Not really sure. There is a blurb in the Quark manual saying something about setting the LVC value and then changing back to NiMH...

I did notice that the Quark DOES hold the programming, but when you go back into programming mode, the default value is the first selection making it look like it isn't.

yeah, when I bought the quark, I was curious as to why 3v/cell was the highest, when either true-rc, or astroflight said 3.3v was the lowest they should be discharged..
I found a gold mine about 10 minutes from my house.. in a "rich" community right out of my town, they're building new homes.. more like mansions.. very rich community.
My cousin and I went to see if there was some dirt to play in, and as we went over one of the hills, we saw a peak of dirt.. from the top of the hill, you could see about a mile of nothing but dirt. dusty roads went down the hill, but I couldn't drive my 1:1 down it, so we walked.. there was 3 or 4 huge mounds of dirt and gravel.. It looks like a gravel pit, but mostly dirt :)
I got a very short video, before the camera's batteries died, as well as BOTH of my rear cvd pins came out, and dug about 1/4" into the rear hubs.. I need to go through, and threadlock every screw on this truck. no major damage, but it seems every time I run, something comes loose.. the cvd pins have flat spots on them, so I'm not sure if I lost the grub screw completely or not, havn't looked closely yet.
I didn't run on pavement, but the tires had no noticable ballooning as far as I could see. I'll get the hill climbing clip up sometime tommorow.

No, I really mean it didn't save a couple times. I tried no reverse setup, I had reverse after programing? :032:

I will check out this 'blurb' right away. :005:

OK, here is the "blurb" I was talking about:

short video until the camera died.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzCgbMWga2o

Brian, I slow-mo'd part of the video so you could see the non-balloonage.

Cool! The tires look like they are holding together well. I'm just looking for something that will last the life of the tire...

Oh man, you guys are scaring me. I ordered this Quark hoping that it would cure all of my woes. I don't need any more programming problems.

lol, relax AAngel! Just read the manual and you'll be fine. The "blurb" I referred to only applies if you set a manual cutoff, then switch back to an "lipo normal" or "lipo high" mode.

I know that this is probably common knowledge, but I've been running the Proline MTR tires. At track speeds, ballooning is minimal. Before I started running the MTRs, I used to blow my tires off the wheels pretty regularly. Since I've gone to the MTRs, I haven't had that problem. It's gotta mean something.

so I think I might have a lipo pack going bad?
one of the packs is fine, and takes maybe 10 minutes to balance, while the other pack..
cell 1,3,4,5 were all higher voltage than cell 2.. It's been balancing for 2.5 hours now, and cell 1 finally dropped to be in balance w/ cell 2.. but 3-5 are STILL discharging. (*EDIT-cells 1,3,4,5 are all still high.. 3+ hours later..) This pack has been abused much more than my other pack, but it still charged fine the last time I charged it, and the truck ran normal. If I can ever get the rest of the cells to balance, I'll see what the charger says, compared to the other pack.. I usually balance before and after charging, and this is the first time it's taken this long to balance, and it's still not balanced :(
Here's two pictures of the pack that is taking forever to balance. The pinion came loose on the motor shaft, and slid into the battery (batteries have yet to move), and kind of dented two of the cells, and "cut" into one of the cells a tiny bit.. but I've cycled the pack a few times since that happened, and never had a problem getting it to balance until tonight..
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/9...0592nh1.th.jpg
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/5...0594of1.th.jpg

How long does it normally take to balance your packs, if you balance off the charger? Think True-RC would be able to replace the 2nd cell if it is indeed bad?

Here's some other pictures of the truck. First picture, I had cracked part of the rear diff case, you can see the screw tried to rip out of the bulk. This made the front of the suspension arm raise, and was binding the suspension, so I went and ordered $125 worth of random extra parts, so I have less downtime in the future.
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/2223/p5200564tn9.jpg

fan/heatsink
http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/5711/p5200565ze5.jpg

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8828/p5200568wt8.jpg

and my box-o-goodies :)
http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/8946/p5200569jk6.jpg

ok, the pack finally balanced.. 5 hours and 45 minutes later..

Wow, now thats a long time to wait, lol.

One question, yesterday I ordered a Truerc 4s2p 8000 pack, and the day before, I ordered a Hyperion charger and balancer. Are the taps from the Truerc pack compatible with the hyperion taps? Or will I have to change them on the battery?

Thanks.

