8s. Ready to go...just need some snow to melt... Spoke with Castle Tech and the told me how to set the Torque limiter setting. Should be good to go!

Cody, any word on your bench testing?

Working on finishing my install tonight, had to make a couple of mods to the mount to support things but it's looking good.

As suggested earlier in the thread I'm pressing forward with 6.5mm bullets for the batteries. I'm not as comfortable using bullets as hosed connectors due to the risk of a short so I wanted to ask those that use them what recommendations, if any they have? I'm obviously going to shrink wrap the bullets themselves but wanted to see if anyone had other pointers.

Lots of guys are putting male and female on the batteries/ ESC's, but I much prefer to have females on all the supply side (I.e. Battery wires and ESC output wires) and males on all the the work side (I.e. Motor and Esc power wires). This eliminates the possibility of a short but you have to use a jumper to put packs in series and you have to match color for color to keep polarity correct.

I like using my batts for multiple rc's so I prefer to have a single standard.

Castle uses all males on their motors, and all females at the Esc outputs...

i'm interested in this esc, but it concerns me about the use of the 8g wire.

I don't know very much about the fundamentals of electronics, so maybe someone could explain it to me.

if the XL is using 8g wire, does the rest of the equipment need it? and if not, why not? isn't the system only as effecient as the smallest awg wire used?

One tip I have for putting the shrink tubing on the female bullets is to leave the shrink a little longer, then when you heat it up to shrink it, the tubing curls over the end of the bullet slightly. You can still plug & unplug the male into the female with no problems at all, but it means that if the 2 bullets on the battery should touch, there is no way the metal can actually make contact to create a short circuit. The best analogy I have for this is a bit grim though; think: foreskin... :whistle:

8 gauge wire supports the maximum amperage the XL will handle, amperage not wattage. The wire you NEED to use has to support the amperage of the system. For example if you use 2000 watts at 29.6v that's 67.5 amps, if you use 2000 watts at 14.8v that's 135 amps. The wire you need for 135 amps is twice the size vs. 67.5 amps...

So the question is what amperage will your specific setup see, and what gauge wire do you need to support that amperage. The beauty of the XL is data logging, it will tell you the amps your pulling :-) From there it's easy :-)

You should be comforted though that most decent batts have large enough wires to match the amperage they can put out. So if the batts can handle the amps for your setup so can their wires.

Hi, no I haven't yet sorry, I should be able to find some time tomorrow or Sunday though.

quick ?
 

What would happen if I use Deans Ultra Plugs on the ESC and Batteries? I know that they are VERY difficult to solder with Deans, but I'm pretty good at soldering. I've heard that it's okay to use Deans & I've also heard that you can't. Please help!!!....:slap:

I've been using deans and I've had no problems with em, never have.

thanks for the explanation, that makes alot of sense. :yes:

I've received the XL just yesterday and soon some photos on Mamba XL Savage setup...

Now just a silly question: why the XL has not a switch on/off button ?

Without switch is not so easy to calibrate the ESC (turn transmitter on; hold at full throttle and then connect the ESC to battery - quite easy if You have three hands...)

Bye, Andrea.

Thanks Cody!:great:

Andrea, the XL has no switch, and yes it's a bit of a task to calibrate it.
I can point out that you are able to lengthen the "beep time" in the settings though :-)
That way you have a moment to pick up the controller after you've plugged in the batts.
For me, I kinda miss having the LED's :oops:

>DEANS< my setup pulled a maximum amperage spike of 113 amps, at least for my setup deans would hold up to it without issue.
Check the connectors for heat, if they're cool your likley OK.

I'd like to see some data from one of the guys running the big XL combo motor in a full blown 4X4 1/5's scale though to see what kind of wattage/amperage they are putting down :whistle:

The Deans Ultra plug is rated for 60A continuous and 75A burst, with the data logging you will be able to get a good idea of whats going on and if bullets are needed or not.

Wow, I didn't realize the rating was that low.

What is the mounting screw spacing and size on the 2028 motor?

4mm on 30mm diam - Mike has a 30mm to 45mm adapater

U can shorten the wire with male bullets for like 2cm or so. The risk will be a lot smaller.

Thanks for all of the pointers on how to lessen risk with bullets, it confirmed a couple of ideas I had. In the end I went all female on the batteries. I made my first run on 8S today and it drives just as quick as my Neu 1515 MMM powered E-Revo. I can't believe how fast it jumps around, even with all of the aluminum I have on the truck, if anything it's keeping the front end down some so maybe it's better that way.

What a great kit, compliments to Castle and the strong engineering talent it took to bring this to market.

I want to specifically thank Christy at Castle, she went above and beyond to get the kit out to me last week, my hat is off to her.

Padrino, sorry if this is already mentioned above...but are you running a baja 5t or b? What Lipo batteries are you using? What Radio system as well?

I don't think I've mentioned it before..

Running a 5T with a pair of Thunder Power 4S 5200mah 50C batteries and a Futaba 4PKS (need to reverse throttle).

With the run today I thought I would throw out a request, looking for ideas.

With the data logging on the XL I know I'll want to jump in my RX box often to pull the log. I previously made a y connector with port on my e-revo but with the Spektrum or Futaba RX when supplying power to the ESC via Caslte Link the RX activates and starts talking. I would like to put something together that will only allow power to the RX if it's coming from the ESC and not the other side of the Y connector, essentially an automatic switch. I know I can also wire it with a manual switch but since I'm looking into it I was wondering if anyone who understands circuits would know what I could wire up to allow this behavior automatically.

