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[SimonCornes]

I have acquired a 1/32 Loyal Supporter which is the Sirmar hull and about 28”
Long. It has an Mtronics Marine 20 esc but I don’t know if it’s u/s. I’ve got it centred for for and aft but nothing g much is happening when I move the throttle stick. There’s a 3 cell lipo battery in the boat and that’s showing 15 volts or so. Whilst playing about at one point the motor suddenly started and ran at full speed - the tx stick was at full forward. I have substituted the motor for a voltmeter and the volt increase is not very smooth when I move the stick. Should an Mtronics ESC give smooth acceleration and deceleration? If not could you recommend a better ESC please?

[DocMartin]

3S Lipo should have a nominal voltage of 11.1V (full charge voltage of 12.4V).  You report a 15V value. (?? 3S lipo battery)

I am not familiar with the ESC you mention, but most of the M-troniks range of ESCs are designed for 6V to 12V operation.
Perhaps your battery source is the issue?

[SimonCornes]

Interesting, so I will investigate further! First off is to check the motor. I have a power supply unit I can hook up. Really something like an Electronize ESC would be better because this isn't a power boat but I don't know what the best scale boat ESC's are these days? I would certainly hope for a nice steady acceleration of motor speed - we are not back in the days of Bob's Boards!

[DocMartin]

An M-troniks ESC functioning properly should be more than adequate to provide smooth, scale speed.  After a bit of research, the 20A version you have was designed for use with NiCD, NiMH, and Pb SLA batteries rated between 6V and 12V.  Regardless, an appropriately sized lithium ion battery between 2S (7.4V) and 3S (11.1V) should work just fine.

I found the programming instructions for older M-troniks ESCs and have attached it here.  Maybe these instructions will be of help.

Cheers!

[chas]

I've found the mtronics esc s to be excellent, so you should be fine with one. The power supply is confusing, 15+ volts is odd. Maybe a step by step investigation of the problem will be best, starting with the power supply on load, then checking the rx output to the esc by substituting a servo temporally, and work through everything from there.
 One mistake I've made was that the connections within the esc plug weren't connecting properly, a result of pulling the plug out by the lead.

[Bunkerbarge]

Try a different battery and then try a different receiver and transmitter.  Solid state ESC's tend to fail completely if they go, which tends to be rare, but receivers and batteries are more frequently the cause of a problem.

[SimonCornes]

Thank you guys, you have stated the blindingly obvious - take the ESC out and test it so that you can see if it's faulty or not and then work out where the problem is. Thanks DocMartin for confirming that an M-Troniks ESC should throttle smoothly. I don't think it's my radio  - Radiolink - but it might be a fault in the wiring to the motor or from the battery.

Can you ask one further question - what is the slide switch for? All ESC's of this sort of size seem to have a switch on a pair of wires to the ESC and the chap who built this boat installed his under a deck fitting with a hinged lid but his label is barely understandable it looks like 'AIL - Rev' to me. 'Rev' could mean Reverse but what is 'Ail'?

[Bunkerbarge]

Because the power to the receiver comes from the main propulsion battery then through the ESC via the Battery Elimination Circuit (BEC) the switch is simply a power on-off switch.  You can connect the battery up with everything else plugged in and, when the transmitter is switched on, simply turn the receiver on with that switch.  It sounds like the switch has been fitted with a mounting plate from an aircraft set up switch.  Ail is usually short for aileron.

[SimonCornes]

Thanks for the reply bunkerbarge. That makes sense although why he couldn’t have written off-on I don’t know!

I have tried the motor with a power supply unit and it’s fine, in fact it sounds plenty fast on 6 volts! I then connected the same PSU to the ESC and watched it do nothing when I gave it 6 volts, all the way to 12. So I could have fried it or it could have come ‘ready fried’ when I bought the boat but no worries. I have taken the plunge and ordered a Chinese ESC care of eBay for less than £11 posted. I know it might turn out to be rubbish but if it’s half good I might acquire a couple more. Time will tell! Thanks again Simon

[SimonCornes]

Well the cheapo Chinese ESC arrived and is installed with a 2S LiPo battery. Half throttle is more than enough for scale speed but the ESC seems to forget where ‘forward’ is sometimes (if I’ve used ‘reverse’ and won’t go forward again afterwards) . Someone at my club suggested it was because the ESC was designed for cars but I have got it set up for both forward and reverse. Maybe it’s because it’s cheap? It was also suggested that some sort of module can be plugged into it to reprogram how it works? This is all a black art to me! I see Component Shop are out of Action ESC so do I have to find an MTronics ESC on eBay?? I also need a second 20A ESC for another boat - all brushed motors - any suggestions??