It depends on what taps you ordered on the Truerc pack. He usually uses the Hyperion taps, unless you specify otherwise. Mine came with ThunderPower taps.

The longest any of my packs balance is for a few seconds during the charge. If you have to let you pack balance for that long, one (or more) or the cells are damaged and is not taking as much of a charge as the rest of the cells. Passive balancing discharges at a very low rate, so it takes a long time to balance cells. The more out of balance the cells are, the longer it takes. You should use a DMM and measure the voltage of the individual cells as soon as the charging process is complete to see just how out of balance the cells are.

I just ordered it with deans and thats it. I didn't specify a certain tap. Hopefully it comes with a Hyperion tap though.

what kind of balancer are you using?

I have had some take a while too. I just plug them in and leave them overnight, then unplug them in the morning so I'm not sure how long they actually took to balance. I tend to see more imbalance in the TrueRC packs when they are pushed very hard. They are only 10-12C constant packs anyway. I have just gotten in the habbit of balanceing them at the end of the day every time I run them. The higher priced / higher C rated packs tend to stay balanced better but thats the trade off for the lower price IMO.

I use a Hyperion LBA6 and an Apache 505 to do my off line bablancing and it seems to me that the Apache does a faster job and when its done the cells are perfectly balanced. The LBA6 leaves some small (very) vaience still according to my volt meter. And the Apache was alot cheaper too.

Send him an email and verify. Thats one of those PITA things if its not right. Conversion plugs and all kinds of extra junk is needed then. These things are confusiong enough without all that too.

I'm using 505's as well. almost makes me want to sell my 109's so I can balance while charging.. and i have access to a DMM at work, but don't have the money for a personal one right now, vacation's less than a week away for me, so I'm scrounging for money lol

the good pack charged in:
55:35
2.614Ah
21.00v

the pack I had trouble balancing:
59:39
2.855Ah
21.00v

odd thing is.. in the bad pack, cell 2 was lower voltage than the rest last night.. I just took it off the charger, and cell 2 is HIGHER than all the other cells, and has been discharging for about 20 minutes now..

Well Brian's speed calc calculated ~43mph with 18/46 gearing.. just got back from some bashing, and I did a 44.9mph, and then second pass was 45.3mph very satisfied.
nothing was more than warm, like usual. One thing that happened, that's only happened to me maybe twice since I've been running brushless.. I never use reverse, for fear of shredding my drivetrain (warrior's had no delay between reverse and brake I believe..) the truck was going, spun out, and was rolling a little bit in reverse.. I gave it a little throttle to get it moving forward, and instead it accellerated in reverse. With this gearing, it also has a slight cog when starting low throttle from a dead stop. after it's rolling at say 2mph, control is flawless. I also tried jumping it.. I haven't jumped an RC in.. 4 years maybe? so of course it was a bad ending. too much throttle, and it flew like a fat pig, landing on the right rear tire.. broke the plastic rear suspension pin holder. I also broke both of the rear shock ends, and sheered both front body posts off from flipping it too many times under acceleration on pavement. need to lower the exp. some more.

I'll have video up sometime later tonight. I'm hoping Tower gets me the new rear holder before Thursday, because I'm heading up north for vacation, and would love to run in the north woods :)

i know it's a triple post, but bump.

18/46
http://a4dtm.com/lsp/park.avi (27.9mb divx)

or wait for it to show up on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=A4DTM

Looks pretty quick. Definitely held the throttle a bit long on that last jump though ;)
Did you have any problems with temps with that gearing?

no problems w/ temps at all. fans and heatsinks REALLY help a ton.

BAD news..
with all the problems w/ that battery pack.. after my last run (the park video), I hadn't touched the packs until tonight, when I hooked up the balancers, to balance before re-charging them..
one was in balance immediately, while the other (same pack I've had problems w/) blinked "check/err"..
just checked voltages, and they were:
3.7
3.7
3.7
1.8
3.7

:'(
I'm writing up an email right now to True-RC, and see what they can do to replace the bad cell. I'm going on vacation tommorow, which sucks because I was hoping to take the truck up with me, and also, I'll have to wait till I'm back to even send the pack in. Now, the cells at 1.8v, I'm not sure if it's still dropping, or if it has been 1.8v since the last time I ran it.. if I'm gone for a few days, what are the odds that something will happen to the pack? it's been sitting for 3 days now, and there's no puffing or anything like that.. I'm just worried, if it's slowly dropping voltage that something could happen to the pack while I'm away?
just put it in a firesafe, and hope it's ok?

