LVC clarification
 

Hi,

I am looking for clarification on the LVC workings.. I have and use everything from Mamba 25, Sidewinder, Original Mamba Max, Mamba Max Pro and Monster Mamba...

In each one of these systems, I have the settings for auto lipo with cut off at 3.2v and/or 3.3v depending on the rig.. When I trip the LVC, there is no slowdown that i can notice.. trucks running the BAM, no more power.. Is this normal? I know someone (I'm going to sound like a noob here.. but i swear im not.. im trying to be nice.. LOL) I know someone who claims his sidewinder ESCs have 2 stage LVC that cuts to 1/2 power for a while before eventually just cutting off juice to the motor... Is there a multi stage LVC in these speed controls? Is it something that one would need to manually engage via software or something?

Thanks..

Its something that gets discussed occasionally, but I believe the official line is that the LVC on the castle escs is just a hard cutoff, no power reduction then cutoff like you get with the traxxas vxl esc.

Correct, every CC product I have is a hard cutoff.

LVC cutoff is soft on the Mamba line -- if the controller sees the voltage drop below LVC, it will throttle back until the voltage rises back above LVC. There isn't any "1/2" throttle max -- it just limits power when it sees the voltage drop below LVC.

So what happens in practice is that acceleration gets softer as the batteries go down, and then eventually it cuts off hard if the voltage doesn't bounce back above the LVC.

Great explanation Patrick...thanks!

Another reason I own 5 castle controllers and 6 motors!

I have a variety of Castle products as well. They do have a "2 stage" cut off of sorts as Patrick explained. Depending on the quality of the batteries and the setup it's more or less noticeable. On my Maxx that is only geared for about 30 it's not all that noticeable until it's almost ready to quit, it will generally still pull wheelies up to about 30 seconds before it just stops, but it slows down and I can still notice it. My Truggy is more noticeable as it loses it's punch and I can tell the difference easily, but this is a race setup and I use it exclusively on the track and when I can't clear the same jump as well as the last lap it's noticeable

Thank you Patrick.. Great explanation.. so as it turns out.. LOL.. I get to be right, and so does the other guy.. HAHA..

Is it fair to assume (always a bad idea) batteries that are able to hold their voltage right to the end would be less likely to have this slow down occur? as opposed to batteries of maybe a lesser quality that maybe allow the voltage to "dip" a bit more before dumping?

Based on what E-revonut said, I'd say you are correct in that assumption. Decent lipos will hold theior voltage much better until right at the end of the discharge when they dump, but poor lipos will gradually loose power/ punchy throughout the run, so throttling back by the esc would be more noticeable.

I think we learned something new today , never seen an actual definitive answer before..

Yep, that's exactly right. The better the quality of the batteries, the less noticeable the cutoff -- and the "harder" the cutoff seems.

Thank you for the clarification Patrick...

I too always assumed it was a hard cutoff only based on how my vehicles behaved when reaching the LVC. I guess that is a good indicator that my lipos are holding voltage under the load just fine until the very end.