[John W E]

Hi there Simon, if your speed controller that you have received is similar to the one in the picture.   I have several of these.    I have found that in 'forward' you obtain 100% throttle speed and in 'reverse' you obtain about 75% speed.   There are also two little plugs which you no doubt know about - one is for switching between lipo and nicad and the other one is brake or no brake.  When you have the speed controller set in brake mode - which gives you forward and reverse, when you come down from forward into neutral there is a slight pause of about a couple of seconds which is the brake mode and which you must hold the stick at centre position and then you move it into reverse.   What I have actually done in the past is have the wires on the motor reversed so that when I had the hand controller set at forward, and given the boat forward motion, the speed controller was actually operating in reverse.   When you went into neutral and tried to go into what should be reverse, there is an extra long delay and you sometimes feel as though you have lost signal.   Well worth seeing and having a play around to see if you have fallen into the same trap as I had.

[SimonCornes]

Hi there Simon, if your speed controller that you have received is similar to the one in the picture.   I have several of these.    I have found that in 'forward' you obtain 100% throttle speed and in 'reverse' you obtain about 75% speed.   There are also two little plugs which you no doubt know about - one is for switching between lipo and nicad and the other one is brake or no brake.  When you have the speed controller set in brake mode - which gives you forward and reverse, when you come down from forward into neutral there is a slight pause of about a couple of seconds which is the brake mode and which you must hold the stick at centre position and then you move it into reverse.   What I have actually done in the past is have the wires on the motor reversed so that when I had the hand controller set at forward, and given the boat forward motion, the speed controller was actually operating in reverse.   When you went into neutral and tried to go into what should be reverse, there is an extra long delay and you sometimes feel as though you have lost signal.   Well worth seeing and having a play around to see if you have fallen into the same trap as I had.

Thank you John, that’s exactly what I have!! Since typing this addition to my thread I have replaced this Chinese controller with an Action Condor 10 which I made 25 plus years ago but have never used! I’ve swapped that for the Chinese one and, so far, it works beautifully. Having said that I will print off a hard copy of your advice and have a play with the Chinese one!!

[SimonCornes]

An update! I have now moved to a second boat, this one is a 4 motor, 5 foot long Fairmile D MTB ! I have fitted an Action P94 twin ESC mixer with the rudder plugged into it. This ESC controls the two outer motors. I am using a 3S Lipo battery and a UBEC battery eliminator so I have unplugged the two red wires from P94 Futaba plugs into my receiver. That all works fine. The problem is with my inner motors. I had wired both of those to an old Action Condor 20 ESC via a twin P95 10A fused board for each inner motor. I again removed the red wire from the Futaba plug but nothing happens! I swapped it for a Condor 10, just to test the circuit and again no movement, what's more the LED's on the twin P95 aren't lighting up so thats telling me that there is no power coming out of the ESC. I am wondering if I should plug the red wire back in because the UBEC is plugged into the receiver so the receiver is getting 6 volts. But then the motor and rudder Futaba plugs from the P94 are also plugged into the receiver but not the red wires! I am a bit confused but don't want to blow up the Condor ESC's by doing the wrong thing! Help!!!

[SimonCornes]

It’s sorted! I plugged the red wire back in for my Condor 20 and it all works beautifully now!!
Just need to get some 7.5A blade fuses to replace the 10A ones in the P95 from the Condor 20 to the motors - I like these older design Action bits and bobs!!

[Martin (Admin)]

Hi there Simon, if your speed controller that you have received is similar to the one in the picture.   I have several of these.    I have found that in 'forward' you obtain 100% throttle speed and in 'reverse' you obtain about 75% speed.   There are also two little plugs which you no doubt know about - one is for switching between lipo and nicad and the other one is brake or no brake.  When you have the speed controller set in brake mode - which gives you forward and reverse, when you come down from forward into neutral there is a slight pause of about a couple of seconds which is the brake mode and which you must hold the stick at centre position and then you move it into reverse.   What I have actually done in the past is have the wires on the motor reversed so that when I had the hand controller set at forward, and given the boat forward motion, the speed controller was actually operating in reverse.   When you went into neutral and tried to go into what should be reverse, there is an extra long delay and you sometimes feel as though you have lost signal.   Well worth seeing and having a play around to see if you have fallen into the same trap as I had.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brushed-Motor-Waterproof-320A-Crawler/dp/B09NMJWGDJ?th=1  (3 different versions )
 
 https://www.aliexpress.com/i/1005004294119633.html