ESC troubles

[kingwrench]

I am having some frustrating times. Swordfish 300 esc,s, any throttle application above 3/4 throttle the speed controllers shut off. Here is what I have two sordfish 300 pro, on 12s never had any issues, until I pulled the boat out of winter slumber last year and the frustration started. I replaced the speed controllers, sent the motors back to NEU they freshed them up but found nothing. tried a different rx on my airtronics system same issue. Here is where it gets fuzzy, I installed my futaba rx and I cant get the S/C 's to program correctly. I used the linker and program card to set low voltage cut off as low as possible, still no change both S/C at full throttle go to idle. I thinking set up of S/C since bot are doing the same thing, Any help is appreciated. The boat Current Problem is living up to her name!!! soon to be carbon dust!!!!

[Rocstar]

Lance, have you looked at the logs to see if anything unusual is happening? Is each side (motor and controller) isolated from the other?

[Rocstar]

Also, any chance you have a weak cell(s) or pack causing a voltage drop under load?

[kfxguy]

I think you have a bad battery (s)

[kingwrench]

I have not looked at the logs. And yes each side is isolated . I don't think it could be a battery. I'm pay pretty close attention to cell voltage. And it does it on both sides with any of my loaded battery's. I guess it could be a battery but I think the ODs are pretty slim.

[Rocstar]

If each side is isolated and both controllers are doing the same thing, probably not the batteries. When you hit full throttle, are they shutting down completely? Do the start up after setting for a second?

[kingwrench]

Joel they go off line for lack of a better word. during any throttle position over 75% if you back off they come back on she will buzz around 65-70 mph pull some throttle over 75% off. Let up a little comes instantly back on.

[flraptor07]

Check all the throttle settings on your Tx

[Rocstar]

It sounds like they are hitting the thermal cutoff. If the log temps are normal I would start over, reprogram and calibrate. Set the LVC to 2.5v (you know how long you can run), soft start, check your timing and PWM settings. I'm curious what the logs say about your throttle range.

[kingwrench]

I appreciate the info. I will check all the settings and run the logs. What pwm setting should I run I believe I set to 8. Always soft start and lvc set to min allowed.

[Rocstar]

Yes 8 PMW. Also, I've had issues with SF ESCs and HIGH KV motors in certain SAW applications. But you said you've ran them before without issue, so probably not your problem.

[Apophis]

Hey Lance,

I'm not sure if this is related or not, I run MGM controllers, but I saw you were using Airtronics and kind of having the same issue as me, maybe. Since I built my boat I was hitting a shut down, mostly when I would try and run my 447's, but it would do it with my 442's every now and then. I assumed I was hitting an overcurrent or something along those lines in my esc's, it's a hot setup, but my logs always looked good so I just let it go. I tried a couple weeks ago to run my 447's again and found getting into it really slow I could get her up to full speed, again just assuming I had been hitting a safety feature in my esc's before and I was getting around it by creeping into it.

Here's a shot of it shutting down...
Shut Down
Slowly getting into it....
Slow run up

I bought my MT-4 brand new and it came with a RX-461, the 461 has been in the box till last week, I bought a RX-371W that I have used since I built the boat. So, last week I decided I wanted to try the 461 to see if I could get some more range with a different rx (was worse lol) but after a couple runs (using 447's) I noticed that it wasn't shutting down. After noticing this I Tried to get her to shut down, it was like a different boat, no matter what I did it would not shut down with the 447's on her. For the first time I could "goose" her out of the hole to get up on plane, could never do that with the 371. All the settings on my radio are the same between the two rx's, triple checked them.

I was going to do some more testing between the two rx's this weekend and maybe throw my old tactic in there to see what's going on. The only thing I noticed was with the 461 I lost some range and about 5mph but I want to test more. I was going to start a thread on this after I did my testing but maybe we are having some issues with Airtronics? Can an rx do something funny to cause this? I had issues with one of my esc's when I first got it also that now I'm thinking might be related to this....

By the way, LOVE your boats!

Shawn

[kingwrench]

Thanks Shawn. I do believe its all in my set up Rx . here is what I found so far. I downloaded my last run and I was only seeing 37% of full throttle. Temps good. No issues so I loaded the latest firmware and tried to calibrate the ESC and no go. All FUBAR don't know what I'm doing wrong not hearing the proper sequences of beeps and not getting anywhere. Any ideas on calibration let's hear em. Shots going down range.

[Rocstar]

Everything in your boat went bad....I'll take it all off your hands for $100...

I'm not familiar with Airtronics, but do you have the throttle reversed? Long shot, but I had this issue once with my Spektrum. Had to switch the throttle and change the phasing on the motors....Probably not the problem. Strange you only hit 37%.....

[kingwrench]

I will attempt to calibrate with my futaba system tomorrow.