Hi Guys. Recently I decided to jump into the modern age with a ESC. I had bought one of the Mtronics that was made for 2 motors, unfornatly it was for a rock crawler and had a 1 sec delay for reverse that could not be programed out. After testing in my new Oregon City heavy crusier, I decided to look for some thing else, trying to stop with full reverse from full forward just was not happening! After emailing others to see what they had tried I found a proboat esc at Amaszon .com. It came fairly quickly and I was excited to get it set up. The instructions are pretty straight forward and it comes with Tamiya connectors for the power in put and bullets for the motors wires. Being I had already set up for the Mtronics I changed the power wires, changed over my motor wires and we were set.Testing on the work bench showed there was a slower reverse then forward but there was no delay! Yahoo! Today I went out to the pond for a good shake down cruiser to see what it would do. Results-- This was the secound time the ship had touched the water and so there was little to none balancing to go through.I gave her a little forward and she responded , so far so good !! I forgot to mention I am useing MPI 400s on gear boxes with 2 to 1 gear ration. On the bench she pulled 2.85 amps total. The ship responded well and more throttle was given and it raced forward. I didnt bring my 100 ft tape but she was cruiseing very well, maybe around 23 sec or a touch faster in 100 ft. Likie many cruisers she has a tendence to roll over a little in the hard turn but I knew that was coming, pull out and she straightend right up. Now I begain to put her through tthe paces while my wife and our dogs watched and played , yes I said we were doing a picnic!So for about an hour I ran it all over , different speeds , backing up and hitting full forward , you name it. I checked the esc and motors many times and none were hot to the touch, maybe warm but that was the motors.I am very pleased with the esc, it worked beautifully ! Well worth the $43 dolars paid. Here is the spec. Operation--proportional forward and reverse. Input voltage---6 cell(7.2 Volts) to 10 cell (12 volts) DC. Forward Curent---50 amps Reverse Current --20 amps Full on resistance - 0.070 Ohms Frequency---1000hz Bec output- -6vdc, 1 amp max Dimmensions--1.68"x 1.88" x0.52 " Weight ---3.0 oz. Buddy
Sounds like ProBoat has made a lot of improvements since they first started making those. I tried one when they were first released, and it kept on randomly shutting down on me in the middle of combat. A number of other skippers had the same problem, and so they weren't used for years. But people have started buying new ones and they seem to be working just fine now.
The issue we had with Proboat was the 50% reverse and all the internal smoke releasing pre-maturly. I have had the same MTRONIKS Viper marine 25 ESC in Scharnhorst for years and never had a single issue (tap, tap. tap. That was me knocking on wood) Nice to see some other options out there. J
There are work arounds for the 50% reverse thing. For instance, I reversed the channel in the transmitter so that when the stick was pushed forwards, the ESC was running in reverse. Add a reverse prop or wire the motor backwards and the ship would move forward at 50% speed. To get the ship on speed, adjust gearing and/or prop pitch as necessary. Alternatively, simply gear or subtract prop pitch and reduce the forward throttle end point to make speed at 50% forward throttle to match the 50% reverse. As a side note, the Proboat's battery eliminator circuit (BEC) will not handle a 12 volt battery. It will burn out and make smoke. The BEC was originally designed to handle up to 7.2 volt batteries.
