Senton Senton 3S slowed after running through the grass just fine.

[jondilly1974]

Sounds like like battery to me, but if not it’s the ESC.

 

[Dulb_D]

Ok, so 2 batteries used in todays run. The new one (3S 7600mAh 75C) lasted a bit longer maybe 5 minutes but then went to limp mode. I toggled the power on the car a couple times driving around another 5 minutes between the toggles and then switched the battery as by then the motor was getting hot but not to the 200 degree limit - hottest I read was 150 degrees today - and the low voltage warning thing hadn't come yet so still not sure when the battery has hit that or if that is causing the limp mode. I switched to the old 3S 5200mAh 50c and got the cutoff only once but I was going easier on the throttle working on cornering without rolling in a parking lot. Is it possible I am using full throttle too much? That's all I can think of other than this maybe being an ESC issue as both batteries are doing the same thing. At the end of the day I checked voltage. 3.86 on the new battery, 3.81 on the old one. I think I got ok run time though I didn't really time it.

 

[Camaroboy383]

Is your esc one of the newer ones with the caps in the wires? Wonder if it's a cap issue...

 

[Dulb_D]

Is your esc one of the newer ones with the caps in the wires? Wonder if it's a cap issue...

It's a BLX 100. Not sure what the caps are.

 

[Dulb_D]

Is your esc one of the newer ones with the caps in the wires? Wonder if it's a cap issue...

Mine does have something shrink-tubed in-line on the cable that connects to the battery. Is that what you are referring to?

 

[Camaroboy383]

Mine does have something shrink-tubed in-line on the cable that connects to the battery. Is that what you are referring to?

Yes those are the capacitors, (caps) .. the idea is they store power for larger surges of amperage needed.. so essentially the line doesn't starve.. as the length of the wire increased for some reason, they found it necessary to add the caps to compensate for the added wire from the way I'm looking at it... could be the issue, maybe they cannot take in as much as the esc requires..

Here is the messed up part, my typhon is doing the same thing and I never noticed it until last night... I thought the run times were average for the power it has, monitoring my battery last night on my charger and it was only half dead.. so my battery is only taking in the area of 2600mah and it's a 5200...

So I guess I'm in the same boat as you right now... I just never noticed..

 

[Dulb_D]

I thought the run times were average for the power it has, monitoring my battery last night on my charger and it was only half dead.. so my battery is only taking in the area of 2600mah and it's a 5200...

How did you take this determination on the charger? I have the Lectron Ac-dc10 and I don't see the mAh count. I'm sure it represented somehow but haven't figured that out yet. I do tell it what the battery is in mAh but it doesn't display that while charging. I brought the car into my LHS and they called Horizon and they are sending me a replacement esc.

Do you have a low voltage alarm connected to your battery when you run? I'd still like to try running it with that connected to see if the alarm goes off or is that why you are only using half your battery? The alarm is going off and you are thinking you've reached LVC but when you connect your battery to the charger it's only used half of the voltage that's usable before actual LVC?

 

[Camaroboy383]

My charger displays the mah count its put in.. its calling full with only 2600 in or so out of 5200.. for haha's I ran the packs through my outcast today, tossed them on charge after it called for lvc and sure enough both of them took all the 5200... so packs are good..

 

[jrude]

Any update on this? I think my sons Senton is doing the same thing. The truck runs great for a random time, and then it just stops moving. Sometimes it runs for 20 minutes, sometimes it runs for 30 seconds. The steering continues to work after it stops moving. I have felt the ESC and motor and they are not hot at all, neither the component nor the heat sink is hot. It is a Senton 3s BLX running on the same 2s Lecton 5200 mAh battery as you mentioned. Cycling the power switch on the truck makes it move again, until the next time. By cycling I mean we turn it off then immediately turn it back on, there is no cool down time.

Thanks.

 

[Dulb_D]

Update: I received a new ESC via Arrma warranty through my LHS and installed it and confirmed its settings. I ran the truck yesterday with the new ESC using the same two batteries (new -3 cycles) and unfortunately it did still go into limp mode a couple times - but maybe not as often. I had my LVA connected and it was alarming 2 minutes into the session again and especially during longer high throttle pulls. I'd stop and check my voltages and I'd be well above the actual programmed LVC of the ESC and the LVA. I also, as @jrude describes above, had a couple times where the vehicle plain seemed to shut down except for the steering servo - though before I lost all throttle, it seemed to stutter along very slowly a little then just die. The first time it did this the car ESC and motor were cool as I had just started off and like him, simply toggling the power resolved the issue but this is all is pretty annoying and I just don't understand what could be causing all these issues. A bad ESC made sense, that's been replaced - granted with another BLX100 of the same Gen as the faulty one but still... Also initially the thought that perhaps there was an issue with the first battery I got made sense but the second more powerful battery didn't seem to resolve anything either. So far I've spent $440 dollars on it and this truck seems very unreliable. I am surprised more owners on this forum haven't had issues or at least posted about them. I mean all I hear of is how durable this thing is. I see awesome bashing videos etc... All I've been doing is running this thing in parking lots or fields of short turf and it has never worked perfectly. I don't jump it or anything.

 

[jondilly1974]

Pretty sure you have a bad lipo or at least one that can’t provide enough current so the voltage is sagging and hitting LVC. Could also be a sh!tty connector too.

 

[Dulb_D]

Pretty sure you have a bad lipo or at least one that can’t provide enough current so the voltage is sagging and hitting LVC. Could also be a sh!tty connector too.

