esc shutting off

[ladoga2015]

I'll give you a little background...

I bought this MRC back in 2009...Played with it on and off for awhile. Never anything extreme, and made no mods on it.

Flash forward to today...I bought my son a rock crawler for christmas, so I broke out my MRC and started making some changes.

Dropped and stretched it to a 10" wheelbase. Added traxxas driveshafts. Built custom body mounts, and a Tamiya Landcruiser body. Added some weight to the wheels (about an ounce per wheel, which I have now cut back to only about 1/3 ounce per wheel. Waterproofed the servo (lithium grease inside, and silicone on the outside), waterproofed the esc (double balloon with silicone and zipties), and waterproofed the receiver (same).

The battery has seemed VERY weak...or possibly the motor?...or possibly the esc is going out? The truck is just struggling...going up inclines, through tough spots, etc.

Now, the esc keeps shutting off. I turn it off and on. It runs for a minute, then off again...on again, off again...repeat, repeat.

Are the axles maybe causing this issue? Has the dropping and stretching thrown the geometry off so much that it's overworking the motor? I'm lost here...

You can see pictures if you go to the Landcruiser build thread of mine.

[OTHGbronco82]

If it's the stock nimh battery it might be the battery. They tend to get a little week and crappy after sitting for a little while.

[ladoga2015]

Yeah, it's the stock battery...Seems to run weak. Also, I noticed that most of my issues occur after I run through deep water. The tires fill up with water and get extremely heavy. I'm in the process of remedying that as well...

Another question I have...I am switching to lipo, and I recently almost ordered a battery but realized I didn't know what I was doing. Never used lipos before, and they're more complicated than what I'm used to. I want to find a combo deal if I can, and get two batteries (one for the mrc and one for my son's redcat rockslide) and a charger. My budget is around 120. Any recommendations? Like I said, I need batteries that will work with both of these vehicles...

Thanks

[OTHGbronco82]

I run these in my mrc: Gens Ace 1300mah 2S1P 7.4V 25C LiPo Battery for 1/10 RC Crawler and 1/16, 1/18 Cars

For a charger, I use a onyx 230 as it can charge most types of batteries.

If your esc doesn't have a lipo cut off I suggest getting one or upgrading to a esc that has one. A lipo cut off is pretty cheap, maybe $20 for a really good one if that.

Also, try and do something to waterproof the electronics if you haven't already. They don't really like water to much and it isn't to hard to waterproof electronics.

[ladoga2015]

She's waterproofed fairly well, balloons, zipties, silicone, lithium grease, all that good stuff. Haven't fried anything yet.......yet.

As far as the esc goes, does this stock esc have a cut off? It's an mrc I bought back in 08 or 09. Not even sure what type it is...it seems to "cut off" quite a bit, haha, hence the title of the thread;)

[WAM]

One possibility for your cut outs is I assume you're not running the servo off an external bec. Pulling steering power from the esc has been known to drop the internal voltage to where the esc browns out and temporarily quits.

Maybe a new battery will help that. If not, you're a candidate for an external bec like the Castle 10A.