Castle Creations XLX-2 just released

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rotauq said:
I am glad the price is similar as the XLX. Obviously in Europe it gets a crazy 30% reseller markup.
Looking at the datalogs it's maybe a little to obvious the both XLX logs have a current limit, whiles the XLX2's do not. And Raz his XLX2 log showing 547A?!?
Where can I buy those magical true 100C batteries?
Temps and ripple look very nice though. As my tortured XLX seems to have seen it's best days, i will definitely order one once they are available here.
Click to expand...
Several of the testers used this set of batteries to achieve the crazy power levels. We tried to use a different battery that was rated at 6000mah 120c and destroyed the pack on our first run. We bought 2 sets of these batteries and have had no issues with these providing hundreds of amps. Honestly I think these might be the only packs that can actually push the ESC without going to a 8s2p setup.
https://www.smc-racing.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=67_190&product_id=571

This video has the runs from Example 1 from that page of comparison logs.
 
robert@castle said:
Several of the testers used this set of batteries to achieve the crazy power levels. We tried to use a different battery that was rated at 6000mah 120c and destroyed the pack on our first run. We bought 2 sets of these batteries and have had no issues with these providing hundreds of amps. Honestly I think these might be the only packs that can actually push the ESC without going to a 8s2p setup.
https://www.smc-racing.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=67_190&product_id=571

This video has the runs from Example 1 from that page of comparison logs.
Click to expand...
Agreed, specifically the 6400 mAh packs are very good. The other mAh versions are not the same cell quality.
They have the lowest voltage drop of any LiPos out there. 2nd would be the Turnigy Panther/Graphenes.

I cannot wait to see the new top speeds coming :stig:
 
I'm going to go ahead and pimp out the launch videos from our beta testers because they were fantastic. Probably the best beta group we have had in a while. They were very active and responsive and between them they sent us tons of pictures and videos. They also were saving their datalogs after almost every run and sending them out to the group or emailing them to us.
Some of these have already been post ITT but I'm going to post them all.

Raz Shifrin:
Innovation RC:
Philip Jolley:
James McCoy:
Stew Mac:
Mr BBi:
RC Physics:
NTF Racing: Is making carbon fiber top cases that look really slick
https://www.facebook.com/NTFRacingRC/

Many of them are going to have quite a few videos come out over the next weeks to space out their content releases, so watch out for more from all of them.
 
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Hey @robert@castle I just noticed, did you guy extend the length of the wires also?
Another thing we asked for ?
 
The Donut Man said:
Even better, they made them female 8mm bullet connectors :cool:
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I'm not sure what we did with the wire length. I think it might be the same as the XLX, but coming out vertical on solder posts. I think I had seen people's request for longer input wires on the MMX8S too late in the design to have an influence on the design.
The Donut Man said:
Even better, they made them female 8mm bullet connectors :cool:
Click to expand...
It is actually 8 gauge wire on solder posts. Several of the beta testers unsoldered the 8 gauge wire and put 8mm bullets onto the solder posts because they were swapping the ESC in to lots of different vehicles and it made it easier for them. I've been asking for input bullets for years but apparently it is too much risk to sell any product that way. I personally would have liked to ship this ESC with 8mm bullets, or even better made a new 9mm bullet for one of the wires to keep people from plugging them in backwards. Part of the problem with putting female bullets on the input is that people will use them as the battery connector and you shouldn't have 2 male bullets soldered to a battery because it is easy for them to short out.
 
robert@castle said:
I'm not sure what we did with the wire length. I think it might be the same as the XLX, but coming out vertical on solder posts. I think I had seen people's request for longer input wires on the MMX8S too late in the design to have an influence on the design.

It is actually 8 gauge wire on solder posts. Several of the beta testers unsoldered the 8 gauge wire and put 8mm bullets onto the solder posts because they were swapping the ESC in to lots of different vehicles and it made it easier for them. I've been asking for input bullets for years but apparently it is too much risk to sell any product that way. I personally would have liked to ship this ESC with 8mm bullets, or even better made a new 9mm bullet for one of the wires to keep people from plugging them in backwards. Part of the problem with putting female bullets on the input is that people will use them as the battery connector and you shouldn't have 2 male bullets soldered to a battery because it is easy for them to short out.
Click to expand...
Interesting. Love to see companies interact with forums, let alone actually listen to us when designing a product. Triple thumbs up man you guys are killing it.
 
LibertyMKiii said:
@robert@castle
Just curious why was the decision made to stick with 8s and go for high amps, versus jumping up to 12s or 14s, and keeping the amps lower.
Click to expand...
8s is a sweet spot in capacitors. If we went to 10s, the internal capacitors in the ESC would have about 50% of the value. If we went to 12s, they would have about 33% of the value. If we went 14s they would have 15% of the value. So could we make a 10, 12, or 14s ESC? Yes, but it would either be massive or have lots of ripple. Above 8s voltage they fall off a cliff in capacity pretty quickly. So realistically, a 12s ESC requires a larger vehicle than is on the market currently. We looked into making this a 12S ESC, but it wasn't really feasible for us because of size constraints of the vehicles we wanted to target. It would have been 50% larger to make it handle 12s and it is already a very large ESC.
 
robert@castle said:
8s is a sweet spot in capacitors. If we went to 10s, the internal capacitors in the ESC would have about 50% of the value. If we went to 12s, they would have about 33% of the value. If we went 14s they would have 15% of the value. So could we make a 10, 12, or 14s ESC? Yes, but it would either be massive or have lots of ripple. Above 8s voltage they fall off a cliff in capacity pretty quickly. So realistically, a 12s ESC requires a larger vehicle than is on the market currently. We looked into making this a 12S ESC, but it wasn't really feasible for us because of size constraints of the vehicles we wanted to target. It would have been 50% larger to make it handle 12s and it is already a very large ESC.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the explanation. I am all to familiar with series and series/parallel connections from EE classes in college. ?
I know that Amps are the enemy of many components in the system. I hope that the power capability of this ESC, and its ability to eat batteries does not hurt Castle in some way. My specific concern would be when a battery goes up in flames and also burns the ESC, and the user blames the ESC = warranty claim.

Very happy to see a high power ESC that fits, runs cool, and has controlled ripple, + the best data logs in the industry. (y)
 
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LibertyMKiii said:
@robert@castle
Just curious why was the decision made to stick with 8s and go for high amps, versus jumping up to 12s or 14s, and keeping the amps lower.
Click to expand...
I can also imagine that Castle took into account that not many motors are rated for above 8S voltage. But the capacitor explanation makes a lot of sense!
 
I just want to say, I am newly returned to the hobby and just bashing with my Notorious and building up my EXB - but seeing @robert@castle here and seeing this kind of communication and quality product... well I know where I will be ordering my next ESC and motor from. Great new product guys - I look forward to learning more and building up my EXB with Castle power.
 
robert@castle said:
The amps are not imaginary. We have very accurate current sensing resistors in the PCB along with a high speed 14 bit ADC. I'm not going to say with the max reading is, but I highly doubt anyone will ever be able hit it. We have tested and verified that it is correct well in excess of 500 amps. Also it has a much higher resolution in the datalogs than any other product we have ever made. You should see logs with a resolution steps of 0.1 amps.
Click to expand...
Nice work at Team Castle.

I just ordered the XL X 2 1100kv combo to add to my four other larger scale Castle setups. Going to sell some Spektrum Firma real soon.

Again, great work.
 
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