Water not circulating through cooling system.

[Bird_dog92]

I recently purchased a brand new Traxxas Spartan from my local hobby shop. I ran it all last weekend and everything was fine I brought it out today and everything seemed normal until I broke the prop. I swapped it out with the spare that came with the boat and I started to notice water wasn't coming out of the side port. And shortly after it shut down and the LEDs on the ecs and servo motor were blinking red. I'm thinking the prop could have grinded something up and was small enough to go through the cooling system? I tried blowing through the hose with my mouth and it feels like I'm getting alot of resistance. I'm not sure how free flowing this system should be. So I'm not sure if the resistance I'm getting blowing in the line is normal or not. I'm thinking something is clogged because I had to blow with all my lung strength to get air to come through. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Bande1]

get a pop bottle, fill it with water, and stick a length of hose through a hole in the lid. that should push water through the system to test it. they make hose attachments also for gas boats. can also try compressed air.

[Bird_dog92]

If it is clogged, what is the best way to clear the obstruction if pressurized water doesn't push it out?

[fweasel]

I clear out my cooling systems with a pressurized garden sprayer full of fresh water and a custom tip. Then I blow everything out with compressed air. if you don't have access to either, you can disassemble the cooling system and try to blow air through each piece with your mouth until you find the obstruction. I've seen metal debris in cooling rudder pickups, plastic in cooling lines, metal debris in the water jacket, epoxy globs in hose barbs... the possibilities are endless. The cooling system is pretty simple, so it won't be hard to find the issue.

Oh, and get a metal prop for the boat and ditch the silicone cooling jacket, assuming they still equip it with one.

[Bird_dog92]

So you recommended a metal cooling jacket? I was definitely going to get a metal prop. When you say a garden sprayer, do you mean a hand held pump sprayer, or something that attaches to a hose? Also how much resistance should I feel in the water lines when blowing with my mouth? Or should it feel unrestricted like blowing through a plastic straw?

[Bird_dog92]

I noticed today when running it changing the angle of the stinger seems to change the amount of Water flow. My concern is it doesn't seem to flow when I'm running at 3/4 throttle or higher but I wasn't having this issue last week. The only thing I changed was the stinger angle and I bought a second set of 11,300 mah batteries that are a bit heavier than the 7600mah ones I was running last week. Could the added weight and angle of the stinger cause the engine to be working harder that it's enough to overheat? The reason I changed the angle was to fix the chine walk and it made a big difference. I can run it full throttle and not get any chine walk. But it runs hotter. And to be clear I remove my flex shaft and apply fresh grease before every run.

[Bird_dog92]

get a pop bottle, fill it with water, and stick a length of hose through a hole in the lid. that should push water through the system to test it. they make hose attachments also for gas boats. can also try compressed air.

I did this today and was able to get water to flow but I had to squeeze the bottle pretty hard to push through. I drilled a 1/8 hole in the cap of the bottle and threaded the hose barb from the rudder in the cap so it was a tight seal. So to get water to flow I had to squeeze the bottle pretty hard. it seems like the system has alot of resistance. I feel like I should be able to turn the bottle upside down and gravity should be enough to push water through.

[Fluid]

Then disassemble the system and check each part (hoses, pickup, exit, water jacket barbs) by blowing through them. It should be pretty obvious where the restriction is.

Why did you change the stinger angle, and how is it set now?


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[Bird_dog92]

Then disassemble the system and check each part (hoses, pickup, exit, water jacket barbs) by blowing through them. It should be pretty obvious where the restriction is.

Why did you change the stinger angle, and how is it set now?


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I changed the stinger angle so it would sit in the water more and run stable. Which it did after adjusting it. I put the stinger back to the original position to test the water flow. And I took all the hoses off and ran water through the esc and the motor separately and it seems like there's resistance in both. Again I'm not sure if this resistance is normal or not. I can get water to come through but it takes some effort. I'm going to put an aluminum jacket on it anyway and a dual pickup rudder in the near future. But I'm pretty disappointed I can't run it this weekend on the oem cooling system without risking it overheating. I blew compressed air and water through it. I'm not sure what else to try

[Bird_dog92]

I just ran it with the smaller 7600mah batteries and it seemed to run cooler and I was able to see water coming out of the side so it's definitely flowing right. But what can I do about it overheating with the 11300mah batteries? I can't return them now and if I can't use them in the boat they are basically $300 paper weights at this point. Will the aluminum cooling jacket help or will I need to put a bigger motor on it to compensate for the extra weight from the batteries?

[Panther6834]

I'm trying to figure out why you would have gotten such huge capacity batteries. I'm guessing you're new to RC boating (we were all there at one point). Smaller...although, not too much smaller...is better, as there's less chance of overheating. Yes, you'll list some run-time...but, I'd say, protecting the boat is more important than the 30 seconds of lost time in the water.


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

[Bird_dog92]

So I basically wasted my money? I wanted to get a second set of the 7600 but they were out at the time, and I figured more run time wouldn't hurt. I also didn't realize how heavy they were when I bought them compared to the smaller ones. But I should still be able to run them in the boat without issues, Right? It's the same voltage and cells. Is it possible to mitigate the heat caused by the extra weight?

[Panther6834]

So I basically wasted my money? Is it possible to mitigate the heat caused by the extra weight?

First, the heat isn't really being caused by the "extra weight". It's far more likely that the heat is caused due to excessive runtime (ie. the overly-large capacity LiPo packs). Additionally runtime is all & good...but, you need to 'balance' any additional runtime worth what the motor, ESC, and prop can actually handle.

With my first SonicWake, I wasn't happy with the 4-4.5 minute runtimes, and I also wanted to increase the time. After all, this was my first RC boat, and I wasn't aware that such short runtimes are common. These aren't like your typical bashers with their 15-20 minute runtime, or crawlers with their 45 minutes runtime. As I said, I also wanted to increase runtime...but, I didn't want to burn up the motors and/or ESC by just going with massive-capacity batteries.

First thing I did was swap the ESC for something better/more-capable. Next, I replaced the stock 1900kv motor with a slightly slower 1600kv motor. As the purpose of this boat was just to "have fun", and not "go as fast as possible", I was perfectly okay with it being slower...but, at the same time, I also put on a slightly larger prop to somewhat compensate for the speed loss. Between these two mods, that slightly increased runtime. The final step was to go with slightly-larger...but, not massively-larger, LiPos. Initially, I started with two 4,200mAh 3S packs, but switched to two 5,000mAh 3S packs. This increased my runtime to just under 7 minutes. Currently, I run a single 5,000mAh 6S pack (occasionally, a 6,700mAh).

Whatever you end up doing, best of luck to ya.


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

[Bird_dog92]

I get what you're saying. But from what I've been observing is with the 7600 batteries I get about 10-15 minutes runtime. And that's running at 1/2 to 3/4 throttle most of the time. After a hard run the motor doesn't feel to hot just warm to the touch. But with the 11300 batteries I had a thermal shutdown after about 5 minutes not running it any differently. Maybe it was clogged up because I remember not seeing water coming out from the side before it shutdown. So that could have been a factor. I haven't ran the 11300 batteries since it overheated so I haven't had a chance to test it to see if it was just a clog in the water system or something else.

[fweasel]

I get what you're saying. But from what I've been observing is with the 7600 batteries I get about 10-15 minutes runtime. And that's running at 1/2 to 3/4 throttle most of the time. After a hard run the motor doesn't feel to hot just warm to the touch. But with the 11300 batteries I had a thermal shutdown after about 5 minutes not running it any differently. Maybe it was clogged up because I remember not seeing water coming out from the side before it shutdown. So that could have been a factor. I haven't ran the 11300 batteries since it overheated so I haven't had a chance to test it to see if it was just a clog in the water system or something else.

Two 11300mAh batteries? That's over twice the battery weight of what that hull is ideally setup to run on. It will certainly change the way the hull rides in the water, wet, and dramatically increase the load on the electronics. This is not the boat to rig up with massive amounts of battery capacity for 15min runs. It's not what it was designed to do.