A Little Disappointed with the T-180 v3 water inlet/outlet setup

I've used dozens of the v1 & v2 T-180's for FE30 P-Sport builds. They hold up, are fairly water resistant, and with a little modding of the water inlets & outlets they could be narrowed with 90 deg. fittings to squeeze the batteries in alongside for proper cg. :

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When I saw pictures of the v3 I was happy to think that there now can be a less fiddly (yes I watch Top Gear) mod to keep the waterlines tucked in. I was disappointed when I saw this :

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While it looked from the pictures that there was three possible water paths to give some configuration options, the caps (kinda tiny and no extra caps like v2) block 2 of the three possible flow-through channels. In fact to get the return line back towards the motor I'll have to change the output straight barb fitting to a 90 deg and that won't tuck in too nicely .Going to be tough to use on riggers & OPC's too...

edit : spoke too soon ; this bump on the inputs contains 2 caps

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Tony, that was my feeling as well. I remember vividly when I first saw the pictures ( months ago) I dreamed about adding a loop thinking all that is needed was to loop a return from either the cap side or the motor wires side ...until I got one and realized the caps are blocking the side...
Your solution for the V1 and V2 was so elegant, I am sure you will come up just as a fabulous solution for this one , I can't wait to see!

Tim,

I'm more than a little p.o.'d. For years I used the T-180 v1 & v2's and always dreamed of the day when it was re-designed/updated to be more installation friendly, cancelling the need to mod the water paths, at least in my case. It always seemed silly to have the wires and water paths at 90 degrees from each other although it wasn't a big problem for many applications unlike mine. Now it's seen a re-design and it still seems like the designers have never built a boat.I'll go as far as to say this shouldn't be a problem for many build config's so my whining could be seen as somewhat selfish, but :censored:

You could do like what was done to V1 & V2. You could block off the other holes after drilling through the inner walls creating a cooling block that holds more water.

BTW, how do we know if it needs more cooling anyway?

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Originally Posted by ray schrauwen

You could do like what was done to V1 & V2. You could block off the other holes after drilling through the inner walls creating a cooling block that holds more water.

BTW, how do we know if it needs more cooling anyway?

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Ray,

I didn't say that it needs more cooling; I'm just commenting on the clumsiness of re-directing the cooling output back 180 degrees towards the motor (which will be necessary if the ESC is in front of the motor as is indicated in many setups).

What seems a little odd to me is that the cooling block design went to the lengths to provide three possible coolant paths, then ended up blocking off two as if the ESC was designed by two separate teams that didn't communicate with each other.

For example with these config's the cooling lines can go in and out in front of the motor

Attachment 124397


Another cooling line design "head scratcher"

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Supposedly !! the difference between the v2 & v3 besides the obvious, is that they are using a different material for the heatsink. This again "supposedly" draws the heat faster from the fets etc.. and this part of whats accounting for the higher burst amp 1,000a..I'm with Tony on the fact that apparently the designers have never built an rc boat and dont realize the difficulties some of their designs create...Regardless of this issue I still think that Hobbywing builds one of the better quality bang for your $ esc's available to us...wish they would do a hv 200a version.... DJ

Come on MacGyver, If anyone can come up with a solution, you can.. :thumbup1:

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Originally Posted by Chilli

Come on MacGyver, If anyone can come up with a solution, you can.. :thumbup1:

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Mike,

If it was a one-off for my own use I might put some time into it but for day-to-day customer builds I need to keep it simple, time-wise. My initial thought, which is simple to do is to replace the front straight barb with a 90 deg. It'll point up which is at least half of the re-direct towards the motor jacket in back. I'll be starting this build in a few days & I'll see what works & post.

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Originally Posted by Chilli

Come on MacGyver, If anyone can come up with a solution, you can.. :thumbup1:

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OK I'll accept the challenge :wink:

This was almost too easy (but thanks for motivating me :thumbup::)

Not only will it redirect the flow back towards the motor but likely adds more distribution of cooling. Thermal paste or more probably some JB to help the thermal transfer will be added.

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Casting all modesty aside, I give this one the coveted FIVE CHEESEBURGER rating for simplicity and creativity.:blah::blah:

knew you could do it tony

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Originally Posted by ron1950

knew you could do it tony

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Thanks Bro :thumbup1:

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Originally Posted by properchopper

Ray,

I didn't say that it needs more cooling; I'm just commenting on the clumsiness of re-directing the cooling output back 180 degrees towards the motor (which will be necessary if the ESC is in front of the motor as is indicated in many setups).

What seems a little odd to me is that the cooling block design went to the lengths to provide three possible coolant paths, then ended up blocking off two as if the ESC was designed by two separate teams that didn't communicate with each other.

For example with these config's the cooling lines can go in and out in front of the motor

Attachment 124397


Another cooling line design "head scratcher"

Attachment 124398

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Have you tried that ztw 160a unit. Ive been curios about them for a while now.

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Originally Posted by kendt

Have you tried that ztw 160a unit. Ive been curios about them for a while now.

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I ran the 140A unit in my P-Ltd Cat with an AQ 2030. Motor & ESC died during a race. Not sure which one took out the other :noidea: (was using auto-timing btw)

I've run the 160 in my P-Ltd Cat SAW Drifter but not too much. The timing hinge points were a little off from my preference (it has auto-timing setting also) so I pulled it out, put in a T-120 (and set a new record)

Mark F had a higher rated unit; it let the smoke out.

I need more test/tune with the 160 before I'll venture an opinion.

The 140 makes sense for a Ltd ESC, the 160 seems a little underpowered for a P-Class (4S2P rigs) so ??

Great idea, is there enough meat in between to run a drill bit down through instead of crushing the tube to fit in between the fins?

Replace brass tubbing with copper or silver

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Originally Posted by 3-UP

Great idea, is there enough meat in between to run a drill bit down through instead of crushing the tube to fit in between the fins?

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I used 3/16 O.D.tubing ; when flattened a bit to fit in the fin groove it still has plenty of internal flow capability (it's actually larger than the stock barb hose fitting) + this goes into a 65+ mph hydro which has tons of pickup pressure from the rudder pickup. I'm not worried by any slight (if any) flow restriction - these setups rarely get hot under race conditions anyway

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I considered drilling out the fin area but, even with my drill press the margin for error was a little too worrisome

you can see the butt of a 3/16" bit if you look closely

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Mike, I was fresh out of copper and/or silver tubing :closedeyes:

Just given you a hard time

Silver tubing? I could use some of that for other things.

What about some thermal compound in there Tony?

I ran one of these a few weeks ago with no extra cooling and had no issues. Of course the water was 38 degrees so means exactly....jack.

I'll probably just pot the tubing in place with some carefully applied JB. Should act OK as a thermal transfer agent. Again, my intention wasn't to provide additional cooling but only to re-direct the output line back towards the motor. That this mod appears to provide more cooling potential is just a free gift of the design. The stock single in/out of the ESC might be all that's needed - maybe the critical components inside that benefit the most from cooling might just be under the stock cooling path. I'm not going to open it up to find out :confused2:

Tony, after studying your pics I think I would just pry/snap/break off that last fin and JB weld some tubing in its place - that has the same i.d. as the stock nipple. It is a shame about the new cap placement, but then again there's not much I don't modify anymore...

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Originally Posted by sundog

Tony, after studying your pics I think I would just pry/snap/break off that last fin and JB weld some tubing in its place - that has the same i.d. as the stock nipple. It is a shame about the new cap placement, but then again there's not much I don't modify anymore...

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I thought of removing (Dremel cut-off) the last cooling fin & cleanly JB'ing a tube in place. What I have pictured took all of 2 minutes to vice-squeeze a flat area on the tubing to make it tightly fit in between the fins. Again, this wasn't intended to add cooling (which it probably will) but to re-direct the water path.

Haha, no I realize what you did probably works just as well and took less time than cutting off a fin (which I know was just to re-direct water in a tight situation) but just seeing the squeezed tubing gives me the willies..:crying: it's all in the perception, so I would have to fix that. I surely don't mean to diss your good work - just pointing out a weakness in me!

:beerchug:

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Originally Posted by T.S.Davis

Silver tubing? I could use some of that for other things.
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Silver has slightly better thermal transfer characteristics then Copper. But, since the intention of this modification is simply to redirect the flow of water and NOT to provide additional cooling the point is somewhat moot.

Tony and I have discussed water cooling/chilling/ air cooling/heatsinks several times so I was just poking a lil.

I'm sure the left over scrap brass tubing is far more convenient then making a purchase just for copper or silver tubing

Looks like I never hit enter after I typed this yesterday

The sticker price on silver tubing would be a bit of a shocker! Pure silver is a great conducter but way to soft. Diamond is even a better conducter and no worries about the it being to soft either. Still searching for a supplier though!:-)

Yes I think diamond tubing would be the ultimate. Still time left for the KBB build competition.

Finally installed the T-180 with the flow-redirect mod. Did the trick (with the help from a tad bit of JB Qwick.)

This seems to be the need if the ESC is in front of the motor.

[FWIW the last few Neu motors I ordered have gone back to the "can't shorten & solder 'em" motor wires which are extensions of the stator windings. The ends were tinned 'tho.]

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Another new "feature of the T-180 V3 is the on/off switch. Ordinarily I would just cut & splice the wires together but this is a customer's boat so I included it tucked out of the way

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Happy New Year Tony!
Always love your creative ways of building, looks awesome!
Yes, my re-built Neu is the same way, wires are extensions from the stator windings.
:beerchug: