Robitronic Mantis HV truggy with 10s A123

[othello]

Thanx for all your nice words.

@lutach
Yeah could be. With this much tire spin i really can not tell if those recorded RPM peaks do come from the front tires unloading or from straight line speed itself. I will definitively shoot a video similar to my buggy videos. At least then it will be clear from where those 38000-41000 rpm spikes do come.

@chilledoutuk
After seeing the Jazz ESCs abilities in my buggy i really hoped that it also could handle the heavier truggy. The Amp spike at 63A is nearly at its rated peak Amp of 65A. But after looking through some eagletree curves of some heli guy putting around 100A through his Jazz i'm quite sure the jazz is able to provide more than 65A peak. Under normal driving conditions peaks between 40-50A will be the max i will see. On those runs captured with my cam i really tried to push the truggy as hard as i could to see if the Jazz will do the job. As i never experienced some kind of cogging and temperatures remained safe i can again recommend it for HV car purposes.

I tried to use a plastic spur but the mantis spur is too different to the plastic spur i used in my buggy. So i had to use the metal spur. On my first run i used a non hardened steel pinion which lasted only for 3 minutes (i expected this to happen). As i heard from a guy that those hardened pinions could be tougher than the spur gear (and started to grind his spur) i decided to use the gear from the clutch bell that comes mounted on the nitro motor. A nice guy from germany established a contact to a brushless shop that soon will open near my place which already has some kind of adapters to fit those cut of gears to the 5mm motor shaft. Those are some pics (from Josi) of an early version of his adapter and how it is mounted on the motor: pic1, pic2. It doesn't look as clean as a hardened pinion but it's an easy way to fit those cut off clutch bell gears which assumably are hardened the same way as the spur gear.

Thanks for your nice words. As i never have driven a nitro truggy i can not make a comparision between them. The setup can not be done way different with those bulky A123 cells without having a huge imbalance. Both packs together wheigh around 800gr (1.76lb). This is hard to compensate when put on one side. As to front/rear balance it seems to be a bit heavier on the rear axle but it is nearly 50/50%. This setup also worked good in my buggy and i didn't wanted to start from scratch with the truggy. As i never drive at races i guess i will never find out how good or bad this setup really is but for my bashing needs it does the trick.

EDIT
The spur is mod 1 and the diffs are metal too. I too am surprised how relatively quite this truggy is.

[lutach]

High Voltage is the way to go. I was hoping my controllers would get done a month or so ago, but at this moment I have to wait. I'm talking with 2 companies that seems to have a HV controller for cars. I have to wait and see if they can send me samples to test. I'll also be making my own chassis (For truggy and buggy) as soon as I find the right place (cost wise) to do some CNC work for me.

[othello]

@lutach
It sure is the right way. I really am happy that it cured all my heat issues i had with my 4s setup. Seeing all those very creative modded mamba max or Quark ESC just tells me this can not be the ultimate way to get it done. The upcoming monster max will be a step in the right direction but i can understand why you asked Castle to get those HV boat ESC fitted with a car software. I also think this would have been an easier approach and would have provided a broader choice of ESCs and voltage options. But i'm no engineer so i sure think castle had enough good reasons to go the monster max way.

I hope you will get your ESCs done. Plane, heli and now even boat guys do use those HV ESC for quite some time and it sure is time to have a better choice in the car segment. I will stay with the kontronik ones.

[othello]

@aqwut
Thanks ... those videos were only meant to show that my setup indeed works even in a truggy. This area is only a 5 minute drive from my place and thus ideal for testing purposes, but truly it's to small to get some good high speed passes. Now that i know that everything works out i will unleash her on those wider places

[lutach]

Originally Posted by othello

@lutach
It sure is the right way. I really am happy that it cured all my heat issues i had with my 4s setup. Seeing all those very creative modded mamba max or Quark ESC just tells me this can not be the ultimate way to get it done. The upcoming monster max will be a step in the right direction but i can understand why you asked Castle to get those HV boat ESC fitted with a car software. I also think this would have been an easier approach and would have provided a broader choice of ESCs and voltage options. But i'm no engineer so i sure think castle had enough good reasons to go the monster max way.

I hope you will get your ESCs done. Plane, heli and now even boat guys do use those HV ESC for quite some time and it sure is time to have a better choice in the car segment. I will stay with the kontronik ones.

I'm just fed up with all the good stuff coming out for air and water. The major companies here in the US needs to wake up. Most HV controllers for cars are coming out of Europe. I hope to get a little peice of the car market and make the big guys play catch up. It should be fun LOL.