Vinny bats
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Does anyone know if esc needs to be reprogrammed if you remove from arrma kraton blx 184 or is plug and play just received from arrma warranty issue
Kraton Updated Kraton Esc Question
- Thread starter justpassedu
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nwdm1537
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- Granite
Posting here since it's an ESC related question.. but tonight wanted to adjust my pinion and was having trouble getting the roll cage off, so unplugged the ESC fan and removed the cover to give the roll cage pins a bit more room. When I put it all back together and turned things on I noticed the fan wasn't turning. Is this normal? Should it run all the time, or only when the ESC hits a certain temp? I guess I never really paid attention to see, but now that I'm noticing it not running I'm a bit concerned I did something to it.. and the plug, should it be plugged in with the flat side facing out, or the side with the three notches facing out? I have the flat side facing away from the ESC now and am fairly certain that's how it was, but thought I'd ask.
Sorry for the lack of technical terms... but as always, the help is very much appreciated. Be well!
Sorry for the lack of technical terms... but as always, the help is very much appreciated. Be well!
Dreadstar
Active Member
Take a photo of the receiver please,it sounds like you haven't plugged the fan lead back in correctly.
justpassedu
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Uguessedit
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Id alsonlike to know if the Hobbywing program card works. After looking over the 185 it looks just like a quicrun. Im waiting for my 3rd esc and 2nd warranty to arrive after contending with issues myself. 1sg 185 lasted 1 hour on 6s. Im going to add extra capacitors on the battery side of m esc and aee of it helps.
This is the program card i ordered to see if it works. If not i will resell it.
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justpassedu
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I believe I read that it works with options 1-5 only but I did not hear more info on what card it was. Does anyone know if a single 5cell will be read by the 185x properly or would I need a 3cell & 2cell ?
Uguessedit
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I ordered a HW program card to try myself. It was $8 so figured why not. Also thinking of 5s myself as these don't seem to like 6s at all. I ran for an hour on my 185 before esc died on 6s. I plan ro add a cap pack as well.
Uguessedit
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Ive got it and everything is good to go. Version 2 bxl185 is in and hobbywing programmer. haven't had time to check all settings since im having issues blowing tires off on punch 1. Frustrated and a bottle of glue gone, lol.
justpassedu
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Uguessedit
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Im really satisfied so far with this esc. I didnt like the arc/pop initially plugging it in alghough i suspect that was just the caps charging up. I peaked through the cracks and they looked intact. Got it out and running yesterday and today and did a few nasty 30' jumps with 1/4 throttle on 6s. Love it. Believing this is it and problems solved it really kicks in gear and goes. I like this over Castle setups and it runs a lot cooler. Temps never got over 100. In fact every time i checked motor and esc i was around 95 degrees even and im running it hard. I will say i am not running the arrma motor. I have a ripper 2000kv in mine. I think even with 18/46 gearing i have room to gear up some. I may try 24/46 and see how that goes and temps. If i can find a good range where the motor is 130-140 i will probably leave it there. When i told Hobbico how cool it was running they werent at all surprised.
carman DeFelice
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not good.. i've ran all three of my updated arrma for at least 30 hrs and not an issue.. i would check your battery or your connections are not full contact.
justpassedu
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- #32
Temps are really dependent on so many things. The batteries , c rating , weather in your area , weight , tire size. I have to say I have not tried my blx185 yet but there is no way it's better than a castle setup. Castle already has it beat being that the blx185's internal bec is limited to 6v only. That's not to say it's a bad esc. I grabbed a hobby wing max 8 as a spare but I will most likely be running the 185 for awhile if I can figure out a way to up the bec voltage or add a external as if like my servo to run at full capacity.
Uguessedit
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You make some valid points: although 6v BEC is all i need myself for the servos i run and i already have ST rates turned down since im prone to over steer. Ive had an unhappy experience with Castle and i don't think theyre any better than these from personal experience or any other 150 amp ESC although did have bad experience with the 180 and version 1 of the 185. Version 2 is different. It responds and drives different than version 1. (At least in my experience) Version 1 i couldnt get a good punch control setting. On setting 1 i was double backflipping all the time. Any other setting was unusable. Not the case here this new Esc is very smooth and much easier to control. I ran it Quite awhile on two 3s 5500 mah batteries before ESC kicked in low battery mode (over an hour easily i do have high efficiency motor). The former ESC's didnt do this. Basically lets me drive at slow speed to return it to me unlike the others would just stop wherever it was at the time it hit the threshold. Temp conditions running 18/46 gearing, 43/13 ring/pinion, 80 deg day on asphalt, 4.5" tall tires, ripping up and down street locking brakes and doing spin outs and donuts and also taking runs through yard ripping up sod. Tires are more aggressive buggy tires and not road tires. Been monitoring consistently and motor, esc, batteries all doing well. I do have a heatsink and double fan on motor whether it's needed or not so that must be factored. Pretty consistently always under 100 degrees on motor and esc no matter how i drive it. I don't know how many degrees the temp can drop from the time i pull body clips and and check but thats about a 30 second window with fans running at idle. Anyways positive reviews. Whether its better than Castle or not i think comes down to a matter of personal opinion. Not a fan of Castles motors at all with their cheap abec 1 bearings and now all the knock offs being manufactured you have no idea what you might be receiving and really need to check if a reputable dealer before purchasing. Imo Castle is far overpriced for what you get and i have yet to see it outweigh the competition. Lots of youtube videos of other systems beating castle in races. Its not always getting what you pay for. Thats what manifactures and marketers want is to believe.
He probably has the version 1. Several are still out there. Arrma will make it right.
eti3000
Member
Dude. I sympathise.
