ae-2 esc not liking my lipo.. why?

[DJ1522]

i have had this esc with no problems since april of last year, ive just been running nimh batterys but i recenly made the switch to lipo. ive got a Gens Ace 2cell 5000mah 40c 7.2v lipo battery.. running stock axial ae-2 esc, no name 55t motor with 20/87 gearing

heres what i did, charged up my lipo pugged it in, truck ran great for about 5 min of slow trailing with the occasional wide open to see if theres a difference in speed, then i had a small glitch and loss of throttle, still had steering tho. so i turned the truck off, turned it back on, and it only drove for 30 seconds.. theres no over heating issues what so ever so i know im not hitting thermal shut off.

once i plug in a nimh battery truck runs absolutely fine.. whats going on? do i have to program my esc so it knows im running lipo? aka turning the low voltage cut off ON or something?..

[ScaleFreak93]

Yes you have to turn the low voltage cutoff on! Otherwise you could fry the esc, did you even search before posting this? Also did you balance charge it?

[DJ1522]

Originally Posted by ScaleFreak93

Yes you have to turn the low voltage cutoff on! Otherwise you could fry the esc, did you even search before posting this? Also did you balance charge it?

yes i searched, trust me i wont make a post unless ive searched and found nothing, came up with a lot of ppl using them with lipos, but not about having problems...

ya i balanced it everything is equal i have a buddy that runs only lipo he knows what to do, but knows nothing about the ae-2..

So how do i turn it on??

[ScaleFreak93]

Originally Posted by DJ1522

yes i searched, trust me i wont make a post unless ive searched and found nothing, came up with a lot of ppl using them with lipos, but not about having problems...

ya i balanced it everything is equal i have a buddy that runs only lipo he knows what to do, but knows nothing about the ae-2..

So how do i turn it on??

Do you have castle link?

[DJ1522]

no but i know somebody with a field link, im hitting him up right after this

suggestions as to what id set my cut off to?

[sloppy]

a cutoff being off should have nothing to do with a 5000mah battery not working after 5 minutes..

If the cutoff is not turned on you can run that battery until its dead(this is not good but possible)..

if the cutoff is on then it will shut off at low voltage which yours sounds like it did..

Are you sure the pack was charged??

[hoghead5150]

i agree. if the lipo cutoff is turned off, it will run fine but will overdischarge the battery and kill the lipo. my guess is one of two things, either the battery was not charged, or the battery was run with no cutoff, was killed, and now won't hold charge.

[DJ1522]

Originally Posted by hoghead5150

i agree. if the lipo cutoff is turned off, it will run fine but will overdischarge the battery and kill the lipo. my guess is one of two things, either the battery was not charged, or the battery was run with no cutoff, was killed, and now won't hold charge.

Originally Posted by sloppy

a cutoff being off should have nothing to do with a 5000mah battery not working after 5 minutes..

If the cutoff is not turned on you can run that battery until its dead(this is not good but possible)..

if the cutoff is on then it will shut off at low voltage which yours sounds like it did..

Are you sure the pack was charged??

if the battery wasnt charged which it is, i wouldnt have strong steering, but i do, just loss of throttle.. well see what happens tomorrow after we plug into a field link.. still i need a cut off rate, what should i set it to?

[SMR 510RR]

Were there any blinking lights on the ESC or did the RX light go dim? What kind of servo is in it and what kind of rig is this? Tire/wheel size?

Sounds like you need a BEC.

[Charlie-III]

DJ, your electronics don't care what battery chemistry provides the voltage, only how much voltage is provided.
The only thing you really need to do when converting to LiPO is make sure you don't over-discharge the packs. This usually means turning on/setting up the LVC if your ESC has one.

Because of all this, what you describe sounds like a battery issue, maybe you can try your pack in your friends rig. The other option is to check each cell voltage when the rig dies/glitches.

[2006Shelby]

Most AE-2 esc have the auto lipo option on from the factory but checking it never hurts. Also i dont think it has a option for voltage seting on the cutoff i think its either on or off doesnt let you pick the voltage it cuts off i think it is set at 4v because most new chargers can not bring back a lipo below 3v i know some of the old old chargers can but none of the newer ones.

[DJ1522]

thanks guys im thinking there may have been a short in a wire, cut and re soldered, tomorrow ill be hooking it up to a field link to see what else we can do about it. ill post my results after a test run tomorrow

2006shelby**Thank You thats exactly what i needed to know

[Sworks]

Glad I searched.. Exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks!

[SMR 510RR]

Typically Castle ESC's are set to 3v per cell cutoff...Since the AE-2 is made by them I would assume that it is probably 3v. If it was set at 4v then you would get hardly any run time since fully charged lipo cells are only 4.2v.

[mark32]

thank u guys lots of good info