When connecting the batteries in this setup it arcs quite strong, bad enough that I'm already starting to see pits in the castle 6.5mm bullets after only a few connections. I know this topic has been discussed quite a bit with the MMM but I have never seen it so bad that it starts pitting connectors so quick so I wanted to surface it again.

Castle actually makes a Y harness that does just that: http://www.castlecreations.com/produ...k_connect.html

DIY switch would be cool, although it's hard finding a microswitch rated for 5A. you could feasibly do a relay setup, but I find it much easier and simpler to just cut the ESC cable short and use an extension. I don't need to worry about it being waterproof so you can just disconnect the ESC outside the Rx box for log downloading. You can probably find a way to waterproof this setup too, if you need to.

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/9...autodetect.png

...and yes, the sparks are huge. my hands shake when I plug in my batteries :lol:

I consider in a winding chain it is necessary to add the diode

Much easier to grab the quick connect - I use one with my XL in the baja - Works perfectly.

Still waiting on a firmware update to be able to wipe the memoryfrom the controller on start-up :)

Thanks for the pointer on the quick connect, ordered a handful for all of my Castle powered rides, now I have a use for the ports I made for all of my RX boxes to make plugging it in no harder then lifting the rubber cover.

For those of you that already have the conversion installed... How is the drivetrain handling the added torque of the big castle motor? Any problems with gears or axles giving up? I have a 5B SS kit on its way and my Castle conversion will be arriving today. Im trying to have parts that are likely to break on hand.

Steve

Hi DrKnow, any news from Castle ?

Bye, andrea.

yes :party: and no :neutral:

Yesterday I got my shipping confirmation from Castle about my new XL coming.
Wish they'd use ups, usps is a frigging joke where I live :whip: don't even have a delivery date :no:
but I understand they're losing money on the warranty.

I did call and talk to Bernie (the single most AWESOME tech person I have EVER talked to!!!),
aside from explaining how to fully test my motor, talking to me about the progression of HV over these last few years,
enlightening me about how the heat sinking was invented/ implemented in the XL,
and how influential RCM has been on the Castle designs (he even remembered me from posts way back),
and what method they'll use to try to determine the death of my XL :yes::intello::yes: fantastic guy!

But, no good reason yet for why it went :no:
As for NOW it's just one of the 1% of all electronics that just fail and can't be justified why.
I'll call him again in a few weeks to see if they recovered any data from the brain board to see if there's an exact reason...

Honestly the XL is so sweet, I don't care if I have to warranty it again, but it's an excuse to talk to another AWESOME guy at castle.

On a side note, when the XL comes back it won't be going into the Hyper 7.
Instead it will be going into a much lighter Losi 8 buggy with a Castle conversion kit (couldn't pass it up for $25 plus shipping) that I may upgrade to the RCM mount later.

I'm going to try some 2650mah 4S Turnigy's in series to half the weight of the 5000's, crank it down for lower ripple current, higher traction, and more track-ability.
Since I'LL BE RACING IT :yes: at a local track I just found that's less than 45 min from my house :party: No ROAR BS :party: and racing by "time bracket" vs. class/vehicle type :party:

I also bought an 8ight T E roller that will get my MMM and 1717 on 4-6S.

Then next pay period (2 weeks) it's a Ofna 10SC RTR purchase that will get the MMP/ 2400KV SC kit on 4-6S.
Gotta convert these Novak noobs over to the real thing :yes: They all race their 2S/Novak SC's at the track.

AND the best part is the wife has already approved all of it :yipi: life is good and I LOVE CASTLE!!!

Got a run on a full pack tonight. 2 x Turnigy 4s 5000mah 40c-50c yielded about 15 minutes of run time. I have the lipo cutoff set at 3.4v which is higher then i typically do on my 1/8 scale stuff. I ran on the baseball field so traction was a lot better then last night. The power of the castle system does not disappoint. This thing covers some ground man!

Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu-skf8jZIM

steve

Holy crap blackz97, that's 1/3 the run time I was seeing on my hyper :surprised:

Any chance you could post up the data log?

How heavy is that buggy?

Thanks for the Video blackz97!!!:great:

I think blackz97 said that it was almost 24lbs bro...That's about right for a stock Baja 5B...

3 times the weight, 1/3 the runtime

dayaaamit, i know it SUCKS!!!....:no:...I'm sure that 15-20min better be a blast or have extra lipos as a back up....:lol:

Yeah this is about the same run time others have been reporting using similar batteries on the same setup. These lipos are fairly inexpensive so ill be keeping multiple sets. There was some concern that the cheaper lipos wouldnt be able to hang but so far so good. I just need to get some more runs on the 2 sets I have to be sure that they are going to put up with the constant usage.

Steve

Hmm, that's odd. I was running two 4s 4200 Hyperions and I was about 30 minutes into my run before I crashed and my Mamba Died, on 6s 4200mah Hyperions I had almost an hour. :neutral:

I finally have some time to troubleshoot this thing so hopefully I'll have some results in 30 minutes or so. :yes:

Seriously? Thats impressive! Were u rippin it? or just putting around? Also what voltage do you have your cutoff set at? If you got almost an hour on 6s then I would expect you would get well over an hour on 8s. An hour on a single charge for a 24lb 5th scale car would be awesome!

Steve