I must admit; I remember everything..

This has a reason;

When i was a young boy ( about 7 years old) there was this company who promised you a tool to uncrown the green part from strawberries. Criteria was to sent in 3 labels of their strawberry marmalade. I managed to eat 3 big fat containers of their strawberry marmalade in less than a month. slammed the stamps on the envelope, picked my bike, drove about 15 km to the nearest post office and delivered the most important letter I had ever sent in my entire life.. the trip back was done sooner than Lance Armstrong could have done it.. Driven by pure adrenaline.. I was on top of the world!

I loved that strawberry decrown tool, wanted to know how it worked, what it looked like, and was obsessed by the fact that you could get your own FREE tools with eating stuff.. How great; lived in an euphoric state of mind for a few weeks (don't know if it was the marmalade or the fact that my life soon was enriched by a new and yet to be discovered tool)

Naive as i was i hoped for the mailman to show up with a smile on his face, delivering me my precious tool.. it took me 12 weeks to realize that i would never get the tool..

after these 12 weeks, my life wasn't the same.

i will never ever forget anything i sent to a company.. I am reliving the marmalade nightmare all over.. i can still be bothered that they let this 7 year old down..

I feel for you Rene, I really do!

I still love getting stuff in the mail, and when someone mentions the word 'parcel' or 'pick-up', I instantly think of christmas morning.... I am always waiting for parts, orders and shipments in the mail.

I have to say the marmalade gimmick was a nasty one, they make an extra buck, and you get burned as a kid... that's wrong. :005:

Serum, you sound like you need a pat on the head.

Yeah, I likely won't forget about a Neu motor, but by the time I get it back; I probably won't need it anymore. Perhaps I should take this opportunity to try on a 1515 this time.

I just checked the mail and no controller. I tracked the Quark on the USPS website and it says that the controller was delivered last Friday. If I don't hear from them by tomorrow, I'll start believing that they are going to warranty it. I have my fingers crossed.

So sad. Another case of childhood innocence lost. :)

So do you still like srawberry marmilade???:024:


BTW Rene: I think you are the official inventor of another new tool. The Thread Derailer!! Nice execution on this thread derailment!


EDIT: I give it 9.5

They will waranty it. I havent heard of them refusing anyone yet.

I hope they do. Once I get these two controllers back (the Quark and the Compro), I'm going to have to decide which one to use, provided that both work. When running correctly, neither esc cogs. The Quark is smoother, but the Compro runs much cooler.

Well, I think with the cap bank on the Quark, it should be the controller to have, IMO.

I have heard too much stuff about the Compro's to want one. The caps alone will cool the Quark down a good amount, and only make it more reliable, both the caps and the esc.

Boy, I wish I had a local HS that had all this stuff, closest one is 2 hours away.

AAngel, PM me if not keeping the compro.

Could you elaborate a little on that?:eek:

Kind of a bad thread to say something about another controller huh... :005:

I thought it was the Compro's that were having issues with not running properly? Correct me if I'm wrong. I have heard they run cool though, which I like. The four caps might have something to do with that, and those heatsinks on it as well, and I suppose firmware on the brains.

Hmm, I havent heard anything much about the compros really, not many people on here seem to have one, or Im not looking hard enough. They look great & have a good spec, as do the Quarks. Its just the silly case design on the quark that keeps in the heat, and the dodgy heat spreaders that dont work properly, but as demonstrated those issues can be fixed without too much trouble. Its all food for thought...

Neil, actually, the Quark "fix" is only a partial fix in reality. The are two sets of FETs in the Quark. One set, that is physically sandwiched between the two PCBs only has a rather thin heat spreader attached to it via thermal pad. The only way that heat escapes that set is through the air to the case from the heatspreader and through the traces and connections on the pcb that link to the set of FETs that are on the bottom of the esc. Truly not an ideal design. The mod that everyone is doing just allows a thermal pathway from the bottom set of FETs to the case.

The Compro, on the other hand, is rather robustly built. I really liked the feel of it. It has dual heatsinks and runs very cool. It also has a very substantial feel to it. When handling it, you don't feel as though you're going to break it.

The downside to the Compro is the software. Although I found the programming sequence to be easy enough, there are a couple of quirks. The biggest thing is that when running in a forward direction, the first application of reverse throttle applies the brakes, however; if you apply the brakes, go to neutral and then apply the brakes again (pump the brakes) the esc will go directly into reverse on the second application of the brakes. It does this whether the vehicle is still moving forward or not.

The way around this, is to use the forward only mode, but then you don't have reverse.

The second quirk is that you can't start at a creep with the Compro. Once you apply the throttle and it moves out of the neutral zone, the vehicle starts at a roll. Not real fast, but faster than a creep. It's fine for racing, but for bashing around in rocks and stuff, it might be a PITA.

