Castle Ice controllers

[ReddyWatts]

Castle must be using good solder, some will melt around 250F.

[Joe Ford]

It's lead free solder.

[ReddyWatts]

Lead-free solder alloys melt around 250 °C (482 °F), depending on their composition.

[Eric Bourlet]

Do they actualy glue the heat sink on or are they using a heat sink compound?

[mappo]

Joe this is the spark arrestor I was refering too...some have said use a 1 ohm resister instead of 20 for the 240 hv

what do your techs think of this setup?

if this works dont you think it should be factory installed?

1 ohm 5 watts is what CC recommends, any higher will trick the controller into a different lipo cut off value.

[Raydee]

I don't know but I like hearing the snap when I plug my 6s packs in...lets me know that the caps are charged. According to Patrick at Castle if you don't hear the POP then something is wrong.

[Joe Ford]

Do they actualy glue the heat sink on or are they using a heat sink compound? If they are glued I will skip the entire Castle idea and continue with the direction I am going now.

It's a 2 part thermal epoxy.

1 ohm 5 watts is what CC recommends, any higher will trick the controller into a different lipo cut off value.

Correct, but this is mainly due to the fact that higher ohm resistors will cause the ESC to improperly detect the # of cells you are using when the controller is in "auto-lipo" mode. Since the Hydras do not have this there's no worry, BUT we WILL be adding it so if you're going to do this mod it is best to use the 1 ohm 5W. However, it is not recommended with boats to use these simply because the spark you see on plug in lets you know if your capacitors are damaged or not. Spark = good caps, no spark = bad caps.

I don't know but I like hearing the snap when I plug my 6s packs in...lets me know that the caps are charged. According to Patrick at Castle if you don't hear the POP then something is wrong.

Correct...your caps are dead, and need to be replaced if you do not see a spark on plug in. The higher the voltage the bigger the pop should be.

[Eric Bourlet]

Are the Ice 100s conformal coated? I have one on the way.

[Steven Vaccaro]

Are the Ice 100s conformal coated? I have one on the way.

No you will have to coat it or use corrosion x. I use corrosion x. You will also need a Pistix.

[Steven Vaccaro]

I got to play with my Ice 200 last weekend, Its a pretty mild setup.

H&M Drifter M
Lehner 2250 1250kv
Castle Creations Ice 200 with corrosion x and pistix.
6s lipo 25c 5000mah
prather s245.

After the full depletion of the packs. I can say I'm so far happy with the the Ice 200. The esc was in the low 90's degree f, The motor in the high 80's.

One strange thing was that the motor or esc makes a interesting sound when slowing down. Sort of like a turbine. Its kinda cool.

[Eric Bourlet]

No you will have to coat it or use corrosion x. I use corrosion x. You will also need a Pistix.

Thanks Steve, Don't need the Pistix as while I drive buggies with a wheel and learned R/C with a wheel , I prefer a stick transmitter for boats; better throttle management. I'll pick up a can of conformal coating.

[Eric Bourlet]

Whoo Hoo, got the ICE 100 today and figured out how to water cool it. Going to mill out one heat sink fin on each side, bond aluminum over the top of that to make a channel, bond water fittings in the end of the channel created by the first two steps. This gives me direct water to heat sink interface for maximum heat transfer. Used Silicone conformal coating on boards by removing the plastic end caps carefully and applying with small brush. Then reattaching plastic end caps using the Castle stickers the same way Castle does. As soon as I get it done I will post photos if anyone is interested.

[sailr]

Yes, pics please.

Whoo Hoo, got the ICE 100 today and figured out how to water cool it. Going to mill out one heat sink fin on each side, bond aluminum over the top of that to make a channel, bond water fittings in the end of the channel created by the first two steps. This gives me direct water to heat sink interface for maximum heat transfer. Used Silicone conformal coating on boards by removing the plastic end caps carefully and applying with small brush. Then reattaching plastic end caps using the Castle stickers the same way Castle does. As soon as I get it done I will post photos if anyone is interested.

[electric]

I was reading through this thread and something caught my eye. 250 degrees on an ESC and it is still working? How is this possible? How come we are all worrying about our water cooled marine esc's hitting 150's yet this ICE ESC is working at 250?!? Is this true? Then why are we not using these instead of the current world of esc's we are all using which seem to fail at a much lower temp? Hmmm..

[BakedMopar]

IME the temps that are said are from the data logger. The temp sensor is directly on the pc board or fets which reads much higher than the outside temps. There is usually a 30 degree difference between what I temp on the heatsink and what is on the data logger.

With that being said I still agree on what your impying. These thing are awesome.