KRATON 8S SMART battery problem

[nathan werkhoven]

Hello everyone first post here, wondering if I could get some help

I just purchased a Kraton 8s from a hobby store I deal with. I got about 10 runs into it (nothing seroius just some very small jumps and off roading) and now my Dx3 transmitter which came with the truck flashes all 4 of the SMART battery LED lights at me and the trucks motor shuts off but steering stays on, I use Spektrum electronics that came stock and 2 4s new Spectrum batteries. Any ideas on what this means and maybe how to fix it?

Thanks for any help!

 

[SrC]

Did this happen during a run, with motor and esc hot, or upon first starting a fresh run?
I know its obvious, but did you check the TX batteries?
I would re bind the TX to the RX, and then recalibrate the radio to your ESC TH and ST inputs. Manual states these procedures well enough..
Those 4 lights are used primarily for Telemetry smart signals. Check that the TH leads to the Telem. port on the Rx is correct and did not come off.
Just some ideas. Others may chime in with better exper.
Welcome to AF.

 

[@RRMAL1F3]

I am having the same issue. Brand new Smart-enabled batteries. I have tried resetting everything to factory defaults, battery charge says 90+%... I had non-smart batteries installed previously and it seemed to work ok- I am wondering if I should just dyke off the smart sensors to see if the lights will go away. Also of note- the car functions fine for about 15 seconds, but the throttle does not work after that time. Could have multiple issues going on? Please help! Truck has only had about 30 minutes of runtime total.

 

[SrC]

Welcome to AF.

30 min. run time? that new...

I would rebind the Rx/TX . Then recalibrate to the ESC. Use the manual.?‍
Others may chime in with more info. than I.

Edit: as far as batteries, 90% of capacity should operate fine.

 

[@RRMAL1F3]

Welcome to AF.

30 min. run time? that new...

I would rebind the Rx/TX . Then recalibrate to the ESC. Use the manual.?‍
Others may chime in with more info. than I.

Edit: as far as batteries, 90% of capacity should operate fine.

I did those things first; tried resetting factory settings as well.

 

[SrC]

Disconnecting the sensors at the Rx's Bus port would be the way to do this for testing.

 

[FriedOne]

Hi Guys,
I just went through this same issue. Took me a while to figure it out. I would charge my batteries with my smart charger S2100. Will head out and power up and my transmitter would flash all 4 leds and beep constantly. Could not figure out what was going on. I ended up picking up the Spektrum cell checker and found that one of my cells of my battery was bad. Now the kicker is that my charger did not pick up on the bad cell and was saying that all cells were good at 4.20 vdc or pretty close to it when in reality one cell was reading at 2.51vdc. The battery/charger was giving a false positive on the reading. My hobby store replaced the battery which had 11 charge cycles put through it. My truck has been running perfectly since the battery swap.
Hope this helps give you a direction to troubleshoot.

 

[@RRMAL1F3]

Hi Guys,
I just went through this same issue. Took me a while to figure it out. I would charge my batteries with my smart charger S2100. Will head out and power up and my transmitter would flash all 4 leds and beep constantly. Could not figure out what was going on. I ended up picking up the Spektrum cell checker and found that one of my cells of my battery was bad. Now the kicker is that my charger did not pick up on the bad cell and was saying that all cells were good at 4.20 vdc or pretty close to it when in reality one cell was reading at 2.51vdc. The battery/charger was giving a false positive on the reading. My hobby store replaced the battery which had 11 charge cycles put through it. My truck has been running perfectly since the battery swap.
Hope this helps give you a direction to troubleshoot.

I'll use multimeter to test the individual cell voltages tonight and let you know. Thanks!

 

[L3phturn]

I'll use multimeter to test the individual cell voltages tonight and let you know. Thanks!

Your charger man not be reading it wrong. Load plays a part here. I had a LIon battery that came with my son's little 1/18 Rampage that did the same thing. It would charge up to target voltage normally and a voltage checker would read the right target voltage after charging and even an hour or two later. It was fine with no load on it, but the minute you put some amp draw on it that cell would crash to below 3v. You could charge and balance it again just fine but again any load and it would drop. I discharged and got rid of it safely.

My bet is a bad cell that charges just fine but drops under load drastically. Pick up a 5 pack of the little voltage checker/alarms from Amazon, set the alarm to 3.4v per cell and leave one connected to the balance lead as you run the battery. I bet the second you pull the trigger the voltage on one of those cells crashes. Take the pack back to the hobby shop and show them with your voltage checker. They will replace them I am certain.

I don't have that transmitter and system but I know Spektrum has an app for that smart system. You may be able to view the voltage of individual cells on the app in that case so you can see what is happening. Anyone have that setup that can confirm or deny?

 

[Jimbobjr]

The next batteries you get I’d just go with regular dumb batteries. I’m just going by what I read on the forum this past year, but there seemed to be trouble with these from the very beginning. Charging, running, tx flashing etc...

 

[@RRMAL1F3]

The next batteries you get I’d just go with regular dumb batteries. I’m just going by what I read on the forum this past year, but there seemed to be trouble with these from the very beginning. Charging, running, tx flashing etc...

Do you think if I just cap the wire that provides the 'smart' data on that battery, it will simply think i've installed a non-smart enabled battery? That is being seriously considered as a solution

 

[L3phturn]

Do you think if I just cap the wire that provides the 'smart' data on that battery, it will simply think i've installed a non-smart enabled battery? That is being seriously considered as a solution

I would only do that if you have the voltage alarm/checker so you can monitor it. It's fine to diagnose the problem but I would not recommend doing multiple charge/discharge cycles if there could be a bad cell in there. Do it to test if you like but don't just run it. You might find it stops anyway if overall voltage is dropping low enough.