The "problem" that I had, was that I couldn't program the free wheel option that would allow the motor to coast to a lower speed when I went from say 100% throttle to 20% throttle. Whenever I let off of the throttle, it would immediately brake to slow the vehicle to the speed of the new throttle position. This makes jumping on an off road track nearly impossible without wiping out.

All in all, I think that the Compro is a better controller than the Quark. The Quark is just a bit more user friendly, from an operation standpoint. The Quark is smoother.

Yeah, I'm going to get a simple FET clamp for the Quark made so I don't have to get an expensive case machined first. To see how well it works, and if I am happy with no case and just a clamp w/ heat shrink on the controller.

I am also going to see if I can get my thermal probe for my Eagle tree to work, and see what kind of temps the top set of FET's get to in the Quark, and I know the surface area, plus I know the power throughput... I might be able to make some estimates of esc efficiency?

AAngel: How think is the PCB on the ComPro? THe Quark I think is 1mm thick, nothing much, but then again, it's in a case.

zpb, it's been so long since I've seen my compro that I don't remember anything except my impressions of it. I do remember that the flex in the Quark pcb when you shimmied the power leads made me nervous. The Compro, on the other hand, didn't have any flex at all anywhere. I don't know that the pcbs were thicker, but it's a better design none the less.

You really have to watch working with the Quark out of its case. I believe that one of the purposes of the case is to hold the two pcbs together and keep them from separating. Mine separated, but I didn't notice it until after I powered it on and nothing happened. I was checking out the setup before I put it all back together. I disconnected the power, pushed the pcbs back together again and turned it on and that's when I saw smoke.

I don't know. Mike has run his Quark/Neu combo hard and without additional caps. I may just quit monkeying around with the Quark and just run it as it is. I could just add a couple of caps in line with the power leads, but I can tell you that they are going to be taking a beating sitting there on a pair of wires that move around as much as they do when on the track. I'm going to have to figure something out.

When I get my Quark and Neu back, I should have what could be considered to be the Cadillac of brushless setups. I SHOULD be worry and trouble free, but that remains to be seen.

Yeah, your Quark and Neu have not yet kissed yet. :005:

For sure add some caps onto the Quark, make the same bank you made for your MM setup, should work lovely.

Maybe the Neu is easier on the Quark, that is what I have heard on these forums a lot.

How many cells were you running on your so called "1.5Y" Neu? You said it was pretty fast right? The place you bought it does not have it anymore, did I tell you that?

Yeah, you did mention it. It's too bad because it was a good deal.

I ran the motor that I had on 5S with the MM and it ran good, except for the occassional cogging. There is no doubt that the 1512 has enough power for a light truck. At this point, I'm glad that I went the 1512 route and that little sale going on made it a no brainer for me.

Hey guys, guess what just showed up on my doorstep. I'm almost afraid to install it.

Another Neu motor?

Well, tell us how it works!

It's his Quark.... :030: :027:

Oh, let the walls of Rome fall just so AAngel can have his Quark work this time. :005:

I'm telling you now, install those caps on it! I am warning you...

£10 says it blows up on the first run....

Nah, give it a check over for any loose wires/connections, plug it in and give it some welly around a carpark. If its going to blow up then so be it, but if it doesnt, then your luck has taken a turn for the better.

You're on, 10 sterling

You guys are killing me. LOL

I got it, wired up 6 caps, and rigged everything up. I dogged it out a bit and didn't have a thermal and the heat on the case/sink indicated that the thermal pad is working for now. All I need now is my Neu back.

Soo, you missed one part of the story. How did it perform? Which motor, your 9XL? how many cells?

It's Smoooth huh? :027:

zpb, I ran it with the 9XL on 4S lipo. Geared 14/46, it displayed plenty of power. It wasn't as torquey as with the MM, but I was running the MM on high start power and the Quark on the soft torque setting.

It is smooth and I couldn't get it to cog beyond a slight stutter every once in a while. On the other hand, I can't get it to start off at a creep either. Not like I can with the MM.

I'm going to hold any judgments until I get the Neu motor back.

Really? I could get my truck with a 7XL geared 18/51 and stock TQ-3 to creep along at a snails pace! I could literally see the revs on the motor shaft.

What radio are you using?

You know what you should try with the Quark:

LiPo high mode and dynamic torque setting, this makes it seem crazy powerful and responsive.

Easy now.... Let him run it for a day before he blows it up again.:005:

:005:

mah, he's got the caps on there, that should save his bacon :027: :027: :007:

I don't know... Aangel has a special talent. :007:

Yeah... so do I. :005:

Hey, everyone has to be good at something. I wouldn't say that I have a talent for breaking things. I'd say that I have a talent for finding the weak points in equipment.

