Anyone know if a Turnigy 35A ESC is enough?

[JackBlack26]

I bought one of these boats, Widowmaker, on eBay pretty much new, but the ESC had burned and been removed for $90. The stock ESC says it's 30 amp and I don't want to spend to much on it so I was wondering if any one had any idea if this would be ok for this boat on 2S.
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=7377

Thanks
Rafael

[tunnelvision]

So you were the one who outbid me on that boat..lol
Should work fine. I run the pro boat 2900kv and the seaking 35amp esc in my Aquacraft Rio and it works great. 36mm prop on 2 and 3s. That proboat esc will burn, does not have burst abilities like the seaking. Go get it!!

[JackBlack26]

Hahaha! Are you referring to the one from hobbmart?

Thanks for the input. I figured it would be enough and thought problem was with the stock ESC. Just thought I would ask before I bought it and found out the hard way that it couldn't keep
up.

[tunnelvision]

Yeah, the one from hobbemart! I have been trying to get one for over a month but do not want to spend more than 75 bucks for the hull. I am sure I will get one eventually..lol I want to put my the seaking in it with my grim 36x55. Then I will convert my Rio to the rescue rig.

[JackBlack26]

What size sea king are you planning on putting in one?

Honestly I bid on it thinking I would get outbid, like I always do when biding on Hobymart stuff. I didn't even check the auction till Tuesday and it ended on Sunday :P. Then I read the reviews on this forum and others and was completely bummed out about winning it:doh:. Saw videos of it and it skips along the water like crazy! But I figured for now WTH, I'll just keep it and mess with it a bit and try to tame it to where its drivable.

To start, I might even throw my spare Mamba Max in it without water cooling and see how hot the ESC gets. Considering it has 3 caps and its 100A continues rated it might do ok on 2S in this boat. By what I hear the motor in the Widowmaker is pretty efficient anyways. Worst case it will just thermal and shut down. If it works but is a tad to warm, I'll rig up a way to water cool it and save $50 on a lesser ESC.:thumbup:

[tunnelvision]

I have the 35amp that I plan on using in it. Got it for $34 from value hobby, great buy for the money. Also have a 60amp seaking but that's probably going in my supervee R soon so I can upgrade the motor.

I hear you can tame them down quite a bit with some strut adjustment. It does look like a fun boat for wave jumping if you ask me!! Good luck with it and let me know how you like it.

[JackBlack26]

Hmm, wave jumping does sound fun!

Thanks, and I sure will let you know.

[yellowbird]

Hi Jackblack26

I have a Shockwave 26 I converted to brushless using the Widowmaker motor this summer. As I needed to buy a brushless ESC I bought the Seaking 35A ESC, thinking it would be better than the ProBoat stock 30A ESC which a lot of people have had problems with burning up.

The 35A ESC ran fine with 6-cell NiCd and 8 cell NiMh packs and 2S lipo, using the Proboat plastic prop and an Octura replacement Y534 I got after the original prop broke. However when I got an Eagle Tree logger I found that the motor was actually drawing much more than 35A - up to 50A or so. The ESC has a "burst" rating much higher than 35A which was actually OK for my pond - I can't run for more than 10s at full speed anyway - but I decided to upgrade to the Seaking 60A ESC instead for peace of mind when I upgraded to a Y535 metal prop. However I do hear that the 35A ESC is conservatively rated and puts up with some abuse, so a good buy for <$30.

-yellowbird

[JackBlack26]

Thanks for the input, Yellowbird. For now I have decided to stay with the Mamba Max speed control in there. I ran 3 5000mah 2S packs back, to back, to back today with no water cooling to the ESC and I could hold my hand to the heatsink with out it burning my thumb, so it had to be under 100*. I forgot my temp gun. The boat is so small and light that I don't believe I will need a cooled ESC unless I upgrade to a bigger prop. The boat is already a handful as it is, so I think it will stay as it is and just get a metal version of the stock prop. I did break the stock prop and I threw in the one from my Apache. Don't know if it was a different one but I did notice a bit of change in speed. It seemed faster for some reason and it was kicking up more water. I'll post a video of it running in my other thread.

[yellowbird]

Hi JackBlack26

Just a thought, you could try adding a water cooling plate to your Mamba ESC for a bit more protection? OSE has these for ~$6

http://www.offshoreelectrics.com/proddetail.php?prod=ose-80678
http://www.offshoreelectrics.com/proddetail.php?prod=ose-80674

which you may be able to shrinkwrap or tie wrap on top of the existing heatsink for extra cooling.

- yellowbird

[JackBlack26]

Haha, I was going to be ghetto and just JB weld some tubing along the sides of each end, length wise, on the green heat sink:banana:

But seriously, I was going to take the ESC apart and see if I can get the stock heat sink off. If I can I'll put one of those over the FETs, attach it with heat transfer epoxy from Radio Shack, and shrink wrap it. Thanks:thumbup: