Hey guys. Looking for opinions…
I have seen the MAX4 ESC/motor combo in both dual and single motor configuration on a bunch of Stooge racing boards.
Are there any other ESC/motor set-ups that are competitive with the MAX4? If so, I need details.
Sorry, one more detail. Short track specific.
Thanks in advance!
from what i can tell there’s a couple approaches.
Low voltage, inrunner motors with higher kv, Mamba XLX2 and Castle Creations inrunners with lipos for the huge current draw
Split the difference - MAX4
Higher voltage, outrunner motors, probably something like a pair of tronic 250’s and reacher 6495’s or similar.
To be honest, all of these should be able to put down more than enough power, you’d be running into traction limits if you were actually maxing out any of these most likely.
4wd Vesc with outrunners has shown to be competitive too. I use 2 x Maker X D100s and Tas 2 x Maker X DV6 pro.
Tas and I are well ranked in international T Race time trials on this setup. Also nicely ranked in the Chicago Northerly time trials but not quite as high.
Performed alright at esk8con too
I’ve been wanting to test with duel Max 5s. I’m thinking they should be comparable to a single max4. Heck, a single max5 might be decent for short track with the added benefit of less weight.
Even just a single D100S maxed out is really capable. I am running it with Reacher 6495s at 175KV on a 21S4P P42A battery @200A motor current per side, @90A battery current per side. A 5P battery would be more fitting though, sag is quite a lot. Also at these current levels the D100S needs a heatsink exposed to fresh air
I have 0.7G acceleration and my top speed is about 60 mph. Geared for 40 mph that would be 1G acceleration.
Tronic 250s would be even more capable but they are larger and more expensive
Don’t tell your mate rossforp. He will ask if you carry a water bottle
I want to mention that even though 2WD has enough power for acceleration, for short track front brakes are highly preferable. So I am upgrading to 4WD eventually to have decent brakes. On track I can only brake around 0.35-0.4G before I loose traction on the rear end. And that’s already with me leaning back quite far. With the tires at the proper temperature mayybe I can do 0.5G but that’s probably still a stretch
I think what would be very beneficial is a proper traction controller and ABS for 4WD. With maybe torque vectoring also but torque vectoring is hard to implement properly. There’s nothing that’s available at the moment, however during the previous semester at university we implemented a very barebones traction controller that semi worked. It was a buggy mess and super jerky and dangerous at times because of our unprofessional implementation, but at times it worked well enough to show a lot of promise.
Once I have my board upgraded to 4WD, we are thinking about starting that project all over from scratch with the knowledge that we gathered from the first iteration.
I don’t have the battery to sustain 1G until 40mph. That would be like 22kW.
Lipos might get you there if you want to try it lol.
Radium has an implementation of torque vectoring with a steering angle sensor on the mach one, maybe see if you can start there?
Lol I also don’t have the balls for that. I can’t even ride at 40mph on my current trucks, let alone survive 1G at 40mph. Maybe this is gonna change when I have the new trucks on the board but I doubt I’ll want to go that fast…
Yeah I’ve seen that. Pretty cool stuff.
I am personally more interested in the traction control / abs aspect and that’s also easier to implement in a way that works. I don’t know if we are going to do anything with torque vectoring. Would be cool if we did but that’s the lower prio
I’m leaning towards the max5’s for a planned rebuild/upgrade on my V5.
V5 #25 that Gialong rides is on dual max5. Seems to be super capable.
From what I can tell using the speed calculator in newtons thread (correct me I’m wrong on these numbers someone)
Dual castle V5 makes about 15kw on 8s.
Max4 dual makes about 25kw on 12S
Max5 dual makes about 21KW on 12S
Max4 motors are 560kv while the max5 are 650kv.
I’m not sure if you can run the max4 motors on the max5 esc. But possibly.
Big difference in price also. Total for two esc’s and motors is
Max4 $1550 ish
Max5 $750 ish
I’ll give you the same suggestions that I gave The Stooge when he came to me when he first started.
There are many different variables. But what works is the following?
Castle XL2, XLX, & XLX2 speed controller, with 2028 780kv or 800kv inrunner motor, 8s, and depending on wheel size. 5 to 1 gear ratio. (This is a 55mph setup) Then all you have to do is adjust the max power on the ESC to limit your board for track racing.
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I’ve also had good luck with
Other motors that work. SSS 800kv, Rocket 800kv. And 560kv.
Just remember to watch your dialog and Max amps. Another thing that’s Helpful is castle sells a four capacitor pack that helps with voltage spike. I used to use two of those when I first started. That helped to keep me from blowing up ESCs.
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GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR BUILD.
P.S. not all inRunner motors will work well with Castle ESC. It depends on how the motors are wound. W or Y. But you can get them to work ok by playing with the timing. But they tend to get really hot. Castle products, work really well with Castle products.
I am also curious about the MAX5 dual set-up. I chatted with Gialong and he told me there was an overheating issue. Not sure about the details.
I’m also interested in the solo MAX4 set-up used on the SSS. I believe Mario is riding this configuration.
Hear me out, 4 max 5s 
Oh interesting. I’ll have to chat with him and see what kv he is running and stuff.
Last week was a good temperature test of the max setups in phoenix. We were running them in -about 95F temps
Holy crap that’s hot!
Not for phoenix haha. We get up to 115-120F
I was thankful we were under 100
I also asked Reggie and he said no thermal issues that he noticed on the max4 setup. Temps weren’t measured but he didn’t have any loss of power.
