Surpass Hobby 150A ESC troubles - Help!

[Heath]

Hi All, 

 

Need some advice please, seem to be having loads of trouble with Surpass 150A ESCs going into some sort of limp mode?

 

any experience out there currently have 3 units doing the same…could have bough a decent one for the same money I’ve  spent buying new motors and ESCs trying to get to the bottom of it!
 

many thanks in advance

[Nitroholic]

Need a bit more to go on here.

 

If you have had 3 ESCs ... in the same car.... doing the same thing:

 

1) Are you sure the rest of the setup is right. Motor, gearing etc.

2) If you change motors as well...again...is the kit suitable for the application, and geared right. If it isn;t ... the setup just won't work.

 

Finally...Surpass Hobby ESCs are cheap and do not have a good rep. I don;t use them. Hobbywing kit is not that much more money for a Quicrun 150A unit, and they are much more reliable. You can get away with cheap motors...but cheap ESCs can be a real minefield.

 

[Heath]

Hi Nitroholic,

 

Appreciate your reply. 
 

currently running one with a track star 2050kv  with 18 tooth pinion in a 1/8 buggy. one with a rocket 1900 and 16 tooth in a buggy and one with a rocket 1700 which is brand new and only had a 11 tooth pinion in a truggy! and all did exactly  the same thing. I don’t run 6s as these ESCs can’t handle it at all so have tried 4s in all and a 5S in the truggy.

I think once they start doing it that’s them spent, feels like I should just bin them all and get some better ESCs.

 

Saw the hobbywing Quickrun 8bl150 for £70 on eBay earlier so might just have to bite the bullet on 3 of them unless you think there is anything better value out there?

[Bajadre]

you could be right tbf heath about it going into limp mode my friend had one go like that and then packed up a few weeks later was old too ,your gearings looks fine so cant be overheating etc that truggy gearing seems low for a 1/8th though? remember overworking the ratio is as bad as over working but id guess the escs are about to give up the ghost now 😞 cant go wrong with the hobby wing gear tbh max 8 for 6s if needed or the 4s version are great been using the 6s versions for a few years now and never let me down 🙂 worth spending a little extra as they will last longer in the future brother 👍

[lorrylemming]

Have you got the manual for these? I can't find one online that's definitely for the 150a model. 

 

Try disabling the lipo cut off and running the car with a lipo alarm. If this solves the problem then it means the limp mode was coming in for low battery voltage. 

 

Also, have you got a temperature gun? If you can record the ESC temp when it shuts off that would tell you whether it's actually hot. 

 

 

Hopefully the above will narrow down the issue. 

 

[Nitroholic]

 ESC setup can be an issue. On start up, they should beep/flash to show the detected voltage. If you have an esc that thinks you are set for 6S and you ug in a fully charged 4 or 5s pack, then it will hot the Lvc straight off. Had that with ESC in the past where they wouldn't detect odd cell counts .. so it's worth checking, and if you can ... Manually setting the cell count and Lvc. Should aitodetect...but maybe it isn't.

 

As far as the Quicrun goes, may e get one to start with a d see how you get on with it. It's a better unit, but I would have to see you drop £200 notes on a pile of ESC and have it not cure the fault. 

[Heath]

Hi @lorrylemming, 

 

thanks for the reply, the manual for these is a piece of paper with little to no info really.

 

I have the dedicated programme card but again despite resetting the setting or playing with how the power loads it does nothing.

 

overheating is not an issue, It does it on the first pull of the trigger under no load (sat on a starter box).

 

Good shout trying to set the lipo cut off to 0% will give that a go, have a couple of lipo alarms so will bang that on.

 

Have ordered 2 hobby wings anyway as to be honest have lost confidence in these ESCs now!

 

Their motors despite being cheap seem to be pretty good for the money so will stick with them. 
 

@Nitroholic not sure they are capable of manual voltage input selection, they are pretty low tech. Have tried 3s, 4s an 5s lipo and they are still no better.

 

@Bajadre think it’s got to that point. Cut my losses and chalk it up to experience. The super low gearing on the truggy was a last ditch attempt to solve the issue again under no load made no difference even swapped out the motor from a 1900 to 1700 to try and ease the load in the esc but nada! 
 

everyone seems to be complimentary of the cheap hobbywings and as it’s just for bashing don’t want to break the bank. 

