What voltage are you running the Ragebridge at?
The battery we were using yesterday was around 12V (of indeterminate A). But the main battery packs are 2x 14.4v nominal LiPo. The spark is certainly down to the capacitors of the ESC instantly charging, and the LiPos can give out up to 250A (200A continuous), but exactly how much of that was very briefly used for the cap charge is unknown (the 200A in line fuse didn't blow though), each motor side is further fused for 70A (in line with the RageBridge max A per channel), but the motors weren't in the equation for the sparking issue last week.
Some research online suggested just 1 ohm would do it, although we never got to find out exactly if that was true to any degree or not, as the ESC wasn't taking any power, so there was never a completed circuit for it to spark to begin with this week.
We had further issue, as Colins multimeter had battery issues, and then display issues. So i'll bring along my AMECaL meter next week and see if we can diagnose anything and get some readings with that. The three resistors we got cost less than £1 all together, so we can easily get others if needed, no big loss.
Last edited by Redirect Left; 30th October 2017 at 11:12.
"2x 14.4v nominal LiPo"
What's the actual measured voltage of the packs together? I fear you may have flown too close to the sun.
Even at maximum charge, 2 14.4v nominal LiPos won't exceed (or approach) the maximum 40v of a Ragebridge 2. I'm not with the batteries to measure them. However, assuming Colin hadn't fully charged any, and they were at the last measured voltage I did, they'd be around 26 to 31v together.
Exact voltage limits is 8 - 40v absolute, 12 to 30v nominal for the Ragebridge 2.
I think Garys issue he's bringing up is that LiPo voltages are multiples of 3.7v. 14.4v was an old NiCad/NiMH voltage. So running if those batteries you're running are connected in series they're be more than 30v, as LiPo's they will be either 11.1 or 14.8v nominal (3s or 4s) and really pushing the limits
Bingo. I remember discussing the limits with Charles before originally buying them for PP3D. I asked whether I could get away with running 2 x T64s on 8s on a single controller. He said I'd really be pushing the limits of things. Especially when a fully charged lipo cell will pump out 4.25v or thereabouts. I dropped down to 6s for safety sake and have never had an issue with them.
From memory if the LEDs light up when you hook up a battery then it should be fine. If they don't then it's nackered.
If it died from (less than, as not fully charged) 35v, i'd be very disappointed, as the website for the Ragebridge 2, in the first paragraph, advertises its ultra-wide 8-40v input very proudly. Which you're apparently now telling me is far from the case.
Even assuming that the LiPo was fully charged (both of them), 4.25 x 4, then doubled to account for both, 34v. Except they weren't fully charged anyway, so would probably be at least 2-3 volts shy of the above math.
I can only speculate Adam as I don't have the setup in front of me. First of all I would bench test the rage and get in touch with Charles. In my experience he's happy to help out with his speedos.
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