Well it would mean that I have two bad LiPos (3S 5200mAh 50c and 3S 7600mAh 75c) as I experience this regardless of the battery I use. Also the ESC side of the connector was replaced with the replacement ESC. I mean Arrma says 3S 5000mAh 35C is the minimum which, to me, means that 35C is lowest discharge rate that will work properly in this car. If it's not a high enough discharge rate then they should move up the minimum to what will work - especially since the discharge rate is theoretical they should err on the side of more than less, right?

 

[jrude]

I really can't see it as low voltage. One time our Senton stopped moving within 10 seconds of a fresh charged battery. The truck only went about 100 feet total.

I'm going to bet it is the receiver channel or trigger circuit in the transmitter, although the trigger circuit does not explain why cycling receiver power makes it run full speed again immediately within seconds of cycling receiver power. I do not get any LED showing on the ESC when the truck stops moving, and the ESC and heat sink are cool to the touch after a long time driving it.

The ESC could also be the problem, but I guess I'd have to datalog input and output voltages, and frankly I'm not really inclined to do that at this point.

I also bought this truck because it looks to be very mechanically durable, so I'm not sure if I would exchange it for a Slash and deal with mechanical fixes, or just install a new radio and ESC. I really just want my son to turn it on and use it without having to frequently cycle power during his RC club events. His friend's dad (my friend) in the same club just bought a Traxxas Rustler and in 3 weeks of ownership it's already broken shocks, a bumper, and something else I forgot, maybe it was an A arm.

 

[Dulb_D]

I really can't see it as low voltage. One time our Senton stopped moving within 10 seconds of a fresh charged battery. The truck only went about 100 feet total.

I'm going to bet it is the receiver channel or trigger circuit in the transmitter, although the trigger circuit does not explain why cycling receiver power makes it run full speed again immediately within seconds of cycling receiver power. I do not get any LED showing on the ESC when the truck stops moving, and the ESC and heat sink are cool to the touch after a long time driving it.

The ESC could also be the problem, but I guess I'd have to datalog input and output voltages, and frankly I'm not really inclined to do that at this point.

I also bought this truck because it looks to be very mechanically durable, so I'm not sure if I would exchange it for a Slash and deal with mechanical fixes, or just install a new radio and ESC. I really just want my son to turn it on and use it without having to frequently cycle power during his RC club events. His friend's dad (my friend) in the same club just bought a Traxxas Rustler and in 3 weeks of ownership it's already broken shocks, a bumper, and something else I forgot, maybe it was an A arm.

It's interesting that you are also running a Lectron battery. That's what I have. I may contact their support today and just see what they think of what's going on.

 

[jrude]

I really don't think it is the battery. We had to cycle power within 10 seconds of startup and then it ran full throttle with no problems for almost 20 minutes before we had to cycle power again. After cycling power a second time, it ran full throttle again for many more minutes.

Some notes based on other power or ESC problem thread I had read on the forum:

1. The truck does not slow down or shut off while it is moving, if it is moving it continues to move until we crash it or we stop it on our own
2. If the vehicle motion stops, and then we try to go again by giving it throttle from a dead stop, this is when it "stops moving", or really, won't begin moving from a standstill
3. We have the newer ESC with the hold up caps and longer wires and IC5 connector
4. There is no correlation of run time to the need for power cycling, it can run for 10 seconds, or 20 minutes, it appears to be random
5. There is never an alarm or LED from the ESC indicating a thermal shutdown
6. The motor and ESC are both cool to the touch when it "stops moving", IE won't start from a standstill. Both the heat sinks on the motor and ESC are cool to the touch when it "stops moving". I separate the component and the heat sink, because if the heat sink is not well attached to the component, then the compnent can be hot even though the heat sink is cool, but this is not the case, everything feels cool.
7. When the battery voltage gets low, the truck does slow down before it stops moving, but this does not correlate to the inability to move from a standstill

If this sounds overly specific, well, I'm an engineer, I design electronics, I spend lots of time root causing stuff that doesn't work right.

The problem, I believe, is in channel 2 either in the transmitter or receiver (either digital or in A/D), or is somewhere in the ESC.

 

[Dulb_D]

Yeah, well if I contact Arrma they are going to ask me to shoot a detailed video showing what's happening which I guess I will do next as I'm not real sure what to try from here and I am not going to just keep shoveling more money into this hobby until this is resolved. If nobody has offered a solution before then I'll update with the findings if any.

 

[jondilly1974]

A bad connection between the ESC and battery will cause this. Maybe there is a bad batch of connectors that Lectron received? Have you tried to run on an different brand lipo or a NiMH pack? It would quickly dispelled the battery as the issue.

 

[Dulb_D]

No I haven't tried that... I don't really have any money at this point to buy another battery just for testing purposes. I wish I'd tried another brand when getting the second battery but that's what my LHS carries and I was thinking getting a higher capacity and discharge battery would be a decent comparison to my first battery.

I may contact Lectron though and see what they think.

 

[jondilly1974]

No I haven't tried that... I don't really have any money at this point to buy another battery just for testing purposes. I wish I'd tried another brand when getting the second battery but that's what my LHS carries and I was thinking getting a higher capacity and discharge battery would be a decent comparison to my first battery.

I may contact Lectron though and see what they think.

Your LHS should be able to loan you a lipo for a run in the parking lot.

 

[bicketybam]

What type of connector is on the ESC? Is it the one it came with or has it been changed. If it's been changed, who soldered it? Are you using any adapters. The one thing that I find interesting is this:

I had my LVA connected and it was alarming 2 minutes into the session again and especially during longer high throttle pulls.

So the external alarm also detected a low voltage situation. So both the ESC are sensing a voltage drop.