Maiden Pursuit 32 : not good. ultra high amp draw. toasted lipos : Running too Wet?

[kfxguy]

Perfect... thank you all for the tips on the packs. *makes sense about the hard-packs as well. I used hard packs in the UL-1 I had with over 50 runs easy and no issues, although much smaller boat not pulling near the amps of the Pursuit. Time to look at some packs and order up more Castle connectors. I am familiar with lipo disposal... Radio Shack actually takes them and will properly dispose of them, although the saline water soak is almost easier.. thanks for that tip. My little JAE mini-rigger took a dunk and puffed up a turnigy to the point of disposal. Cool little rigger and really fun to run; hatch came off and all went to hell.
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That's a neat looking little rigger. I'd like to have one of those. Btw, do yourself a favor, stay away from nano tech batteries. For every one person that's had good luck with them, there's ten people that didn't. You can find other Bayer is that are just as cheap and much safer, reliable and more powerful. I think your main issue was your low c and your tiny connectors. You really need a quality battery when it comes to boats. Cars, truck, buggies...don't pull near the amps so you can run junk in them and get away with it...but it makes a difference between a low c and high c battery in a car too....I've gps ed some stuff so I know for sure. I had a buggy a while back that on 2s with a 50c pack it would not pull the front wheel in the air. I tried a 70c (same name brand too, both venom) and it would actually pull the front tires up in the air and it was 4wd with an open center diff. It was like 4mph faster too.

[hsp-sandiego]

That's a neat looking little rigger. I'd like to have one of those. Btw, do yourself a favor, stay away from nano tech batteries. For every one person that's had good luck with them, there's ten people that didn't. You can find other Bayer is that are just as cheap and much safer, reliable and more powerful. I think your main issue was your low c and your tiny connectors. You really need a quality battery when it comes to boats. Cars, truck, buggies...don't pull near the amps so you can run junk in them and get away with it...but it makes a difference between a low c and high c battery in a car too....I've gps ed some stuff so I know for sure. I had a buggy a while back that on 2s with a 50c pack it would not pull the front wheel in the air. I tried a 70c (same name brand too, both venom) and it would actually pull the front tires up in the air and it was 4wd with an open center diff. It was like 4mph faster too.

cool.. thanks kfx. my 4wd is a dex410... open center diff. my guess is that is what you may have as well. The mini rigger was a blast. should have kept it and went to 2s/higher kV instead of 3s (too heavy), although pretty insane and on rails. will post a great HD video i have some day.

[rayzerdesigns]

nothing wrong with hard cased lipos..I run them..but I also run 90c..but def if boat running wet..thats your problem..also your low voltage cutoff should be a minimum of 3.2 not 3.0

[kfxguy]

nothing wrong with hard cased lipos..I run them..but I also run 90c..but def if boat running wet..thats your problem..also your low voltage cutoff should be a minimum of 3.2 not 3.0

You must have a pretty light setup then, because I can assure you that if you have a hard case lipo and it has the little banana plug on it, your not passing all the current through them the battery is capable of. If you have a hard case with the wires coming out of it, then yea....but we are referring to the plug in type.

[Peter A]

For the op, I ran turnigy blue 40C packs no problem in my Pursuit. I can run a variety of props but you may find that 445 gives good speed but short run times. X438, 437/3, 442, 642, 545 are all useable props. I am using revo batts for racing now and they are doing the business well. As others have said, upgrade batts and connectors and you should be gping sweet.

[Peter A]

For the op, I ran turnigy blue 40C packs no problem in my Pursuit. I can run a variety of props but you may find that 445 gives good speed but shorter run times. X438, 437/3, 442, 642, 545 are all useable props. I am using revo batts for racing now and they are doing the business well. As others have said, upgrade batts and connectors and you should be going sweet.

[jim82]

Dont hate on nano-tech because some run the lower c rated ones because the 65c ones are pretty damn good!

[iop65]

bad lay-out : why motor so far in front : do that with a soild axle but not when using a flex!
stinger already too deep ,handling problems will be your next issue
to big trimtabs, why o why? there's no need for that when you know you're stuff!

check hull : rocker/ hooked?

i would start all over again

[tlandauer]

I agree the motor could be more in the back, the reason being there is the Flooded Tube design, and I suspect whoever did that knew what he was doing. Therefore, if the batteries can be placed in such a place that would afford the OP to obtain the correct COG that is needed, then he should spend the time dialing in the boat more instead of thinking that EVERYTHING is wrong.
I agree with srislash that the height of the drive line looks OK. The Pursuit is a forgiving hull, there are some with low setting struts and stingers ( bottom of hardware inline with bottom of hull) out there that still manage to ride pretty nicely.
Bottom line is that without a video it is hard to pin point the riding characteristics of OP's boat. He only mentioned that it was running wet, didn't mention about porpoising or diving into the water----two traits that would indicate either rocker or hooked bottom. Nonetheless, as said, it is a good idea to check.
As for trim tabs, yes, a really well built boat perhaps needs none such things, but how many monos have we seen here are without them? Some are built by good builders too.
I am not disagreeing with what is being said, quite on the contrary. However, my point is that at this juncture if I were the OP, I would get decent batteries and put on some good bullet connectors and fine tune the boat, use a smaller prop perhaps ---to be on the safe side and work on from there. If the ride can't be improved, as a last resort, then look into redoing it. It does have a Flooded Tube and that's pretty elaborate to dismantle.