I'm not going to mess with the torque setting. I like it the way it is. I'm over all of the break neck torque stuff. With the 100,000 diff fluid in it, it still wheelies on demand and you have to watch it in the dirt. As for the lipo setting, I programmed it for manual and set the cutoff to 3v per cell. Even though I did this, will setting the lipo to high do anything?

I'm running a Spektrum DX2.0 radio and I can't get the truck to creep. It just kind of starts off at a roll. If you can creep around with the 7XL, it may have something to do with the gearing. I'm sure that I'm running a larger pinion than you are with the 9XL, so for every revolution of the motor, my truck should cover more distance. I'm not saying that I dislike it, it was just an observation. I need to get it out on the track and see.

The last time I was out on the track, a few people commented that they liked the way that the MM ran better than the Quark. From what I've seen so far, I'm inclined to agree. After all of this, I may still wind up with a MM/Lehner combo after all. To each his own, I suppose. If Castle releases the "fix." I'll have a couple of controllers up for sale.

The funny thing is that I ran it for a few minutes. I took a temp on the case of the Quark and got around 115F. I took a temp on the top plastic cover of the Quark and got 130F. Go figure. It didn't thermal on me, so that's good.

I need to remount my esc. Right now, I have it on a plate that double as the center diff plate and the heat of the motor is sinking from the motor mount to the esc mount, so I don't know if the heat is coming from the esc, or the motor. I'll have to turn a couple of standoffs and mount the esc plate to the standoffs and bolt them into the existing engine holes and see what the temps are like.

If this Quark takes a dump, I think I might have to take a ride over to S&T and have a talk with those guys.

Oh, I forgot to mention, they did warranty it. It was a case of no news is good news. They sent me a whole new controller. I didn't even open it up. I didn't want to take a chance on anything. I just wired up the cap bank and added the connectors.

zpb, where are you with your Quark? Have you built the cap bank yet?

No, I have not recieved the caps or the Quark. They sent out a new Quark w/ Pro-BEC free of charge AND without me having to send in my piece of charcoal...

My gearing was 18/51 single speed tranny, it went very slow... but like you said, it doesn't matter a whole lot because these things look much better moving at speed. :027: I did have narrow nuetral band on too though, maybe that helps low speed creep?

What you said about finding the weak spot in equipment...so true. Seeing as we are still far within the rated specs of the Quark, they should easily be able to handle it. (maxx's, revo's) I can't even imagine what would happen to it if we DID run it at 125A continuous?! :002:

I am thinking I will put some 5mm plugs on the Quark and tap the input leads there with the cap bank, and solder two wires into the plug? what do you think?

My only problem with mounting the cap bank was getting it close to the pcbs. I tried soldering connectors to the pcbs and then using these connectors as junctions for everything else, from the cap bank to the power leads. What I noticed was that the weight of the connectors on the pcbs made me nervous. I just removed a spot of wire insulation from the power leads and directly soldered the wires for the cap bank there. I then ran the power for the bec and fan from the leads on the cap bank. I'll see if I can post a pic of what I did.

OK, here are some pics of my current setup. It isn't real pretty. I just wanted to keep it simple. I don't like the fact that the fan is so high on the chassis. I'm going to do what I said in my last post, but drop it as much as I can. I'm not so much worried about the COG, as I am about landing on my lid and messing up my fan. LOL.

Anyway....
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...r/DSCF0294.jpg

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...r/DSCF0295.jpg

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...r/DSCF0296.jpg

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...r/DSCF0298.jpg

BTW, that's a 1/4" thick piece of aluminum between the cap bank and the Quark. It is bolted to the 1/8" aluminum plate that is serving as the center bulk top plate. I added the fan because it was just sitting there and it wasn't much to pop an extra couple of 3mm holes to mount it.

Careful with that ferite core that sits on the power leads..

Serum, can you elaborate? What should I be taking care not to do?

Oh, are you talking about it possibly shorting out on the motor leads? If so, I'm going to go ahead and put a piece of shrink wrap on it. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I hadn't even thought about it.

That looks stellar man, I love what you are doing with these cap banks! I should have got you to make me one when you shipped it out. :027:

If I can't find anything to make a solid bank like that, I might just use shrink wrap, with that many caps, they shouldn't get hot.

IMO, I don't think that fan is doing anything on there, it might be better if you take it off and let air flow cool it, it might just be hindering it?

Anyways, I was looking at my burnt quark, and confirmed that the leads on the caps were vaporized.... some how? Check it out, I don't know if you can see it or not very well.