RC4WD Excavator

[CustomRCmodels]

Wow Joe ,
You are cooking 14 ga wire with that beast ?
That is some serious amp-draw for a R/C model !
A 14 ga wire carries safe up to 30 amps ( not just 15 )
A 12 gauge wire is rated for about 40 amps
But no matter 20/30 or 40 amps , you are here in a range of a “nuclear meltdown”
If you create a short ! you better watch out handling these kind a loads !
If that included ESC is rated for 125 amps I would guess that the motor pulls like 50 amps , which would explain your wire-cooking .
Also explains why they recommend a 6500mah battery ,
( which would last only for about 15 minutes if that motor really pulls 50 amps )
that is some serious power , **** you could jump-start a real car with that !
You usually only find this in serious R/C racing .
If you don’t have an amp meter do this :
Instead using a car-battery , which supplies some serious amp-rating ,
Use a few of your NI-CD or NI-MH batteries , wire them in parallel to get a higher amp-rating and then measure the time you can run that beast .
Example : 4x 2000 mah batterys = 8000 mah capacity ,
you are running for 20 minutes = 8000:20=4000mah= 40 amps !

about the wire-cooking and amp-rating , the wire-length is also a factor ,
that’s why in serious R/C racing you keep all your wiring as short as possible ,
since in most cases the wire-size is actually undersized for the actual amp-draw of the motors.

You should use some fuses in your wiring for all this testing .
You could use some ordinary house-wring fuses .
Best would be the standard automatic fuses , the once you can reset , or also called circuit breakers. Start out with a 16 or 20 amp and if it pops right away get the next bigger one .
That would be also a simple way of testing the actual amp-draw .

I just looked at the specs of that motor ( after I already typed all the above )

· Rotational speed: 380 (kv) RPM/volt
· Input voltage: 11.1-29.6V
· Max efficiency: 98%
· Custom cut shaft or Earth Digger
· Continous current: 80A
· Warrenty period: 30 days

That is one weird designed brushless motor !
Amp-draw 80 amps , but only 380 rpm’s per volt ? at 12 volt that would be about 4500/rpms ….??? but an 960 Watt motor ( at 12 volts ) ??
A higher rpm motor with a gear-reduction would be here a much more efficient setup .
Assuming that these above motor specs are correct

What rpm motors do the other guys supply ? like Stahl and Leimbach

Makes me almost get one of these beasts and check it all out , lol

[CustomRCmodels]

Originally Posted by CustomRCmodels

............explains why they recommend a 6500mah battery ,
( which would last only for about 8minutes if that motor really pulls 50 amps )
( 6.5 x 60 / 50 = 7.8 ) ...............................
Use a few of your NI-CD or NI-MH batteries , wire them in parallel to get a higher amp-rating and then measure the time you can run that beast .
Example : 4x 2000 mah batterys = 8000 mah capacity ,
you are running for 20 minutes = 8 x 60 / 20 = 24 amps !

sorry guys , had a little glitch here in my numbers this morning