A new motor might be coming sooner than I thought.

[ling427ttvette]

I was out bashing just a little bit ago taking some video and what not.. and as I was going I ran something over. I drove the R/C over to it and then I examined what it was.. it was a battery hold down out of a 1:1 car. Odd thing to hit, so I threw it off to the side and went to go.. nothing.

The ESC is putting out a little over 9v in forward and reverse, and I tried to re-program it with no results. The motor occasionally makes a little noise for a split second, but does nothing.

What do you guys think happened?

Pretty sure I've also decided on the Velineon system from Traxxas.. thought about the Mamba 5700 system but I'm really not sure yet. Have to change the gearing and monitor motor temps closely to make sure everything is good. The Velineon system drops in with the stock gearing and you don't have to worry about it.

[Donziikid]

You should always monitor your temperature and gearing, no matter what ESC and motor combination you go with. Any harmful temperatures will destroy your electronics within an instant and they typically are not savable at this level of destruction. I think with either system you go with, you should always monitor your temperature, gearing and driving habits, even if it comes stock with the RC. A lot of people swear by both systems, so I don't think you'll have any worries with either.

Is this motor the stock Titan 12T 550?

Cheers,
Kyle.

[ling427ttvette]

Yeah, it's the stock Titan motor. Just took it out of the transmission and tried to free spin it and it still has nothing.

I probably should monitor my temps, been thinking about investing in a temp gun to monitor things.

Anyone here have the Mamba 5700 system in one of these? What gears do you run?

I've been doing a ton of reading on the Traxxas forums as well, going to go read around some more and see what guys are running. The mamba system is only about $40 more than the Velineon.

How much fun would either of these be with 8.4v NiMH batteries? I plan to go Li-Po eventually.. but that won't be for a while as that requires another charger and is not cheap.

Edit: Just found out, the guy didn't put the stock gearing back in. Stock is 18/86 if I remember right. This has 23/86. That means the motor had a bit more of a load on it if I'm thinking properly, is it possible that it was fried from the gearing?

[Donziikid]

Then the motor is probably toast, not your ESC. Titan 550's are notorious for just crapping out for no apperant reason. Since it's a sealed can most people don't tend to investigate. The major speculation is the brushes are just cheap and deteriorate, leading to bad connection and eventually failing. Sadly, I don't believe there is much you can do but buy another motor (I recommend a 17DT) or invest in another system (brushless).

Temperature guns are good. Fancy, too.

Go with Mamba if you can afford the other $40. Unlike the Velenion (at least to my knowledge), the Mamba is programable for brake, throttle curves and many other features you may find useful some day.

8.4V (or 7-cell) is typically the first person step into brushless and typical some peoples last. I know people at the track who swear by their trusty, non-exploding NiMH 8.4V packs. They give you a great amount of punch over 7.2V as well as a longer run time. Plus they're less expensive than LiPo.

To your edit: yes, that is a possibility. By gearing to tall (high tooth pinion and lower tooth spur) you may have overheated the motor and caused it to fail. This could also lead to ESC problems, but I doubt it went that far in your case. As I said early, I just think the motor took a crap like the rest of the unreliable Titan 12Ts. Lol.

Cheers,
Kyle.

[ling427ttvette]

I want the guys who know these better than me to check this over and make sure it's good before I get it:

Mamba 5700 system

It says it comes with the USB cord, setup disk and what not.. that's all I should need for programming right?

Edit: That kind of ****es me off about the Titan being known to randomly crap out. It's my excuse to go brushless though so I guess I should be happy right? I'm just not too happy about the down time.

[Donziikid]

That's all you need. Pretty nice that it's all in one auction.

The ESC has a built in USB plug on the side of it. The USB cord supplied in that auction has the plug for your computer and the plug for your ESC. All you'll need to do is install the software (found on the CD included) and see what you wanna do. The instructions will spell everything out for you (also included in the auction) and there are always the Castle Creation Techs who will be glad to help you. They're really great guys, I've used them numerous times.

Oh, there are also firmware updates available through Castle Creations. Check out their site.

Cheers,
Kyle.

[ling427ttvette]

Another one, it's used though.. thoughts?

Clicky. ^^

[zippo855]

sounds like it would be a good deal, at 115 he includes a whole bunch of stuff. thats always a plus.

[Donziikid]

My only problem is that it is used. Yeah, he may be including a lot of stuff, but I will always resort to buying used as a last resource if I can't find it anywhere else. I've always had the worst of luck buying used, especially things electronic and as sophisticated as a programmable ESC.

It's a good deal, yeah, but something always goes wrong when I buy used. Always your call since it is infact your money.

Cheers,
Kyle.

[ling427ttvette]

That's the same problem I'm having, is that it's used. I would much rather be able to buy it used from a person I know, in person.. so that way I could atleast see it run first or something.

I'll probably go with the first one posted.

[amorton94]

Yah Mamba's are good. And I know the worlds cheapest 7.4v 20c lipo . And a good charger and balancer set up would run you ar least $130ish. Good luck with the Mamba, sorry to hear about your crappy motor.

[ling427ttvette]

Got the Mamba ordered this morning. I got it from RC Superstore for $175 shipped and should be here in about two days as I told them to send it Fed Ex.. and the main hub that delivers the packages to my terminal is in Kansas City and they are in Olathe which is right next to them. I'm in Wichita now at the dentist.. went to Hobby Town USA and got some 16, 17 and 18t pinions along with another 86t spur for back-up. Also picked up a set of four claw dog tires for it there. Can't wait to get home and mount them up and now I wait for the real power.

[ling427ttvette]

Think these will help me with traction?









Need to trim the front of the body even more now. These things are very very wide for the wheels, might see how they handle and judge if I get different wheels or not.

[Donziikid]

Now that's a lot of rubber! Should handle like a dream now!

[ling427ttvette]

I'm hoping this helps with the rolling over problem.. I should probably also slow down some.

According to Fed Ex's website, the Mamba will be here tomorrow.. which means I will have it first thing in the morning as it gets un-loaded from the trailer. WOOHOO!!

[Donziikid]

Originally Posted by ling427ttvette

I'm hoping this helps with the rolling over problem.. I should probably also slow down some.

Well, that can be double sided. Now you may not flip over from the thin tires and the weight just throwing you over the edge, but you may flip over from too much traction (aka the wonderful world of traction rolling). Either way, flips are always cool to see as long as they don't break anything.

Give us a video once your Mamba gets here!

Cheers,
Kyle.

[ling427ttvette]

Yeah, these tires do not provide enough traction to traction flip.

Went for it's first maiden voyage, the motor quickly showed me the worn outness of my old spur gear. Good thing I got another while I was at the hobby shop.

Put it in and went for another run. With probably half a charge on the battery, all it did was boil the rear tires on the brick road out front. In the dirt, you did NOT want to stand behind this thing.

I probably need to get better batteries to handle the power draw from this thing, my battery was very hot after the run. The motor did get warm too, I don't have a temp gun yet.. need to get one. It wasn't so hot I couldn't touch it, but it was warmer than it felt it should be.

Letting the battery cool, going to charge it back up and run it again later on. Still need to get more TRX connectors so I can run both batteries again..

[ling427ttvette]

Went for my second run with a full battery, going at half throttle I can punch it and the truck will just kick sideways because it instantly spins the tires.

If I was on the stock Slash tires there is NO way it would handle the power, let alone stay wheels down. These new tires have helped the rolling quite a bit, but they just do not provide the traction I need. I wonder if I could wheelie if I had tires that gripped..

Anyone have recommendations for good on-road tires? I plan to get wheels with them as well so I will have a couple sets depending on what I decide to drive on.

[zippo855]

sounds like this this is turning into a beast. definately get some videos, i know how the brushless acts in the propulse, i cant imagine what it does in that.

[amorton94]

Well since you have brushless, I would recommend finding a good, cheap tire. You're going to go through a lot of them. Have fun. I am looking forward to getting a slash, but I think I'll end up getting the smaller 4wd one. But I'll end up getting both eventually. Look around hobby king, they have a bunch of good, cheap lipo's and chargers. Then you could get that thing going wicked fast. But hurry up and get those videos! I want to see this thing in action!