 

[jkflow]

Don't be to fast clipping stuff until you understand the issue. You still have warranty as well, I presume. You cut and warranty is null and void.
By all means, maybe your SMART stuff is preventing a disaster.
You could get an adapter that simply doesn't connect the smart wire to try your theory.

Sounds like a weak cell to be honest, I've read before where people were having ssues on the 8S version. Batteries were simply not capable enough.

 

[Jimbobjr]

Do you think if I just cap the wire that provides the 'smart' data on that battery, it will simply think i've installed a non-smart enabled battery? That is being seriously considered as a solution

I'm not familiar with the smart batteries too much. I would only clip the batterery smart wire as the very last resort. As @jkflow says above the k8s is pretty demanding on batteries. I have puffed several batteries with my k8s. With the smart plug, it seems to pick up any little issue you might have and stop the car. That might save your battery but leave you scratching your head as to whats going on. I just bought two powerhobby 7200mah 100c packs and will see shortly how they do. If they are not up to the task I may order the new smc gen2 packs whenever they come back in stock.

 

[L3phturn]

It is also possible that the Spektrum batteries just simply can’t handle the amp draw. Better to have them fail the system so you can have them replaced than to wait until the batteries puff.

 

[Jimbobjr]

It is also possible that the Spektrum batteries just simply can’t handle the amp draw. Better to have them fail the system so you can have them replaced than to wait until the batteries puff.

I agree, maybe save the batteries for a track buggy, but if that's the case it would be a shame. Spektrum is really pushing to sell the batteries and charger with their cars. its a great idea but for bashing abuse the low tech esc and batteries might be better. Idk..i wonder how the big Losi's do with this esc and smart batteries.

 

[aametzger]

I just had a similar issue with my outcast 8s. I got it a few weeks ago as a present and when my wife got it they only had the 50c 4s packs available at the LHS (she knew I wanted the spektrum batteries). I had been running the 50c packs fine for 2 weeks but wanted the extra punch of the 100c because I noticed a decent difference in my mojave over the 50c's I was running previously. I ordered 2 100c packs from Amain and got them today. I charged them and put them in the truck and when I turned it on, all 4 lights flashed, synced green for a sec and then started to beep differently than normal, and began to drop down to 1 green light. I tried running it and it was much slower than normal, within a min or less it went down to lvc and mode and started beeping. I put them back on the charger and they were not really low at all (4.16 per cell). I recharged them again to full ( all looked good from the charger standpoint -spektrum 2100) so I threw them back in the truck and same deal. I called amain and they said they were going to have a tech call me back tomorrow. After thinking a bit I decided to temporarily connect a known good 50c alongside each one of the new 100c's one at a time. Sure enough I found that one of the 2 new ones was causing the issue. One would light up all 4 lights like normal, but as soon as I hooked up the bad one(paired with the good 50c) it gave the same lvc behavior pretty quickly. I didn't run the truck, just light throttle while on the workstand. The issue is likely what was mentioned earlier in this post, that there is a bad cell that only shows when you try to use it vs just charging it. You would think that the smart charger would have a way to detect that but I guess not. The main reason I stuck with the smart batteries is I really like the battery meter on the controller and the beep warning when approaching LVC. I don't want do a big jump and then loose power in air and crash unnecessarily. ( I do that enough on my own )

 

[L3phturn]

This is why I am not impressed with the “smart” technology. If you are reduced to LVC and trying to make sense of the ESC beeps you might as well be running a regular dumb battery for half the cost.

Buy a 5 pack of cheap voltage checker/alarms and plug them in to the balance leads. Set the alarm for 3.5v per cell and secure them with your Velcro straps or zip ties for running. That will do a lot more for you than the smart tech.

Someone should be building balance lead connectors with telemetry into their electronics and chargers.That would be smart.

I’ll leave aside the fact that you paid so much for Spektrum smart batteries that cane with a bad cell. That shouldn’t happen.

 

[jkflow]

Very bad idea to place different pack types in parallel. For debug it’s ok but don’t do this and run to lvc or similar.
Note that there is no such thing as a 100 C pack, simply impossible to build I.e. neither is as advertised. That is an industry issue though. Seems like there is a current issue with these smart packs, seen others report these issues.

 

[aametzger]

Very bad idea to place different pack types in parallel. For debug it’s ok but don’t do this and run to lvc or similar.
Note that there is no such thing as a 100 C pack, simply impossible to build I.e. neither is as advertised. That is an industry issue though. Seems like there is a current issue with these smart packs, seen others report these issues.

I agree 100% about not using different packs. That's the reason I stated that I did not run it and only connected on workbench for testing. Thanks for clarifying for anyone that may have read it differently.

This is why I am not impressed with the “smart” technology. If you are reduced to LVC and trying to make sense of the ESC beeps you might as well be running a regular dumb battery for half the cost.

Buy a 5 pack of cheap voltage checker/alarms and plug them in to the balance leads. Set the alarm for 3.5v per cell and secure them with your Velcro straps or zip ties for running. That will do a lot more for you than the smart tech.

Someone should be building balance lead connectors with telemetry into their electronics and chargers.That would be smart.

I’ll leave aside the fact that you paid so much for Spektrum smart batteries that cane with a bad cell. That shouldn’t happen.

Yea the voltage checker alarms are great if you have the truck near you. I like that the controller is what beeps which is in my hand so it can hear it regardless of where the truck is. It definitely sucks that I got a bad battery, but to be honest that could happen with any battery vendor. How the mfg deals with issue is the real important thing.