[longballlumber]

Will re-drill the stinger and drop it down as far as it will go for a even plane with the hull and give it another shot. if no go... classifieds. out of cash for this thing and toasted my race day packs. thanks.

Like we talked about on the phone when you bought the hull.... You need to RAISE the strut about an 1/8" getting the prop out of the water. DO NOT lower it. This will help loosen the boat up.

While the boat was/is running too "wet" a good quality battery shouldn't have puffed. I think most of the other boaters have touched on that. When I was racing the boat, I was running 4S2P 4200mAh GrimRacer Lipos (8400mAh total). No Puffing at all.

Later,
Mike

[longballlumber]

bad lay-out : why motor so far in front : do that with a soild axle but not when using a flex!
stinger already too deep ,handling problems will be your next issue
to big trimtabs, why o why? there's no need for that when you know you're stuff!

check hull : rocker/ hooked?

i would start all over again

I will respectfully dis-agree with your statements... I built the boat and there is NOTHING wrong with the layout. I have no doubt those that know me, my boats, and how well my boats run would confirm my statements.

I would also state there are mays way to build and/or set up boats and still be successful. Don't be so quick to judge.

Later,
Mike

[srislash]

I will respectfully dis-agree with your statements... I built the boat and there is NOTHING wrong with the layout. I have no doubt those that know me, my boats, and how well my boats run would confirm my statements.

I would also state there are mays way to build and/or set up boats and still be successful. Don't be so quick to judge.

Later,
Mike

I agree with Mike(he has built many fine boats), many ways to get the weight distribution correct, I have one mono that runs fine with a forward motor and one( a Pursuit BTW) that anyone would be hard pressed to get a motor further back. Both run great. Just different layouts.

[msundsd5]

I ran my first maiden with a pursuit 32 this morning. de-soldered / cracked banana connectors, smokin, puffed, cracked case 50-100c lipos. Boat was running quite "wet". Please see photo of stinger height. Motor and esc barely warm after 90 seconds. Pretty standard setup for this boat on 4s: leopard 4074 2150kV, seaking 180A, running a Life 1100mAh rX back (yes, with red wire on a adapter wire disabled), prop is sharpened and balanced x445. boat lets in no water through transom, very dry. Hull was modified with a "flooded stuffing tube" setup and hull is carbon reinforced.

Here is the scenario: ran 2s2p 25c and a 30c for maiden and boat seemed to take off nice, although was running fairly "wet." LVC kicked on after 45 seconds and batteries had a slight puff and were warm. Fully charged and balanced of course and I am charging the packs now.. they dropped down to 3.8v per cell and came back to full charge/balanced after 40 minutes at 1c (charging here at home now). I ran my saddle packs from my buggy for a second try and the boat seemed to run great although "wet" and not as fast as i had hoped. de-solder and smoke after 90 seconds with packs blown apart.

flex cable is perfect and is not binding or anything, greased with grim-racer blue stuff.

Question is, would running "wet" draw enough current to do this kind of damage? esc was blinking when after first run. I did set LVC to 3.0v/cell for second run with timer on tX running to see if the LVC was just kicking on early from the first run/maiden.

thank you,
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There has been alot of comments and good insight on this thread so to sum up what I believe to be the common take is:

1. Higher C rating batteries >65C Continuous, Higher than 5000MAH, and preferably a really good quality battery such as Revolectrixs, Dinogy, Nano Tec specifically over 65C cause the common thread is the ones below don't fair as well etc. and no onroad/offroad battery Hardcases with plug n play
2. Larger Bullet Connectors to assist with the even/ smooth flow of current to eliminate any bottlenecks in efficiency
3. Tune from these 2 points starting out with a prop in the range of X437 - X445, check temps, and work your way up
4. Provide a video of what is going on while running your boat and repost of the forum to provide further insight

All in all, good stuff fellas, hsp-sandiego I hope all works out for you, these things are a tone of fun , you just have to time some time to get them dialed in!

[T.S.Davis]

I will respectfully dis-agree with your statements... I built the boat and there is NOTHING wrong with the layout.

I'll vouch for the setup. It's pretty similar to the setup I run in P. You can run the motor up front. If it's done correctly the extra cable makes no difference. On the Pursuit hulls if the strut is very low it absolutely will walk donw the straights. In fact, I had to re-drill mine to raise it a tick. That's how the one Doug Junior won P mono at the nats was setup.

Nice thing about a front mounted motor is that everything can be deep in the keel.

[T.S.Davis]

Just looked again. I prefer to spot my cells inside the rails. That puts all the weight in the center of the boat. That's just me though. With the wet well it might not make sense to try that.

I'm not surprised the batteries puked. Those 4mm connectors just aren't enough. The problem likely started there and spread to the cells. I run 5.5mm in my P mono and those really aren't enough either. They survive in a sprint but in offshore I'm pushing my luck. They get really hot. My motor is a little hotter than that Leopard though. I would go 5.5mm on this setup. No hard packs. Somewhere in the 6000mah range for sprint and then if you want to race offshore go to the full 10000mah.