[lorrylemming]

What exactly does the limp mode allow you to do?
Are you using the same TX/RX with all the cars?

 

This sounds like an issue with how the ESC is reading the signal from the RX. Like it hasn't done the calibration properly. It could still be an ESC fault but might be worth researching the calibration process.

[Heath]

The ESC Started off running fine and then after a little while went into a period that delivered about 5% power. You could switch off and on again and it would be fine for a minute and then the same. 
 

It seemed like maybe it got a power draw too high for the ESC and went into some sort of lockout, this reset with a power on/off. But even that doesn’t do anything now.
 

now I turn on pull trigger slowly under no load, get to about 80% maybe even full throttle and Then it will not output more than 5% power again.

 

Freshly charged batteries of all sizes same result. The other 2 ESCs do the same in different cars with different Tx\Rx.

[Ross9999992]

When you power them on are they “doing the beeps” to tell you the cell count they think they are using? Limp modes are usually lvc or over heat protection. Perhaps they are simply manually set on 6s.

 

Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they won’t auto detect 3s/5s as has already been suggested.

 

3 hours ago, Heath said:

not sure they are capable of manual voltage input selection

 

3 hours ago, Heath said:

I have the dedicated programme card but again despite resetting the setting or playing with how the power loads it does nothing.

So you have messed with the programming without knowing the parameters you are adjusting?

[Bert_w164]

2 hours ago, Heath said:

The ESC Started off running fine and then after a little while went into a period that delivered about 5% power. You could switch off and on again and it would be fine for a minute and then the same. 
 

It seemed like maybe it got a power draw too high for the ESC and went into some sort of lockout, this reset with a power on/off. But even that doesn’t do anything now.
 

now I turn on pull trigger slowly under no load, get to about 80% maybe even full throttle and Then it will not output more than 5% power again.

 

Freshly charged batteries of all sizes same result. The other 2 ESCs do the same in different cars with different Tx\Rx.

I had one of these ESCs, I recall similar erratic behaviour before I killed it on 6S. Well, I was within Surpass Hobby's specifications, but it wouldn't surprise me if they pluck numbers out of thin air just like those magical red servos claiming 25kg of force...

 

Sometimes it just wouldn't play ball, resetting it helped and it was my early days to the hobby so I just overlooked it thinking may be this is just how these things are, a bit flaky. 

 

From what I recall it had no issues with 3S, 5S seems to be a cell count even Hobbywings won't auto detect, you need to tell Hobbywing ESCs manually they're in receipt of 5S cells, so unless the Surpass Hobby has a better cell detection system I'd be inclined to believe like others have said the ESC isn't auto detecting properly.

 

Also from experience, yes you're better buying a Hobbywing ESC, after the Surpass Hobby saga I went for a Hobbywing XR8 Plus which has ran countless sessions on 6S with silly gearing, been submerged in the pools at the Slough RC track...and still runs without issue 😁

Edited November 9, 2021 by Bert_w164

[Russell iow]

I bought a surpass hobby 150A ESC and motor.

My ESC was putting out full battery voltage to the receiver and subsequently popped the receiver.

[Yrkoon]

5 hours ago, Russell iow said:

I bought a surpass hobby 150A ESC and motor.

My ESC was putting out full battery voltage to the receiver and subsequently popped the receiver.

 

ouch that sucks, the motor should be good on a new esc though, you can get away with cheap motors but not esc's 🙂

[Bert_w164]

8 hours ago, Russell iow said:

I bought a surpass hobby 150A ESC and motor.

My ESC was putting out full battery voltage to the receiver and subsequently popped the receiver.

I'm not at all surprised tbh, they just seem to make specs up as they go along, its a darn shame as their motors are good. I've been running a Rocket Taurus for a year on 6S almost exclusively and its a nice motor hasn't given me any issues. The funny thing is they said their Taurus motor destroyed the ESC even though its within their spec sheet ratings as compatible. Sorry to read of your troubles, I hope its not a costly replacement.