Whatever. You started this by calling ME ignorant, not the other way around.


OK - timeout. You aren't a native English speaker... You do know that calling someone "ignorant" in American English is an EXTREMELY HARSH insult don't you? It is used in English in the same context as "moron" or "mongoloid"

As you noticed I was referring to CC, not YOU in person. And the reason for that is simple, you are the owner of the company and might not have time to read threads or posts from everyone and especially paying attention and getting too deep in details. You might have done that in the past, while now you have bigger responsibilities, therefore your employers must do their homework and provide you and your engineers with better feedback.
If you took it personally, than I am sorry for my English, I was aiming more towards them or flaws in that system.

And, thank you.

Patrick,

As the owner, I have a question concerning the first edition mamba monsters.

The first editions were shipped with hardwiring to the circuit board, though, as advertiseed at online and local retailers it shows plugs.

Since it voids the warranty if we do any soldering on the board, will Castle Creations do free wire replacement for these first run of ESCs since the later ones will have plugs as they were advertised?

Also, as the outages appear to be quite signficant enough to hold up any further delivery of MMMs, for those concerned about there unit, can they sign up for a replacement plan sort of like how other companies would require a credit card number, CC sends the new unit, you send the old unit back, and no charge is done to the credit card, that way people are not down about 1 - 2 weeks waiting for the units?

Ok, I'm sorry -- as I stated above, I think it was an American English misunderstanding.

Calling someone "ignorant" is an EXTREMELY HARSH insult where I come from. Similar to calling someone a "moron" or "mongoloid"

Also -- You state And again -- what am I doing here then? You state that I'm ignorant and deaf, and yet here I am, almost every day, reading all the posts in this forum.

And I read all the posts in the Ezone Castle Creations forum every day too.

So don't make assumptions about how much customer contact I have, and how much I listen to the customers. Because if you think I don't listen, you are wrong.

Cain,

We will do that, what we call an "advanced replacement" as soon as we have stock on the units. Right now we are holding on any more releases from production until we have the issue with the BEC resolved -- until that time we won't have any replacement stock.

About the wires- - I'm actually surprised you would want it changed -- it actually is more expensive for us to put wires on the controller than the plugs. . .

But, if you do want it changed, I'm sure we will exchange it, or update it with plugs.

Patrick

Patrick,

its not that I want the wires changed. I am actually happy with my mamba monster. flips my heavy Emaxx on command with 80% punch control, but still runs cool and smooth. Knock on Wood.

My concern is that if for some reason I need new wires for another project, I can just solder some up, or plug them in as what I could do with the unit that has the plugs.

Thats pretty much it. I think its great you guys are getting on these issues.


Now, just need a ROAR legal brushless system from you and I am set! :)

Got it. :) The only reason we released the MMM with wires was because we didn't have the SMT bullets ready yet...

About ROAR -- well, we'll see. There are VERY serious issues with the ROAR rules.

Yeah, I didn't think it would be easy or small or even practical. It was a "wish list" after all, not an "easy wish list". :wink:

TBH, the 200A+ and 20s capability is a tad overkill for most setups (maybe the 5th scales). But it sure would be neat to use an ESC like that in an e-bike or something. :smile:

And about "robbing" the parts, I was referring more to taking what already works and has been tried and true (like the MM brains) and experimenting with the power section. Just an idle thought. I know what it's like to have something you design be stolen, but it was not my bread-n-butter so it didn't matter so much.

Well, what I was talking about above was for a 12S design, not 20S. We do have the SHV controller which is good for 20S, but it gets very expensive very quickly to do 20S.

The SHV-250 is 20S, 250A and a BIG footprint (close to 3"x6") :oh:

And I'm not kidding about robbing the brain boards -- no zombies here! I don't even like the thought of robbing a brain board 'cause they are soldered down on the power board as a hybrid, and it would really difficult to remove without damaging / destroying it.

I'll be changing the MMM control board design to take it from 26V maximum usable voltage to 54V maximum usable for the MMMM (or 4xM? Mega MAX? M-quad? B.F.E.S.C.?)

Yeah, 3X6 would be big, but not really in relation to whatever would require that kind of power. It would be large in an 8-10th scale, but not so bad in a 5th scale or larger.

When are you gonna start making car ESCs... meaning real 1:1 cars? :wink:

Patrick, I will try to be constructive, all this brains-transfer business start when you had first generation of MM, with great software but "Ok" layout. Latest version with new layout and new fets doesn't need anything besides couple components, improved heatsinking and software to perform on MMM level. And I mentioned alot that with that layout you did the best for 4-6S setups. And just software upgrade to support 5-6S will do the job. While MMM with just extra 6 fets and all on top, with pathetic cooling just make me believe that all the input from RC forums for small foot print and no fans was ignored. Thank you for switching BEC, though, I understand sometimes you need to iron out some bugs.

I would rather use your product, other than making it to work close to MGM level. You have the best price, software and service but MGM has nice hardware...

And I am not biased on Castle products, I do like what works the best and easy to use.

So, for now I do not see any challenge to make ESC in MM or Tekin R1Pro size with 6S support (30V Fet's protected and adequately heatsinked) and ~100A current capacity.
While 3x6 sounds interesting but at 20S and 250A I will go with different controller...

What's constructive about being intentionally insulting, and calling people stupid? Until that last post, I thought it might be a cultural thing. Thank you for clearing it up for me.

I'm looking forward to seeing your designs on the hobby store shelves.

I can put my sticker on modded MambaMax controllers? :)

Sure. We could even change the caps and add the TVS for you.

Don't forget to use different heatsink goo too

Fantastic! That what I was looking for. Can you add copper plate? And 5-6S support?

Nope, the goo is GriffinRUs deal -- he'll have to put the goo on himself.

You do know that the copper plate and the Artic silver doesn't really make much difference right? What would make a big difference is to go to a pin-fin copper heat sink... like this one:

http://www.coolinnovations.com/produ...UltraCool4.php

Try to take an infrared picture of your ESC with and without copper plate, I do not really care about arctic silver...as long as you can keep it as flat as possible, you can use graphite if you can maintain below 0.005". You know there is a step with sand paper right, not only for adhesion.

Sure, there are even better things you can do. If your R&D budget can afford 2 month clean-room run, I can share with you what can be better and we can talk patenting...

:gasp: Nice to hear it!

I have IR pictures of the ESC, and a copper plate doesn't make any significant difference on the 6oz board... the older 4oz board was a different story. And, a copper pin fin heatsink is actually an easier mod will have much more effect than a copper heat spreader.

BTW -- we are using the temp sensor on the processor -- so make sure any mods you do reduce the temp difference between the FETs and the processor, not the opposite.

What does that mean -- 2 month clean-room run? Are you thinking about getting On Semiconductor to give us some Fab time, or what?

Well, true for the last gen. pcb with only 6 fet's down there... still can see slight improvement. If you plan to add copper heatsink to MM, than I am sorry who needs MMM in 1/8 scale? You can do the same to MMM, of course. Just get plated copper, so it doesn't change its appeal :)

I know, on first versions I was adding copper spacer, but lately reusing your foam, works alright. :)

Something like that, but not at On Semiconductor, more like proto run at University and upon success, I do not know it is way too early.

Well, the main problem we had with all of our Copper heatsink testing was that the heatsink is HEAVY -- and on crashes would sometimes rip the FETs off the board (or in half!) :tongue:
The copper heat sinks did work very well, but were very expensive.

On Semiconductor has done some custom stuff for us in the past -- they might be willing to listen.

There are ways to solve this, fet's case cannot support such load. Expensive way - hybrid heatsinks, all the way up to built-in heatpipes. Second one - pcb support for heatsink, you can solder heatsink to the board.

Well, now that is when we switch to PM.

By the way, I am pretty sure, you've seen that :)

you might as well except for Brian and a few others nobody has a clue as to what you and Patrick are talking about......:-)

Sure is a lot easier to build a high power controller when you only have a single phase...

Probably just a couple Eupec IGBTs. Pretty simple. -- What isn't talked about is the RADIATOR that that controller requires -- and water pump, and plumbing... 2 watts of loss per amp just for forward drop, minimum.

IGBT drivers can be a challenge in three phase setups, but single phase is a breeze.

Fresh
 

Even in the best think tanks having a fresh perspective is always a good thing. We all know how secretive any company can be about protecting its investment on any project, so seeing you (Patrick) discuss specs with a fellow R/C junkie who obviously has some insight is great. We have all heard Griffen spew technical stuff in an effort to improve things with ESC MFG and he has modded some MM's with impresive results. So maybe if you two get to share some fresh ideas we will benefit in the long run. Nice to see you communicating on this. Good luck guys.