Had/have the same probs. Straight out of the box! Spent €829 ( duo charger and lipo combo) on it before even starting. I was so angry. Wrote a long letter to the dealer and still waiting for a response. I wont excpect a replacement esc, but a new car. Find this attitude of sending things back that's poorly constructed or of low quality such a lot of non-sense. Im new to this hobby, but it is just the weirdest when companies seem to create some kind of value-added chain of consumables in critical areas of strength and expect the consumer to be happy under the veil of ' hobbying' it right. What happened to R&D and hobby-related construction experience
I had the same problem with a blx raider that i bought for a nephew of mine. Opened it up on christmas day and hardly ran for it for 15 mins until it bumped into a mole heap and out came the turnbuckle and dogbone. Well that was the end of the Christmas spirit. The look of dissapointment on his face could have written 3 tragedies. The festive period was spent trying to improve the thing. An initial investment of € 419 wasted (inclusive of charger and lipo) and not even factoring transport and duty fees(the car had to be couriered to South Africa). That car ran for close on two months and is currently standing on the shelf. The flawed design just didn't justify any further investmestment. After having dissapointed the kid i did extensive research and decided to purchase a kraton v2 because of its 'proven' durabilty...and for the hell it purchased one for myself ( plus charger and lipo combo). This is my first dabble in rc cars because i got a bit tired of quadcopters. Did a gentle 5 min test run on both with a 4S lipo. Both on the same factory settings. One needs to be sent to my nephew in South Africa. The one reacted normally whilst the other one had behaved less responsive and was erratic. To add salt to the wounds and really what generated suspicion was the flashing red light of the ESC. Im no newby to rc but a defective/flashing ESC has many origins. At some level it could also put the vehicle (and your investment) at risk: maybe causing a fire or leaving your car stranded in a compromising situation (eg maybe in oncoming traffic). To expect of a customer to be a diagnostic helpdesk off the bat witout being provided a clean slate to work from is asking a lot. You spend your hard-earned money on a product and get not even 10 minutes of joy out of it without abusing a product..How does that add up? If you purchased an i-phone and the screen was defective...don't you send it back for a refund or replacement. Isn't that part of any normal customer service? At present i spent €1760 including initialising costs (not even factoring time, transport and consumables) on the Arrma brand. Two of the three products are insuficient with one showing promise(holding my breath for this one). In honesty im loosing a bit of faith and this would be my last adventure into Arrma depending on the outcome.
Somewhere a bit of more R&D (read: stop cheaping out) needs to be done and note taken of customer relations and experiences! At some deep level i wish that there would be some kind of Board of Standards/Quality started in this industry for vehicles above a certain price level. Maybe a bit of honest advertising could also help. Im fully aware of the need to improve a vehicle according to your needs (and own faults) but settling for a dubious quality product aint exactly fair!
Im sorry for this rant (this is the first time i commented on any rc platform), but i guess it is most likely out of a desire to justify my purchases and to also belong to the group of hobbyist with a positive Arrma experience. I know theres a lot of fans out there and my sincere apologies
Etienne
May I know which program card you guys use for the blx185 v2 arrma vehicles? The one provided with the image seems not to have a 5s lipo cell option.
Therefore, if I want to run 5s? Which program card should I get and which setting on the lipo cell count should I set it to?
Any advice is appreciated as I bought 5s batteries and I'm Glad to be able to spot that 4s/6s and not 4s-6s. I hope that I'm able to purchase the program card before my batteries arrive.
Cheers
Therefore, if I want to run 5s? Which program card should I get and which setting on the lipo cell count should I set it to?
Any advice is appreciated as I bought 5s batteries and I'm Glad to be able to spot that 4s/6s and not 4s-6s. I hope that I'm able to purchase the program card before my batteries arrive.
Cheers
justpassedu
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None , the blx185 will not detect a 5s lipo and the program card will not work. The only program card that will work is the one without the lcd screen but only for certain features and some will not be able to be adjusted. I know this bc i have both program cards but sold my blx185 and now have a max8 for the reasons that it works perfect with 5s lipo and can be tuned with the cards.
Do you happen to have the link of the card that can work to program the lipo cell count please?
justpassedu
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It would be this one - https://www.amainhobbies.com/hobbyw...HuxWzXCk1uV3Ek6qcmsGOaC9TN5VsDGRoC9mcQAvD_BwE , but like i stated only certain features will work and you cannot run a 5cell battery with the blx185 esc , the only way you possibly may be able to run it with the esc is if you are able to turn off lipo detection on the esc it self so it is not seeing a 5cell battery. The esc was made not to detect 5s cells so try that or sell the battery and stick with 4s or 6s which is what the esc you are refereeing to can detect., i'd hate to see you waste anymore money.
Edit - sorry you would have to use nimh mode on the esc to run your 5 cell lipo , so this will not cutoff the battery if it gets to low , i recommend a external lipo alarm if running the 5s. It will not work in lipo mode with the blx185 and have no lvc .
Thank you for the link and you are right. I had been spending a lot of money in this rig and I hate to spend more money than I already have. So if I switched lipo to nimh, I would be able to cheat the detection and bypass the cell count. Would it damage my esc? I have heard about ppl mentioning lipo alarms. Is it cheap? And plug and play?
MeesterC
Very Active Member
Not sure about a 5s damaging your esc but with any Lipo if you run it lower than the recommended voltage you can destroy the battery. The battery can puff, heat up and possibly catch fire. Lipo alarms are fairly cheap, around $10 or so for ones with buzzers. The Lipo alarm is plug and play, they just plug into the balance lead off the battery. Yes you can bypass the Lipo low voltage by running the esc in nimh mode but you must run the external Lipo alarm to prevent any damage to the battery or you rig. You can purchase a Lipo alarm from Amazon, eBay and other places, just Google Lipo alarms.
