Found a great value in a marine ESC, the Turnigy 180a!

[SD Eracer]

Wow, I am really impressed with the Turnigy branded 180a. It is essentially the same SeaKing 180a V3, but with additional capacitor pack and a lot cheaper price.

In brief, I've been running SeaKing 180a V3 in all my fast boats, they have been beaten and abused, running exclusively in saltwater, been completely submerged more than I care to mention, and running in sometimes questionable borderline setups on 6S for literally hundreds full throttle miles.

I haven't lost one until recently, it went up in smoke in my old Genesis hull, which was 100% my fault because I was pushing to hit a certain speed that day running a over the line setup for that ESC.

Luckily a pond buddy of mine mentioned that Turnigy is finally selling their 180a ESCs from a North American warehouse and to give them a try. I was surprised to see how cheap they were, at $89 for non-platinum members ($82 for platinum members), which is $31 dollars cheaper than the SeaKing version. That's almost 120a price for a 180a!

Normally when I get a new SeaKing, the first thing I do is remove the stock dinky 2 capacitor cappack and replace it with the Castle 4 capacitor pack. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that not only does the Turnigy 180 have the stock 2 capacitor pack, but comes with an additional 4 capacitor pack wired directly into the ESC base! Factor in another $22 in savings by not having to solder on a Castle Cappack, while having the bonus of retaining the stock two capacitors on the battery leads.

For my test runs, I wired on some 8mm connectors (leads and motor wires), and installed it on my old Genesis running a Leopard 4092 1730kv on 6S. Ran it at my local pond through 7 sets of batteries. Initial impression is that this ESC seems to have even better throttle feel compared to the Seaking version. Ran cool, the boat hit 67mph with a M445 prop. Very happy with this unit.

If you are in need of a good value ESC up to 6S, this is a good one!


Below are pics of the Turnigy 180a with the stock heat shrink removed for inspection. Also, I don't normally run black heat shrink on capacitor packs because it prevents visual inspection of the capacitors and makes it difficult to clean if any sea water gets on them. I will be replacing the heat shrink with clear shrink.


2015-07-18 11.49.16.jpg2015-07-18 11.56.14.jpg

[Doby]

The have been some of the most popular ESC's for years now.

[ls1fst98]

Very well known here for quite some time....bang for $ they are very hard to beat.

[SD Eracer]

Probably more of a regional thing for us, I've never seen the Turnigy branded one, specifically the newest V3 model with the single cooling fitting.

We have been using the Seaking V3 version for a few years now, but not sure when Turnigy started offering their version in North American warehouses to make it cost effective against the Seaking.

I also wanted to get some pictures out on the net showing the capacitor pack setup of the V3, there hasn't been any yet.

[78MaicoRider]

I recently purchased one of these ESC. I like the waterproof ON OFF switch. I can plug in my two 3S packs in series for 6S with a resistor in line. Let the caps charge for 2 sec. Unplug and remove the resistor. Reconnect the positive to negative connection and no spark. Even after waiting for a few mins to reconnect. Once I have the hatch secure and everything ready to go, I can then turn on the ESC. Why hasn't this been done before?