Team MedBots

[Max]

For anyone who's interested, if you run a 24v Gimson on 36 to 1 ratio with 160mm wheels you get some smoke and a blown 25A fuse.
I may have to turn down the wheels to a smaller diameter

[maddox10]

Strange, In Hannibalito 4 we run 9.6V GR01's with 180mm wheels @ 3S. The fuse is a 40A one, but I tested a 25A one too, and no problem there at all.

[Max]

It could be a problem with the motor, it is one of the dodgy 24v ones. I've got the 18v replacements but thought I'd give the 24v ones a chance first as I don't want the extra speed from the slight overvolting.
I'll test the motor to see where the problem lies

[Max]

I can confirm now its cooled down that the brushes on the motor snapped off so that probably caused the problem. But both motors were very hot so I will turn down the wheels to about 130mm to prevent future failures.

[Max]

Do most people use a normally closed burkert valve for inlet to their ram and a normally open valve as an outlet? I've realised both of the valves I've ordered are normally open so is there an easy way to modify one of them to normally closed?

[maddox10]

Most of the heavies use normaly closed valves , You need to give them power to open.

In your case, you need power to close them, making it a rather dangerous setup. Link up, hope the valves that need to be closed are powered (LED is your friend here), before you open the bottles, very very gently -turn knob valves, not fire-extinguisher handles- And if during combat the power fails, your weapon will be activated, but blowing CO2 right out of the exhaust valve too. White clouds anybody?

Modifying a Burkert. It's probably easy enough, but I myself never had the chance to look into a normaly open Burkert 5404 with 12V solenoid. Where did you order it?

[Max]

Well I got my dad to order it from my pneumatic supplier so I had to guide him over th phone so I'm not entirely clear what type the valves are I'm getting! They should arrive today or tommorow so I'll find out exactly what I've got then get back to you, I wouldn't be that surprised if I get sent 24v nc valves.

[Max]

Does anyone know if the electronize 30A have current limiting?
Because mine seems to keep cutting out for half a second then going for around 5-10 seconds then cutting out again

[Ellis]

Never felt that on ours. From memory it sometimes felt like they'd delay a tad when trying to move an almost jammed motor (say bringing Tormenta 1's lifter down after hoisting the sofa), but nothing like you described.

Check your rx isn't being starved of power, if you're running a BEC. If the battery is discharged, or being too heavily stressed by the drive motors, the BEC might not keep the rx alive and so it'll failsafe. Once it "comes back on line" after the battery has recovered, it may take a moment to rebind, which might be delay you're feeling.

Just a thought.

[Max]

It seems to be happening a lot with one esc and a very little bit with the other so I doubt the receiver is failsafeing, but the bec could be starving the escs of power

[Ellis]

The ESCs don't take power from a BEC. A BEC is a bit of extra kit on some speed controllers purely meant to make the need for a separate battery to power the rx unnecessary (BEC = battery eliminator circuit).

Also, this may seem a silly question, but you're sure you're not just feeling the slight delay between fwd/rev that Electronize speedos have, due to being relay based?

[Max]

Well I'm charging up the batteries to check that isn't the problem, I am pretty sure it's not just the delay as I am keeping the motor at the same speed and it just stops suddenly then starts with lots of sparking

[Max]

Here's a video of the problem:
http://youtu.be/yuxFTgrWts8
Just to explain what's going on- to begin with I have to motors going full speed forward, then after looking at both wheels I put it into full reverse then back into full speed forward, during the jittering I am holding the stick on the transmitter in one position never changing speed or direction, the wheels just stop.
At the end I quickly how the insides trying to show the flashing/sparking inside the motors caused by the starting and stopping.

[plargen]

might be worth popping off the case and seeing if there is anything odd going on inside the esc like something loose or some metal filings etc..

[Ellis]

Well I haven't a clue, really. By the sound of it those motors aren't on a flat battery. Could be radio issues I suppose... have you got an alternate radio set you can try the setup on? If on a different tx/rx combo it still happens then that narrows the diagnosis some.

Edit: suggestion of opening the ESCs up and having a look is a good one. It's very odd that the motors stop dead, since Electronizes don't have braking. Sort of suggests the motors are being sent reverse polarity for a split second, stopping it dead, then continuing as normal? Don't know!