Castle Firmware 1.04

[greenblast]

Joe. i just smoked my hydra 120 i had been running a meanmachine with a 9xl with a 1442 on 14 ep 4500's with no heat at all. i went to 4s 5000 mah i ran one pass turned around ran one more was coming in when i saw smoke billowing.she was running on her tail and was screaming . i dont have my receipt the local shop was changing hands and the owner sold it to me cheap for cash.how should i go about replacement?up until now my hydra 120 was flawless.do i need a 240?

[greenblast]

joe i am not trying to beat you up on here. your product has been top notch. after the run i checked my prop and i am actually running a k40 prop and lipo 1 just took 950 mah.

[greenblast]

batt 2 toped off @949mah

[Fluid]

A good 4S pack will outperform top-notch Ni cells easily, as you saw in the improved performance of your boat. But you used up almost 1000 mAh in just two passes (20 seconds?) - something is way wrong. That would be well over 150 amps average draw, and the peaks would be far higher. The prop and motor are appropriate for the boat and voltage but you are drawing a lot of amps. I assume you are running 1P - if you have 2P then your amp draw would be twice that.

I recommend the 240 for large-format motors like the XL series. You would probably be okay with the 120 until you overproped or ran too long or picked up a few weeds - then



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[greenblast]

fluid thanks for the reply. i agree something went way wrong i had run my ep 4500 on this exact setup probably 20 times and pulled about 2700 mah in 3 to 4 min pretty consistently(sp) i run a cooling fan she was taped up for a while before the run and still hooked up after run for approx 5 min.i have never ran so little boat in the water. it was sick! i am not happy about the fire but i am pumped about the speed. i cant afford to do this again lol.i run wire drive it was running free. iwould say the run was about 1 min total between checking the radio and the runs.i am not looking to blame anyone only looking for solutions. i know you are the mm guru so i am all ears so thank you for any input. Don

[Joe Ford]

14 cell NiMH voltage drop is considerable as mentioned. A 4s lipo pack is the equivalent of about 15-16 cell NiMH. With voltage being higher, staying higher under load, etc...if you didn't change your prop that's what killed it. Much higher current if you increase voltage but don't compensate by changing something else. Send it in to us though. They all have a core value no matter what the damage. Flat rate replacement and we pay shipping back. $105 for a new one. Use this form and we'll get you fixed up. http://www.castlecreations.com/support/repairs.html

[greenblast]

joe, thanks for the response. would adding caps to the new one be helpful? is this something castle does?i am still trying to find what went wrong.people run larger props on this set up.442 445 545 cog was approx 8.25 strut was 1/4 above rear sponsons slight angle up.maybe my motor cooked and caused the problem she made a thump as the carnage happend.

[Fluid]

A motor that has over-temped will be de-magnetized and lose a lot of efficiency - it will act like a lower-turn motor as far as the ESC is concerned. This will cause the ESC to work harder and eventually fail - don't ask how I know this(!). The Feigao motors are more prone to heat damage than Hackers or Lehners, which are more prone than Neus. Heat up a Feiago to 150F or more and you can expect some magnet damage. It is cummulative damage so it may not show up until several over-temps. Note that water cooling does little to protect the magnets from heat, a fact to which many boaters seem oblivious.



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[bustitup]

Flat rate replacement and we pay shipping back. $105 for a new one. Use this form and we'll get you fixed up. http://www.castlecreations.com/support/repairs.html

this is one policy that can not be beat

[Fluid]

I did and also advanced the throttle trim all the way and still couldn't get a solid red....

Joe Ford posted the following some months ago, I copied it into a Word file on my computer. I hope Joe won't mind me re-posting it in part here.

When updating from version 1.03 to 1.04 you MUST recalibrate. Failure to do so will cause the controller to not reach FULL THROTTLE (as indicated by the LED not going to a steady ON).

The customers who are using v1.04, and feel it has caused their boats to slow down and temps to increase are probably split into two camps.

1) Those who forgot to recalibrate their unit after updating. These guys would likely see a very dramatic decrease in speed as a result of not reaching full throttle. They also would probably see an increase in temperature because they were consistently running at 90% throttle.

2) Those who calibrated their unit and noticed a decrease in top end. This was probably accompanied by lower ESC and motor temperatures. This was caused by the timing being 'fixed'....if the user sets their timing to 'Highest' on v1.04, the unit should run exactly as it did using the v1.03 firmware.



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[domwilson]

I lost my instructions for recalibrating. Does anyone have the procedure?

[Ub Hauled]

Tx on and main power off...
full throttle on Tx and then power the ESC
wait for series of beeps, after the series of beeps there will be a steady beep about a second apart...
go to full break and wait for the series of beeps again, after the series of beeps there will be a steady beep about a second apart... go to neutral (just let go of the throttle on the pistol grip) and wait for a series of beeps...
there will be a brief pause and some more beeps,
it's REALLY important that the final beeps happen, it's the saving of the calibration...
once it stops making beeps, it's good to go and also saved for the next times you run, you may power down or go run.

[domwilson]

Thank you.

[greenblast]

recalibrating was a piece of cake .i had solid red on the controller.about 30 mins before the run i used my castle link to change the lvc and was instructed there was a newer version so i joined the mailing list and downloaded it saved the new setting.recalibrated and off i went.i am leaning toward culimative damage in the esc or motor.and stupidity on my part lol.

[Fluid]

Note that the maximum timing setting on the 1.04 version is 16.25 degrees of advance. This is too much for most applications, Joe mentioned it because with the 1.03 version the "low" timing was actually 16.25 degrees. I'd set it on low or medium with 1.04 and go no higher unless I wanted to do short SAW runs. Or you can use the "custom" setting with the CastleLink....I set the advance to 1 degree with my Neu "D" wind motors.


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