Quark Monster Pro 125 and A123 Cells

[marc993turbo]

Hallo,

i need a controller for my pletternberg maxximum which goes into my new slipperential/g-maxx babe :-).

I thought i will give the quark monster pro 125 a chance it seems to be a good controller.

I´ve one question: Does anybody use the quark with A123 Cells? Is the Quark programmable so that the LVC will _NOT_ kick in to early? Don´t get me wrong i do not need a LVC for the A123s i just want to shut the LVC off.

One can configure quite a bit regarding LVC (i just read the Quark Manual) but i don´t see a possibilty to shut it off.

I don´t understand how the Quark determines who many cells are connected to it and how it calculates at which voltage it shuts off.

To make it short - does anybody use the Quark Monster Pro with A123s without problems?

Thanks for some help!

Marc.

[sikeston34m]

Originally Posted by marc993turbo

Hallo,

i need a controller for my pletternberg maxximum which goes into my new slipperential/g-maxx babe :-).

I thought i will give the quark monster pro 125 a chance it seems to be a good controller.

I´ve one question: Does anybody use the quark with A123 Cells? Is the Quark programmable so that the LVC will _NOT_ kick in to early? Don´t get me wrong i do not need a LVC for the A123s i just want to shut the LVC off.

One can configure quite a bit regarding LVC (i just read the Quark Manual) but i don´t see a possibilty to shut it off.

I don´t understand how the Quark determines who many cells are connected to it and how it calculates at which voltage it shuts off.

To make it short - does anybody use the Quark Monster Pro with A123s without problems?

Thanks for some help!

Marc.

I use the Quark 80amp ESC and A123 cells with no problems. The 80 amp and the Monster Pro have the very same settings.

I set the Lipo cut off to it's lowest setting of 2.2 volts per cell. A123 recommends a 2.0 cutoff for their cells, but by the time they hit 2.2v per cell, they are pretty much done anyway.

The discharge curve is very flat for A123's.

I hope this helps.

[marc993turbo]

Originally Posted by sikeston34m

I use the Quark 80amp ESC and A123 cells with no problems. The 80 amp and the Monster Pro have the very same settings.

I set the Lipo cut off to it's lowest setting of 2.2 volts per cell. A123 recommends a 2.0 cutoff for their cells, but by the time they hit 2.2v per cell, they are pretty much done anyway.

The discharge curve is very flat for A123's.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for the information!

Does anybody know how the quark determines how many cells are connected to it?

The controller cannot know how many cells are connected to it (lipo has another voltage than fepo4, than liion... and so on) - so how does that lvc thing work?

How does it determine when to shut down?

Marc.

[t-maxxracer32]

well i would think that somehow the quark monitors the voltages and once it hits 2.2v per cell it will trigger.

i would also think that it knows how many cells are in it due to the volts and what type of batteries are in it.

[marc993turbo]

Originally Posted by t-maxxracer32

well i would think that somehow the quark monitors the voltages and once it hits 2.2v per cell it will trigger.

i would also think that it knows how many cells are in it due to the volts and what type of batteries are in it.

... but if i don´t tell the controller _which_ cells i am using, he cannot know this!

He cannot know if i just plugged in a fully charged A123 or a discharged LiPO Pack. That´s what i mean.

BTW: If i go on your nervs with my silly questions, please let me know...



Marc.

[jhautz]

Just set the Quark to NiMH mode and the low volt cut off wil be disabled. It only has the LVC in Lipo mode. Thats how I did it when i ran a123 and a quark.

[marc993turbo]

Originally Posted by jhautz

Just set the Quark to NiMH mode and the low volt cut off wil be disabled. It only has the LVC in Lipo mode. Thats how I did it when i ran a123 and a quark.

Word!

Thanks, i will do so.

Marc.

[BrianG]

Originally Posted by jhautz

Just set the Quark to NiMH mode and the low volt cut off wil be disabled. It only has the LVC in Lipo mode. Thats how I did it when i ran a123 and a quark.

That makes the most sense to me. Even if a LVC of 2.2v/cell is selected, the ESC still will calculate the number of cells based on what it assumes to be fully charged lipo cells.

For this reason, I would like to see LVCs rated for whole pack voltages, not cell voltages. So, you would just set the terminating voltage (15v for 5s, 12v for 4s, 6v for 3s, etc) to eliminate the errors from the ESC miscalculating cell count. Of course, then the user has to know what they are doing...

[jhautz]

Originally Posted by BrianG

For this reason, I would like to see LVCs rated for whole pack voltages, not cell voltages. So, you would just set the terminating voltage (15v for 5s, 12v for 4s, 6v for 3s, etc) to eliminate the errors from the ESC miscalculating cell count. Of course, then the user has to know what they are doing...

Like the Mamaba Max....

[BrianG]

Yup! The only issue with that is if the user runs different size packs occasionally. But for A123s, it really doesn't matter since they drop off quite rapidly and aren't as sensitive to over-discharge...

Hi guys,

I to was interested how the quarks voltage cut off works...

so when I got it i did some experimentation...

First off the quark just uses the voltage of the pack to work out the cell count..

I have bench tested it with various different packs and it seams to work very well..

When set to 3v per cell cut off it will perceive a 6cell NiMh as a 2s pack and cut it at 6 volts...

And with a 7cell NiMh it will also cut at 6v

12-14 cells it treats like a 4s lipo

16-18 like a 5s lipo..

So you can tell just by the voltage of your pack what type lipo the quark will think it is!

But the voltage cut off is very adjustable and can be turned off so you can find a setting that will suit ANY pack

[Patrick]

Does anyone no if the quark will pick up a fully charged 21v 5s pack as a mostly discharged 6s pack?
I tried to do a 30 minute race on my 5s2p 8000's and the lvc kicked in at about 26 minutes. When I charged the packs the next day they would only take 6400mah.
The 2 other times I've run them till they hit the lvc, they took back a bit over 7500mah. The other two times were over more than one run, so the quark was switched off and on again, and would have been reading the voltage of a half discharged 5s pack when reset.
So I'm wondering if the quark thought I was using 6s and if I stopped during the race to switch the quark off and on again it would have reset the lvc to 5s, and I could have gotten another 1000 + mahs out of them.
Either that or my packs are starting to die after 5 months.

[marc993turbo]

... as one can see, there are quite different solutiongs regarding the LVC kick in.

I like the schulze solution most, here the LVC kicks in at 58,6% percent of the voltage the pack had when it was connected.

And one hasn´t to deal with the problem how to tell the controller how many cells are connected to it.

Marc.

[jhautz]

Originally Posted by marc993turbo

... as one can see, there are quite different solutiongs regarding the LVC kick in.

I like the schulze solution most, here the LVC kicks in at 58,6% percent of the voltage the pack had when it was connected.

And one hasn´t to deal with the problem how to tell the controller how many cells are connected to it.

Marc.

unless you plug in a half charged pack...

[marc993turbo]

Originally Posted by jhautz

unless you plug in a half charged pack...

I wouldn´t ever do such a silly thing...

Marc.