Which side draws more current?
 

I've noticed that my brushless revo draws more current from one side, however I always forget to check before I get the packs out and start charging:oops: Can some one tell me which side would do this?

Also how do you have your voltage cutoff set for 6S? What does the truck do when the cutoff is reached?

Thanks, Joel

With the Castle Monster ESC, it shouldn't draw more current from one side than the other.

The Monster ESC's BEC looks at the total voltage.

What you are probably seeing is a difference in the packs. What packs are you using?

When the ESC gets on the Low Voltage Cutout, the truck will first stutter, then if you keep running, it will stop moving all together.

I'm using thunder power pro packs (30c). These are new packs. If the ESC is looking at total voltage then how is it cutting of at xx volts per cell? I have mine set at 3.2v per cell, however I had one cell get to 3.08. I did run the truck until the cutoff. I did not notice a stutter, but It would stop altogether if I gave it full throttle. Every time I go to charge the packs one pack is always less voltage than the other. I have not kept track of if it is the same pack each time, I just figured that one side was driving the servos or something.

Thunder Power Packs have a very good reputation.

The ESC calculates LVC by doing a little math. 3.2 volt per cell cutoff X no of cells. In your case 19.2 volts.

What do you balance your packs with? Balancing is very important.

If your packs are out of balance, you will see a low cell like that.

Astroflight Blinky cell balancers and charge with multiplex LN 5014's. The packs are 5000mah and the max charge on the chargers is 5 amps. So I only charge at 1C. Balance every time while charging. There are only 5 cycles on the packs. The packs perform awesome and I'm not complaining, just trying to protect my investment. It does appear that one of the packs is always taking more balancing than the other.

My Best advice would be to increase your LVC a little until the packs get a few more runs on them.

Also, with the Blinky, let the balancer finish on a fully charged pack.

The balancer may not be done with it's job, just because the charger thinks it is finished.

I think I will increase the LVC like you suggest. I do always let the balancer finish after the charge cycle is over. Sometimes its a while, other times it is not long at all. Upon power up is the ESC suppose to chime the number of cells in series? 6 chimes for 6S.

Yes, one chime for each cell that it sees. :yes:

yes but count the chimes!!
if you have a pack with say only 30% charge left it might boot up accidentally with only 5 tones, hence the LVC is tricked into thinking that the pack is a 5s rather than a 6s!!!

I have noticed that with quality cells the stutter with the MMM can be hard to tell, it can even be hard to tell that there is a loss of performance until the hard cutoff does its job. With time you will learn though and when you see the performance, top speed, drop off it's time to re-charge. Running the packs to the hard cut off is more demanding on the packs and that is likely why you are seeing one pack a little lower. There is most likely one cell that is slightly weaker and causing this.

would running the lvc at 3.2v per cell help the packs health?

its better than running 3.0V, I usually run 3.2v/cell myself but I have never used the auto lipo function as I don't trust it and I only run a set voltage on my vehicles, I don't jump between packs with the exception of my 1/18 setup which I run anything from 4cell nimh packs up to 2s lipo. In that case I just hook it up to the computer and change the settings

IMO Blinky only discharges, it has no way to send voltage to the low cells after bringing down the high cells. So your cells might come off the charger like 4.05,4.25,4.25 & 4.25. Then blinky finishes its job and the cells read 4.05,4.20,4.20 & 4.20. Balancing with a balancing charger you can add voltage to the low cell only.

I would think that is more of a fact than opinion. When the blinky is done the pack would read all cells at 4.05V with your example.

As far as one side drawing more current, that's not really possible since current through a series circuit is always the same.

Jeff

I thought it was pretty well known the packs on the left side will drain faster in the northern hemisphere, right side for the south.

Man you guys need to brush up.....

:lol: