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Old 2018.02.16, 07:59 PM   #16
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Thanks for sharing the videos and information about the classes.

In my testing, I have seen considerable difference in power from LiPo vs LiOn. There is more current capacity, and higher runtime voltage. The LiOn was much more tame with the same motors, granted we were only using brushed motors on the 2wd cars. The LiPo powered cars could easily run 10 minutes, where the LiOn cars would get around 6 minutes before a noticeable drop in power occurred. Due to the runtime with LiOn, race time was limited to 5 minutes.

My idea of class structure would categorize the classes based on speed... Stock: 70t AAA speed, Pro Stock 48t AAA speed, and modified would not need a translation. I have found that we typically have the best racing experience with a pro stock class. Stock often leaves you desiring more speed, and searching for every little drop of power you can get. Modified thins the herd too much.

My opinion is that the AAA LiOn cells create confusion in an already confusing scenario that we are in. They are convenient to upgrade a Mini-Z without very much hassle, but it is a harder sell on new racers when a LiPo car could just be plug and play.

I feel that LiPo/brushless is the future for the scale, but we cannot force it on people that would prefer to take a more casual approach to their racing and have older equipment. The scale needs accessibility to get new racers in the door, and allow older racers to come back to the track without needing to reinvest in equipment. Neither party should come to the track and feel at a disadvantage... the balance will be very difficult, and perhaps impossible.

It could be that we would really just need to restrict classes based on voltage, and keep 2S for modified alone.

Electronics options are very important as Kyosho has been inconsistent with their frequency bands. I personally would prefer to use a Sanwa receiver with a brushless ESC and a micro servo in my ideal car. The Kyosho servo has great response, but takes up too much real-estate in the chassis and needs an additional PCB to control it. Not really a big deal, but much easier just to buy a micro servo.

As I experienced with the MRCG while developing it, many micro servos do not handle the low 4.8v of AAA well, resulting in low speed and issues recentering and would not handle 1S well without a voltage booster. I have searched for an appropriate 1S Brushless ESC with booster, and have not found anything. So, we are still limited by accessible electronics to outfit a brushless 1S class without having low voltage for the servo.

The most important thing right now is getting people on track. Including new and old technology in a race program, whether it is together or separated by classes until a full balance of power can be assessed. The diehard racers will always get what they need to get to be fast, but the casual racers dont want to constantly need to reinvest to stay current.
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Last edited by EMU; 2018.02.16 at 09:53 PM.
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Old 2018.02.16, 09:06 PM   #17
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At our local track there are several who have moved to 2S Li-ion 3500kv for ProStock and 5500kv for Mod/Pan. I think versus 5500kv with Nimh, the Li-ion/3500kv cars are generally 3-6tenths faster per lap. It is a larger track though, so there's room for the extra zip of Li-ion voltage increase and resulting speed.

I could see the Jomurema 2wd cars becoming a good option for clubs that just have a "Stock "class, and want to add a second ProStock class. Hard to put together a ProStock car for less that $170, especially if the performance is on par with other upgraded 2WD offerings.

I'm also keep wondering what Kyosho will offer as the next 2wd iteration after the MR03 RWD, considering this will be a market with the most ever viable competitors at this scale.
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Old 2018.02.17, 01:07 AM   #18
art4242
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EMU View Post
Thanks for sharing the videos and information about the classes.

In my testing, I have seen considerable difference in power from LiPo vs LiOn. There is more current capacity, and higher runtime voltage. The LiOn was much more tame with the same motors, granted we were only using brushed motors on the 2wd cars. The LiPo powered cars could easily run 10 minutes, where the LiOn cars would get around 6 minutes before a noticeable drop in power occurred. Due to the runtime with LiOn, race time was limited to 5 minutes.

My idea of class structure would categorize the classes based on speed... Stock: 70t AAA speed, Pro Stock 48t AAA speed, and modified would not need a translation. I have found that we typically have the best racing experience with a pro stock class. Stock often leaves you desiring more speed, and searching for every little drop of power you can get. Modified thins the herd too much.

My opinion is that the AAA LiOn cells create confusion in an already confusing scenario that we are in. They are convenient to upgrade a Mini-Z without very much hassle, but it is a harder sell on new racers when a LiPo car could just be plug and play.

I feel that LiPo/brushless is the future for the scale, but we cannot force it on people that would prefer to take a more casual approach to their racing and have older equipment. The scale needs accessibility to get new racers in the door, and allow older racers to come back to the track without needing to reinvest in equipment. Neither party should come to the track and feel at a disadvantage... the balance will be very difficult, and perhaps impossible.

It could be that we would really just need to restrict classes based on voltage, and keep 2S for modified alone.

Electronics options are very important as Kyosho has been inconsistent with their frequency bands. I personally would prefer to use a Sanwa receiver with a brushless ESC and a micro servo in my ideal car. The Kyosho servo has great response, but takes up too much real-estate in the chassis and needs an additional PCB to control it. Not really a big deal, but much easier just to buy a micro servo.

As I experienced with the MRCG while developing it, many micro servos do not handle the low 4.8v of AAA well, resulting in low speed and issues recentering and would not handle 1S well without a voltage booster. I have searched for an appropriate 1S Brushless ESC with booster, and have not found anything. So, we are still limited by accessible electronics to outfit a brushless 1S class without having low voltage for the servo.

The most important thing right now is getting people on track. Including new and old technology in a race program, whether it is together or separated by classes until a full balance of power can be assessed. The diehard racers will always get what they need to get to be fast, but the casual racers dont want to constantly need to reinvest to stay current.
Completely agree that getting and keeping people on the track and racing is the priority, whatever platform or class they are running.

Interesting that you've found Li-ion worse than Lipo. We're running mainly the PN Extreme Power AAA's, or the Efest 10440 cells (technically a Li-Mn ICR cell). We've done 10 minute races with full mod cars (7500kv) without issue. With a 3500kv we can probably run 20 minutes or more based on how many mah we're putting back into the cell after a 4 minute run. Some of our racers don't even change batteries between heats. For comparison, I have a GLA (4WD), and with a 300mah 2s1p lipo hits LVC at around 7-8 minutes.
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Old 2018.02.17, 03:57 PM   #19
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I think the main difference in runtime for you is that you're using brushless. We were running brushed... Much less runtime.
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Old 2018.02.19, 12:04 PM   #20
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WTF, just saw all the videos, and that super "stock" class hauls major @$$. it really isn't that much difference in speed compared to the full blown mod class.
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Old 2018.02.19, 11:36 PM   #21
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I think the main difference in runtime for you is that you're using brushless. We were running brushed... Much less runtime.
Yep, that must be it. With the higher voltage from lithium the brushed motors must be getting pretty warm.
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Old 2018.02.19, 11:44 PM   #22
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WTF, just saw all the videos, and that super "stock" class hauls major @$$. it really isn't that much difference in speed compared to the full blown mod class.
Yeah, the 3500kv geared up cars are pretty fast. We had started out 3500kv lithium with 8/54 gearing to try and match 50T brushed/5500kv brushless nimh cars as most of our expert racers were converting to lithium. Then one of our racers experimented with throwing on a 12t, then a 13t, then a 14t pinion on and we were all amazed by the speed.

The full on mod cars still have an advantage on the long back straight, but in the infield it's fairly close. Here's a direct race comparison between a 3500kv car (dark blue with orange stripe/wing) and a full mod car (white car):

https://youtu.be/SvPYXwIjFdA
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Old 2018.02.20, 12:34 AM   #23
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Quote:
Originally Posted by art4242 View Post
Yep, that must be it. With the higher voltage from lithium the brushed motors must be getting pretty warm.
Pretty much toss the motor after a night... so, not really looking to go that route again. I would try 3500kv brushless on 2S, but I think 2S is still going to be too fast to have spec class racing, relegating you to use the slowest motors of the bunch.

Right now, the motors are either too fast for 2S, or a little slow on 1S. With no 1S brushless ESC that I know if, basically need to stay brushed on 1S, or 3500 2S. There just doesnt seem to be much of a window. The motors being designed around the 4.8v nimh window means that there may need to be a new design of motors for the voltages that we are looking to run.

If you look at 1/12 scale racing, they somewhat recently had planned to switch from 1S low turn motors to 2S high turn motors. There was a major backlash from the community because the speeds would be too fast. Sort of the same thing that we are looking at here.

On high flow layouts, the speed is fine. But, if you have any sort of technical layout that doesnt keep corner speed as much, it becomes a concern as there is more start/stop. Generally here on the east coast, we run more technical layouts than west coast which have more flow oriented layouts.
example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cx8M2cwpbs
That is 2S brushed 43t (choice motor for better drag brake)

With Mini-Z being more underground in the US right now, with more basement racing and few permanent tracks, there will be less large regional size layouts. 2-3 wide L layouts may be the average size track where a few years ago 4-5 wide L layouts were the common size.
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Old 2018.02.20, 07:01 PM   #24
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Pretty much toss the motor after a night... so, not really looking to go that route again. I would try 3500kv brushless on 2S, but I think 2S is still going to be too fast to have spec class racing, relegating you to use the slowest motors of the bunch.

Right now, the motors are either too fast for 2S, or a little slow on 1S. With no 1S brushless ESC that I know if, basically need to stay brushed on 1S, or 3500 2S. There just doesnt seem to be much of a window. The motors being designed around the 4.8v nimh window means that there may need to be a new design of motors for the voltages that we are looking to run.

If you look at 1/12 scale racing, they somewhat recently had planned to switch from 1S low turn motors to 2S high turn motors. There was a major backlash from the community because the speeds would be too fast. Sort of the same thing that we are looking at here.

On high flow layouts, the speed is fine. But, if you have any sort of technical layout that doesnt keep corner speed as much, it becomes a concern as there is more start/stop. Generally here on the east coast, we run more technical layouts than west coast which have more flow oriented layouts.
example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cx8M2cwpbs
That is 2S brushed 43t (choice motor for better drag brake)

With Mini-Z being more underground in the US right now, with more basement racing and few permanent tracks, there will be less large regional size layouts. 2-3 wide L layouts may be the average size track where a few years ago 4-5 wide L layouts were the common size.
Yes, those layouts are tighter and more technical than what we usually run, we're been lucky to have a large track area so tend towards more of the flowy layouts.

Something that may be worth a try is a 2s 3500kV with one of the different rotors that PN offers. The "stock" rotor that comes with the motor is a 13.5mm (or previously a 14.5mm). Going to a longer rotor should decrease top end speed (and increase torque), it looks like there is a 16.5mm rotor available. From our past experiences there can be a noticeable change in top end between different rotor sizes. Maybe this in conjunction with different motor timing/punch settings in the ICS or ESC could slow things down to a more manageable speed.

But even this could be too fast...maybe time to ask Philip (PN) to develop an even lower kV motor for 2s spec class speeds.
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Old 2018.02.20, 07:03 PM   #25
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Yeah, the 3500kv geared up cars are pretty fast. We had started out 3500kv lithium with 8/54 gearing to try and match 50T brushed/5500kv brushless nimh cars as most of our expert racers were converting to lithium. Then one of our racers experimented with throwing on a 12t, then a 13t, then a 14t pinion on and we were all amazed by the speed.

The full on mod cars still have an advantage on the long back straight, but in the infield it's fairly close. Here's a direct race comparison between a 3500kv car (dark blue with orange stripe/wing) and a full mod car (white car):

https://youtu.be/SvPYXwIjFdA

Looks like there isn't that much difference in the back straight. It would maybe catch up from half way back the straight but the 3500kv car looks a lot more consistent
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