Fightercat 950 Q build

[dana]

yeah i see what you mean. and its a nice mount. would kinda stink to cut it, to get batteries in there…. but the added weight would be nice

[srislash]

Glad to hear there is room for 6s.I like lots of room for options.

[tiqueman]

I modded the strut bracket to allow the strut to be moved about an inch or a bit more forward. This got the prop a lot closer to inline with the rudder. Its still a bit behind it though. You can see from the pics how far it moved. the shaft is installed in pic one before I cut it to teh modified length. Now, its hard to tell, but I think its made an improvement. I cant push it hard at all today as we have 25+ mph steady winds w/ gusts appoaching 30. But it seems more preditable even for the conditions it was running in. I blew it over once into the wind at about half throttle. Then I rolled it twice while turning with the wind. Once was extremely violent. I shot some video with my phone in one hand and controller in the other, Im not sure if Im going to upload it, its pretty bad. Multi tasking driving an extreme boat in extreme conditions one handed while trying to shoot vids w/ a phone, usually something doesnt turn out well. In this case, thankfully it was the video that went bad. I changed from the 442 up to a back cut M445. Speed was great, motor didnt seem to mind it, esc wasnt having it. After the vid I decided to run 2 more laps as fast as I felt I could push it in the water conditions. Coming down the back stretch it slowly lost power, not like the lvc kicked in but like it was getting weaker and weaker. I immediately backed off and turned it towards where I was standing and it went to almost a stop and I let completely off. I then tapped the throttle and it seemed ok, but I babied it in anyway. about a 3 minute walk home, pull the hatch, the motor was in the low 130s, the caps on the esc were 158 and theres brown goo all over. The clear shrink wrap around the 3 caps is melted and broken and all 3 caps look bulged on top but no puff on the sides. Im going to play Dr and remove the 3 factory caps and install 6 new ones. I hope I have 6 left. If all goes well Ill get her back out a couple more times this weekend. We may be meeting at my house tomorrow for the club meet since the wind is so bad. My test pond is pretty well protected. But we may have rain tomorrow so that may kill the whole thing.

[tiqueman]

I uploaded it anyway, dont poke me for the crappy vid... its bad, real bad.

[bill34207]

Holy crap Scott. It's looking pretty choppy even on your pond. Think I'll let it go at charging packs for the little hydro just so I can get it wet but not going to charge up for a bunch of boats though.

[tiqueman]

Ill have my pursuit back together. Working on it now. Monos should be pretty good out there. Hydros aren't going to like it much at all. Your sprintcat will be okay for the most part.

[bill34207]

Ok I'll charge a set for the P and bring it along. I'll bring along the cat too so you can see it in person. Sprintcat I'll wait until we can run at Ackeman with. It's a pain in the butt having to pull the rudder on it to service the shaft and not wanting to mess with outting it back together for the current weather conditions. (rather spend the time working on the DF cat) I don't really expect the hydro to like it. Mostly wanting to check it for leaks and operating temps with the 42/55 prop that my VS1 didn't like.

[tiqueman]

Sounds good.

[HYDROJERRY]

whow thats some rough windy water,, ran good thow..

[srislash]

That vid wasn't too bad considering its hard to run and do anything else.One of the vid junkies up here mounts his GoPro to the bottom of the transmitter with good results.BTW my Gieco was pulling all of 180 amps with a M445 on the logger with a 1515 on 4s.I found a fair amount of improvement on the caps by taking a couple of inches of wire out.

[carlcisneros]

tiqueman;
If you have a couple of the 4700uf caps that Ben carries, add them as well.
I use 2 of those each on my Sea King 180A ESC's and they run nice and cool.

Carl

Wish I could have set that unit up, but things are happening at work that are not nice right now.

[tiqueman]

I talked to Ben about it all today. he recommended the 1000uf 35V... I think thats what it was... whatever matches the stock. I ordered some from OSE today as bens outta stock. The problem with the larger ones are, yes, they will run it cooler, but sacrifice in Voltage drop as the batteries have to charge larger caps, plus keep the system fed. Its probably not a noticable difference, but Ill stick the 1000 35Vs on it. Ive got some of the large 50V 4700s, but Ben said no, so Ill keep them for something else.

[FighterCat57]

tiqueman;
If you have a couple of the 4700uf caps that Ben carries, add them as well.
I use 2 of those each on my Sea King 180A ESC's and they run nice and cool.

Carl

Wish I could have set that unit up, but things are happening at work that are not nice right now.

I talked to Ben about it all today. he recommended the 1000uf 35V... I think thats what it was... whatever matches the stock. I ordered some from OSE today as bens outta stock. The problem with the larger ones are, yes, they will run it cooler, but sacrifice in Voltage drop as the batteries have to charge larger caps, plus keep the system fed. Its probably not a noticable difference, but Ill stick the 1000 35Vs on it. Ive got some of the large 50V 4700s, but Ben said no, so Ill keep them for something else.

I'll keep this straight;

Since the three stock caps are problematic, they need to be replaced. Once they are replaced, there's two options; 1. to add two more stock sized caps to the ESC "bridged" between 1-2 and 2-3. This will all the ESC to pulse with three caps on each pulse. Alternatively, once the three stock caps are replaced, two big 4700uF caps can be added across the input leads. This is like stiffening the batteries. Different from attaching them to the pulse circuit. Which *might* do OK for a while or emergent use with the big 4700uF size caps, but since the ESC is designed around the 1000uF size, better to stick with the original design.

Hope this helps explain the two approaches. =)

PS- they can also be combined. After adding the two bridged caps, you can also add 2 or more of the 4700 uF caps across the power leads. As many as you like really.

[jj2003]

I'll keep this straight;

Since the three stock caps are problematic, they need to be replaced. Once they are replaced, there's two options; 1. to add two more stock sized caps to the ESC "bridged" between 1-2 and 2-3. This will all the ESC to pulse with three caps on each pulse. Alternatively, once the three stock caps are replaced, two big 4700uF caps can be added across the input leads. This is like stiffening the batteries. Different from attaching them to the pulse circuit. Which *might* do OK for a while or emergent use with the big 4700uF size caps, but since the ESC is designed around the 1000uF size, better to stick with the original design.

Hope this helps explain the two approaches. =)

PS- they can also be combined. After adding the two bridged caps, you can also add 2 or more of the 4700 uF caps across the power leads. As many as you like really.

Can you show pics of both step or maybe finished product?

[FighterCat57]

This is a standard ESC with 2 4700uF caps added to the power leads;

FighterCat Products 118.jpgFighterCat Products 119.jpg


This is the v 2.2 ESC with the additional caps from the factory;

The 4th and 5th caps on the end are soldered to the pos/neg terminals in between caps 1-2 and 2-3 in a serial fashion.

Seaking_180a_ESC_4e275eca22aa5.jpg