You know, I've been thinking about this --

It wouldn't be too hard to do a 400V MOSFET based 3 phase controller for an EV. And it wouldn't be hard to do a PM motor for it either (expensive magnets though...) Both ST and Infineon have some nice 500V MOSFETs now (that don't have 1000nC charges.)

Need to sleep now, but I'm thinking about it. :wink:

Thats great Patrick. Best customer service out there :party:

Too bad we are far from each other,
I am less concern about cooling, can fix that.

If you can get me some ESC's already pre-fabbed with caps and tvs, I would like to share with you one more aspect of this tuning. I am sure you aware of that, but still. Pushing 30V fet's towards 6S is not great and we have seen more than one catastrophic fet's failure. What I was trying to add to MM, but didn't find a good place, is tvs per phase, not across H-bridge. 3 TVS total, no TVS across power leads required if caps are good and leads are short.
Concern - V=L*di/dt
With higher Kv motors, motors inductance and fast high current switching can exceed fet rating pretty quick. It would be the best to place clamp that would be before fet's diodes.
If you have any catastrophic fet's failures (I had one unit from DickyT) than it might be related to that.
Neu 1515 1.5D has about 2.3uH @ 50Amps and 1us it can hit 115V, your are not clamping phase - but just a thought.

Need to go, see you next weekend,

You'll find there are much better (faster and more robust) solutions than TVS.

Notice you never see those high voltages (115V) in a MMM or MM, because the body diodes clamp WAY before avalanche occurs. But there are several improvements that can be made beyond what the MMM has. First -- the body diodes do clamp to rail +- 1.5V or so, but they are slow. The snubbers are faster, but can't handle enough power -- bigger snubbers make a huge difference.

The whole idea is giving that energy a place to go that is LOW resistance path, not a high resistance path like a TVS. That energy of the inductor doesn't have to be wasted in a resistive part -- it can be recaptured, re-routed, restored. :yes:

That is where software comes to play...
Hundreds of ps are not that slow (it is possible to get faster devices but then substrate size (to maintain current capacity) will increase capacitance, thus slow you, limit you) , and there is no need to clamp all the way to zero, just to the safe Fet's level, and fet's are not that fast. But overtime both of them degradate, TVS first (easy to replace) fet second. Temp also change their response. Diodes are also rated to max Fet’s voltage, they are by-product of Fet. So you will exceed diode ratings if you do not clamp it earlier with something rated at higher voltage. You got the idea.
There is no much energy there to recuperate, but plenty to damage. Just switching fronts I am talking, nothing else.

What about Ixys for those High Voltage/High Power MOSFETs? I don't know how they compare with ST and Infineon, but most of the products offered by Ixys are on the higher voltage side.

Well, they do have some interesting parts -- but in the last few years they have really fallen behind the "big boys."

Fairchild also has some interesting high voltage parts, but is still a generation behind ST and Infineon in RDSon / die size.

The last time I spoke with someone there, they told me they were the leader in High Volt/High Power MOSFETs. I'm pretty sure some of the MOSFETs manufacturers can make some sort of special MOSFET for the demands of us RC guys. Have you also thought about contacting the foundries that makes the silicon's that goes into a MOSFET to actually make one that better RDSon or what ever other special need you might have? A custom Castle MOSFET would be nice, kind of like the Futaba processor seen in their radios :lol:.

MOnSterFET.....

Ever thought about a sensored esc? Stick a hall sensor do-da like the novaks use on the end of your Castle-Neu motors (it really is that simple, honest :whistle:) and hey presto, the holy grail of BL escs and motors = sensored smoothness, zero cogging, locked rotor detection etc etc and a truelly awesome motor to match.

If you build it, we will come! :gasp: :whistle:

Kind of what Aveox did back in the days.

Yeah, its sad they left the RC game- before my time really, otherwise I might have bought one of their systems to use instead of the hvmaxx. Concidering I paid a barmy £269/ $510 for the system (yes, that much!), I think I could have done alot better, if only I had found RCMonster earlier in my RC career....

That one has my vote!

And lower efficiency, lower reliability, inferior locked rotor detection, no automatic timing...

Who's hype have you been listening to?

:whistle: