Low Voltage Fault

[copperz]

Hi, guys looking for some help here as I am a newb.
I got a Granite 3s with Spekrum 3s battery and smart charger. I bought them together assuming that the "smart" system will "talk" to each of the components. It appears that the charger talks to the battery just fine but the truck does not talk to the battery. I found out today that I have 2 low voltage faults on the battery now and yes, we did it run it all the way down twice as only the front wheels would turn with not forward or reverse.
I assumed that the ESC talked to the smart battery and would stop everything before a fault occurs. I guess I was wrong.
So how do I protect the battery? Is there a way that you can set it to stop driving before a fault occurs? How do you determine the battery status while driving it?

 

[SrC]

The Smart lipos are "Smart" in so far as charging them. Not with with the ESC and the LVC cutoff. If you had a Smart RTR radio such as the DX3 then lipo volts would be seen as 4 Leds on the radio indicating what is left in the Lipo. I don't think you have a RTR Smart radio with your 4x4. Probably have the SLT3. (not Smart) ESC goes into LVC when the overall voltage of the Lipo is below voltage threshold. Check your ESC settings for any possible LVC cutoff voltage adjustments. Read the ESC manual. Best to have a Spektrum Program Box for this.
ESC just simply sees the total volts of the lipo being connected to it. No ESC is not smart enough to know which cells are lower than others. All ESC's do this whether Smart or not. They just assume a cell is low, based on the average of total volts of all the cells it counts when the ESC initializes on start up.

 

[copperz]

So how do you know when to stop driving?

 

[GatorBait]

The Esc will first put the truck in low power mode and you should notice a significant drop off in top speed. You should stop using the current battery at this point . If you keep driving eventually the battery drops too low and it will cut the throttle completely so that you can only turn.
What is giving you the low voltage fault a Spektrum charger? And what are the readings on the cells?
You should also confirm the Esc is in lipo mode otherwise it will let you drive until you ruin the battery