It should be fine. The problem will happen when you try to charge the damaged cell.

yeah I hooked it up to the charger at 0amps, just to quickly check the voltage, saw that the total voltage wasn't too high, or too low, and disconnected the pack.. got home from work, and went to a friends house to use his DMM, and was struck w/ the sad news :(
it's sitting in my lipo sack on my desk at the moment, and I guess I'll have to wait a week to see what Dan says about replacing the cell.

Another reason why I don't really want LiPo's...

It sucks that you can't take the truck with you. Is that your only battery pack? You might be able to explain the situation to Dan and he might agree to let you pull the pack apart and turn it into a 4S pack, just so that you'll have something to run; and then, you could just take care of the warranty stuff when you get back.

That's what I would do.

zero, this pack was really abused.. look at the pictures on page 6.. the pack had flown out of my onroad 2 times.. once was about 30ft sliding across rough pavement/gravel.. i'm actually impressed with how well it held up.. and it never blew up on me haha.

aangel, i run 2x 5s1p in parallel, so if I made this pack 4s, i'd have to do the same with the other pack, and the other pack's in great condition.. always balanced, ect.. it's not the end of the world, not taking it, just a bummer.. and besides, it's almost midnight here, and I'm leaving as soon as I'm off work, so i barely have any time to pack, let alone rebuild a pack :P

whats the weight balance on this truck as to me from they videos you posted it seems that there's too much weight at the back of the car which seems to make the car a real handful.

Perhaps you could replace your 8000mah truerc cells with some lighter flightpower cells with a higher discharge capability.

The runtime will be reduced but i think the truck will handle much better considering how far back the cells are in your configuration.

just a thought.

Why can't you just charge the cell with low voltage?

Zero is looking for reasons not to buy lipo's.. :p These cells are 15 bucks each.. An A123 cell can turn bad as well zero.

Does anyone know why you can't charge a cell with low voltage?

chilled, if I ever get new packs, I'll probably try some lighter 5s packs, but don't have much money right now.

haldir, because the cell's damaged. it shouldn't have gotten that low of voltage, so obviously, something's wrong.. if i tried and charge it, it would only make matters worse.

I have NO cash right now, so the pack's still sitting here, but Dan offered to replace the cell for $15, which is awesome imho. I'll have to wait another week till I get paid to send the pack in though.

bump.

i drove to Chicago today, and returned w/ some goodies :)
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/9386/p9171216ag8.jpg

and to fix my previous problems..
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/1222/p6030592cd8.jpg

,Dan doubled up the shrink wrap, and put protection on the end of the pack :)
http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/198/p9171219iy3.jpg

up for sale is one of my old packs.. True-RC 5s1p 4000mah. the pack had two damaged cells, and Dan replaced the two cells, and re-assembled and tested the pack. i got the new batts, and don't need this one anymore. The other pack i paired with it, had a dead cell, and Dan's going to test it, and see how the other cells are, and then reasemble as 5s1p, and then that'll be up for sale as well. pm me if you're interested.
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/4768/p9171217zj7.jpg

GorillaMaxx360, i'll probably be racing at hobbytown this sunday, and Dan may possibly drive out, w/ lots of lipos for people to try out :D

jhautz, i didn't realize you said 4 miles in that other thread.. i coulda stopped by.. haha if you ever need to swap those motor connectors, lmk :mdr:

Let us knwo how the new 5000mAH pack do.

So how do you go about getting these custom packs? For example having two layers of shrink and protection on each side...?

Let me know. Thanks.

just call him up, and ask him.. he's an awesome guy. I called him yesterday (sunday), and he returned my call today, and invited me out.. he threw a 5s1p 4000mah pack in, and i got to drive my truck for the first time in 3 months+ lol. (something's squeeky in the driveline :()

as I was getting ready to leave, i asked him about it putting the tape and plastic on the end, and he said no problem, and the packs were double wrapped in under 3 min.

Thats sounds great. I'll call him and have the same done to mine. :smile:

I really like that added protection in the rear of the packs. Gives the pack an nice finished sqaure look.

I've not read all the thread (too much to read for now) but i was wondering if you know if the mod must be done on all quark controllers? As i've got a 33a one in the mail and was wondering if it would fall to the same problem *hopes not* :mdr: