Got my Vortex

[josh222]

Finlay got my Vortex 3.5:D can't wait to try it out. Just need to get my Mamba Max fixed(let the smoke out)

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r83/HpiJosh222/Picture023-1.jpg

[GSMnow]

I am very curious to find out how the Mamba Max runs the Orion motor. 3.5 turn is really low though. You are asking alot. That motor is close to 9000 KV. Even in a touring car that is serious rpm.

[Mr Mamba]

According to my test with GM EVO 3 (that is the same motor ) this motor dont work with the max, so please when you test it tell us the results.

[josh222]

I was told by Joe Ford himself it will work:D

[schenck77]

I hope you are right. I have a mamba on the way and have a peak 6.5 in a crt.5. Right now I am running it on a borrowed gtb but really dont want to have to buy another esc.

[Mr Mamba]

If this motor works would be great, because I don't know any legal motor for racing with the mamba, please as soon as you test it, tell us the results!

[ElectricThunder]

There's another member on RC-monster, URC, and I think one or two other boards that goes by Skellyo. He runs the Orion/Peak motor on his mamba, and he said it works very well.

[panda_oz]

Hi everyone!- I thought that I would post some of my findings when running the Vortex (5.5) with the Mamba Max. I have had a weekend of club racing with the system in a BJ4. I had previously run a 12 turn Orion V2 and the mamba 5700 motors with the system.

The 5.5 is best compared with the 12 turn V2, infact in many respects the two motors feel very similar. In terms of integration between the Vortex and the Mamba Max it seems to be pretty good, the power delivery is smooth and linear. I noticed a little bit of hesitation when moving off at very low throttle, but this was not really any different to a regular brushed motor and would not be noticed in a race environment. Throughout the race the motor felt good but I was experiencing radio glitches due to my repositioning of the receiver in the BJ4. The glitching was a major problem and cost me in the finals. I have since re-positioned the receiver and it looks to be all fine.
The gearing suggested by Orion is quite conservative (they recommend 12.5 for the 5.5), I was running an 81/17 (11.91) combo in the BJ4 and it was maxing out half way down the straight, I will go up a tooth and see how that goes. In terms of power output, I would compare the 5.5 to a good 11 turn brushed. It was keeping up with the other LRP and Novak 5.5s on the track but it was not as punchy as the 5700. The mamba 5700 had significantly more top end power but the power delivery was more abrupt. In terms of setting up the mamba max for the Vortex, I had to reduce the drag brake setting to 10% (was previously set to 20%) and reduce the punch control by 20% (i.e. less throttle limiting).

[Mr Mamba]

Hi everyone!- I thought that I would post some of my findings when running the Vortex (5.5) with the Mamba Max. I have had a weekend of club racing with the system in a BJ4. I had previously run a 12 turn Orion V2 and the mamba 5700 motors with the system.

Thovak 5.5s on the track but it was not as punchy as the 5700. The mamba 5700 had significantly more top end power but the power delivery was more abrupt. In terms of setting up the mamba max for the Vortex, I had to reduce the drag brake setting to 10% (was previously set to 20%) and reduce the punch control by 20% (i.e. less throttle limiting).

What timing did you use on the motor?

Could you please test if the motor works ok with punch control on 100 %?

[panda_oz]

The Vortex had the physical timing set at default (timing mark aligned with "B") and the Mamba Max was set with "normal" timing. I tested the system with the timing set at "lowest" and "low" but it didn't have enough punch and top end for my liking. I have tried the system with punch control varied between 70 and 40% and have not noticed any differences in the smoothness of the system. I have the system setup how I like it at the moment and my repositioning the receiver has blocked the usb port... I don't really want to re-arrange my system just yet so I may hold off testing further settings for the moment. Just out of curiosity why do you want the punch control set to 100% ??... are you running 2wd on a loose track??

[chilledoutuk]

well the timing on the motor will only be used for sensored motors and am happy to see that as i expected the motor works nicely on the mamba max.

I wonder how good this internal cooling is at keeping the motor temps down.

How hot does this motor get in your buggy?

[panda_oz]

The fan seems to do the job nicely, at the end of a 5 min run the motor was only warm to the touch (i didn't have a thermometer handy), I did however feel that the gearing was very conservative. The most notable difference was the sound of the motor... it makes more of a high pitch squeel compared to the novak and lrp offerings (if you want to know what it sounds like just watch the reedy 2007 race on youtube, I think cavaleri was driving a vortex...).

[Mr Mamba]

Just out of curiosity why do you want the punch control set to 100% ??... are you running 2wd on a loose track??

Many thanks for all the information! :)

Yes I run with 2wd on very very very loose tracks, with my 4600, timing to lowest and punch control 100 % many times I think I nedd more throttle control.

[GSMnow]

On my Mamba Max 5700 I have set punch control back down to just 10% and may just go to zero. I race off road with a Losi XXX-T on a variety of track conditions. When I first got the Mamba Max, the punch control was a nice "band aid" to make it easier to control. As I got used to the huge toprque available, I found the punch control was causing more problems than it was helping. Basically, the punch control is a timer that controls that rate at which the throttle will ramp up. I had it at 60% and I could just mash full trigger and the truck would launch without too much wheel spin or a doing a huge wheelie, BUT when I would come off of jumps, if the nose was dipping, I could not use the throttle to lift it back up. With the punch control at 10% I have to roll the trigger on or it will spin tire, wheelie, and throw clouds of dirt, but when I get into the air, I can blip the trigger and lift the nose, or tap the brakes and dip the nose. I have also dropped the amount of drag brakes since the free rolling works very well on loose tracks. I was blaming my jump problems on chassis setup, but now with punch control dialed down, I jump as well as most of the others. Punch control is not a torque limiter.

As far as timing goes, lower will drop the torque, higher will give some top end with a bit more heat. Slotted core motors may need more timing just to run fair. Here is my theory. The larger amount of metal in the motor stator will cause two things to happen. The magnet (rotor) moving into the coil will induce back EMF, but the greater mass of metal will take a little more time to magnatize which might delay the back EMF signal going out to the ESC which would almost be like the timing sensor being set late. But now the ESC switches to the next coil to keep the motor moving. And look what happens. The power in the coil creates a magnetic field, but once again, the greater mass of the slotted core takes more time to magnatize to pull the magnet around, again delaying the timing even further. I know the larger outrunner airplane motors require quite a bit more timing advance to run their best, andf I think this magnetic lag may be the reason. A little software advance probably just gets the true timing back near zero.

[Mr Mamba]

We test a gm evo3 7.5 motor (the same than the orion vortex) with the max:

works ok on the air, but on the track a lot of cogging, horrible dead starts and donts works very well.

We dont know if in USA you have all better racetracks, but on our racetracks (slow, with poor grip) dont work ok.

[Eli the rc guy]

It may have worked for the 5.5 but this is the 3.5 remember? anways just thought i would say that.. but if they say it works, lets take their word for now.

[kufman]

As far as timing goes, lower will drop the torque, higher will give some top end with a bit more heat. Slotted core motors may need more timing just to run fair. Here is my theory. The larger amount of metal in the motor stator will cause two things to happen. The magnet (rotor) moving into the coil will induce back EMF, but the greater mass of metal will take a little more time to magnatize which might delay the back EMF signal going out to the ESC which would almost be like the timing sensor being set late. But now the ESC switches to the next coil to keep the motor moving. And look what happens. The power in the coil creates a magnetic field, but once again, the greater mass of the slotted core takes more time to magnatize to pull the magnet around, again delaying the timing even further. I know the larger outrunner airplane motors require quite a bit more timing advance to run their best, andf I think this magnetic lag may be the reason. A little software advance probably just gets the true timing back near zero.

Interesting theory. Have you put any thought into the whole wye wound vs delta wound? In wye wound (roar legal) you are turning on 2/3 of the motor at a time and in delta (mamba, pletty, feigao) it is only 1/3.

It is interesting what you have said about the lower timing not working. I have been using my Shadow (2-turn, 4-pole, delta, stacked stator) in the lower timing modes and it works great. When I go to normal or the next step up in timing , the startup gets nasty. Every manual I have read has always said that this type of motor needs more timing, but it just doesn't seem to work as well with the Mamba controller.

This is why I like brushless, every motor and controller is a new adventure. :)

[GSMnow]

Actually, if you draw the diagram of a delta and "Y" setup you will find that in "Y" you are sending current through 2 coils at a time with the two in series. In Delta wound you are always sending current through all 3 windings all the time. One coil straight across the power feed and the other two in series across the power feed. A "Y" wind need fewer turns to get the same KV rating. So all else being equal it would actually about half the turns, so a 3.5 Y would be close to a 7 D. This does make it seem possible to get a lower internal resistance in a Y wind. But the lack of the slotted iron core makes room for more copper wire, so...

The other issue I see with the sensorless controllers is that the back EMF signal needs to be strong and clean. Any distortion of the waveforms and low signal levels will give false readings to the ESC so it won't be able to determine the proper location of the rotor. Very high KV motors make very little back EMF for a given rpm.

For a simple example
5700 KV turning at 1000 rpm generates just 0.175 volts.
7700 KV turning at 1000 rpm generates just 0.130 volts.

The Novak 3.5R is about 10,000 KV and so could only generate 0.100 volts.

Also in a delta wind, the ESC has both ends of all three coils to look at. In "Y" wind it has one end of each coil and the tie point is burried in the motor. How do you measure the voltage across any one coil?

Sensorless brushless is difficult even when you know all of the motor parameters to begin with. Throw in a motor wound a different way and I am not surprized there are problems. The controller has to see when the magnet poles cross each coil. Then calculate when to switch to the next coil. All 6 times per revolution at 60,000 rpm. Adding the hall sensors gives the ESC the true rotor position all the time, even when stopped. The motor windings don't mean much at all. The system is very simple but requires alot more wiring as well as the sensors themselves in the motor. Sensorless makes for a very clean simple install and should be very reliable with just 3 heavy gauge wires to the motor. I realy like my Mamba Max, and I think the ROAR rules making it illegal are just silly. There is no real world advantage or disadvantage to sensored vs sensorless as either system should be able to run any given wind of motor to the limit of the batteries and internal resistance. Sensored should start better and have smoother low rpm operation. Sensorless has to have a startup routine to get going and run open until the rpm is high enough to make back EMF sensing possible. After that, they should run the same.

[C_Suzuki]

how are you mounting your mamba?? i just got a ta05 and the mamba doesnt fit its too big for the tamiya

[josh222]

I am closer to getting it out and running. I am hoping this week to test it. I ended up getting a GTB esc in a trade so i will use that. Heres what i got so far. GTB esc, Vortec 3.5, 5500mah 2S , 2.4ghz radio

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r83/HpiJosh222/Picture619.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r83/HpiJosh222/Picture621.jpg