Castle Ice controllers

[bustitup]

Send one of these to me please. I want to see it and will make engineering look at it. Especially now that I'm "one of you" and am getting hooked on boats. Setting up a TT Outlaw 7.5 right now...HV240.

And yes, we will be doing a boat version of the ICE down the road. Hold tight guys.

Joe
I would think the 240HV I sent surley got there by now?......are they working on it?

[Raydee]

Bringing up a old thread, Haven't heard from Joe Ford in a while. I hope he is still bit by the boat bug. I have a new 6s hull on the table and I need a ESC for it. I was really hoping the Hydra ICE controllers would be out by now BUT since they are not I am going to buy a the Phoenix ICE 200 with a Pistix so I can still use my wheel radio. IS anyone one else using his controller in a boat? It def looks beefy enough even though there is no water cooling I will just put a nice fan on it and I am sure it will be fine. With the built in data logging and bec I think this controller will be golden.

[Raydee]

Hmmm is anyone running the Ice 100 in a boat?

[BakedMopar]

I have and they are great. Lots of features and very smooth throttle operation. I'll be trying the 200 amp model, to compare directly with a Turnigy 180 in my Rico.

Raydee pm replied.

[Raydee]

Thanks for the reply. What setup did you use with the ice 100? I am def going to try the ice 200 in my sprintcat, I am going to try to get away with fan cooling and see how it goes.

[BakedMopar]

The Ice 100 was run on many setups. I tried it with a sv motor (prop M645)and a Feigao 12l M445 with cup) in a SV27. I ran it in my BBY OM29 with a 12l and a 8xl on 4s both with X445. I have run both boats on 6s a couple of times and it handled well even with the BEC.

[Raydee]

WOW I saw the vid of your SV on 6s.....LOLOL that boat was moving. I think the 100 will do just fine in a 4s hull.

[longballlumber]

Raydee,

I will be watching your progress with the Ice 200 on 6S. Please report back your findings.

Later
Mike

[Raydee]

Yep I will, I ordered one yesterday.

[Eric Bourlet]

Has anyone added water cooling to the Ice 100? Would it be possible to remove the heat sink and add a water cooled one? I have been using a Turnigy Marine 120 A on 4 cells with the UL-1 motor at 90+ amps with good luck but would like the data logging of the Ice.

[BakedMopar]

You dont have to remove the heatsink. Just run tubes through them. They work great like that

[Eric Bourlet]

Yes but for the spec class then I am carrying more weight than needed. If I could remove all that extra aluminum that is not doing much good and get the water cooled plate in direct contact with the FETs it would be far better for what I want to do. Just running tube through the existing heat sink would not give very effective heat transfer due to such little contact area between the tube and the heat sink. Does anybody know where to find the on resistance of the 100 Amp ICE?

[LarrysDrifter]

Joe is awesome.He has helped me numerous times over the phone.Many thanks go to you,Joe.I know if any of us has a prob,he can set us straight.(not that I havent recieved help from here before).

[BakedMopar]

The heatsink is glued to the fets. You run the tubes directly in the heatsink right above the fets. Its the same as taking it off and putting on a plate. If you are trying to save that small amount of weight which is +- 1oz. i would look elsewhere to save it.

[Fluid]

One important function of the heat sink is the large increase in the thermal mass of the controller. Even without water or air flow the heat sink will let the ESC run without overheating quickly since it has to heat up that chunk of aluminum. I run my ICE 100 in cats and sport hydros where there is plenty of hull volume and overheating hasn't been a problem, even with 170+ amp spikes on 6S....but I only run for 2 minute heats. The lack of much air volume in a rigger is an issue, but I agree that water cooling with either drilling holes in the sink or putting tubing in the slots would help cooling a lot. I would not remove the heat sink.

My ICE 100 has logged ESC temps of over 250F without problems.....



.

[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.