Crawler Canyon Answers Unasked Questions: Does C-rating even matter to a rock crawler?

[@mark-mj5dl]

I have been using Ovonic batteries for years and that is all i try to run if I can find one to fit my applications. They are a great battery and at a good price. Maybe you should do a shootout (tug of war, hill climb, drag race, etc...)with 2 of the same vehicles, with 2 of the same batteries minus the C rating

[@JPWirt]

I run those small 3S 2200 Ovonics. I initially chose them for size, price, and capacity. I've been very pleased with them, even after who knows how many cycles on them.

[@CrawlerCanyon]

I only just noticed that the tiny 4S packs I’m using are either 35C or 45C, and I’ve literally never noticed, so I did the blind test on accident. I have been tempted to throw a 6000 pack in Robokitty just to see how it manages the ridiculous weight.

[@JPWirt]

@@CrawlerCanyon the only time any of my electricals have ever heated up were on my 8.5+ lb 10.3 Bronco slow/technical crawling with an 8-turn 550 and that blue case Pro servo. It did not like that setup and produced enough heat to hit the thermal shutdown on the ESC. I think the weight makes the biggest difference. I've had that motor/esc in nearly every one of my rigs at one point. That was the only one it didn't shine in.

[@CrawlerCanyon]

@@JPWirt i murdered that 80T during the Jake build before he got an Amazon dig box. It got hot to the point that drag brake was basically gone and the brush hoods discolored a little.

[@chriscord6524]

The data logs on castle are a great way to show voltage dips. Well on a mamba x. Don’t know bout lower models

[@workingforgear]

I watched a video where a guy setup an amp meter on his crawler. At max it was pulling 10A but most the time it pulled 1A. I run a tiny 15a drone esc and have it works great.

[@Brian_Mowry__BMOW71]

With my rock crawlers/trail rigs I've never really worried about the C-rating. I am using the same 3S Ovonic Air 2200 35C batteries and they have been an excellent battery for the price. I do also have a couple 3S Helios RC batteries at 3700mah 45C with a much bigger price tag and I really don't see the need for them unless I want to run for many hours without changing batteries. Thanks for the vid. I think this will be good info for the newcomers to the hobby that are wondering what the C-rating really means.

[@brianmassey7563]

Only time I've noticed the C -rating is when trying full tilt pulls on a something that can go fast. My Cragsman C has a Castle 1512 2650 on a Momba Monster X and I can tell the diff when getting dumb.

[@fejwe]

Super interesting. We do long trailing sessions (3-4 hours sometimes) and typically use GensAce Adventure 4300s. My TRX4 on the stock motor would usually go through 2 on a standard run, but once I put in the Fusion I go a full run with tons of power left over. I know brushless motors are more efficient than brushed but I was surprised by how big the difference is. I’m curious how far a 2200 would get me down the trail compared to a 4300-would it do a full loop around our standard trail or would I have to swap. I’ll find out this summer I guess.

[@CrawlerCanyon]

Many moons ago in the nascent days of drift cars, I was attempting to you know... successfully do it, with a TT-01 I had built up and powered with one of those skeletonized 17T sensored brushless motors, and that car could go 2+ hours on a 1300MaH 2S flat pack. Like... nearly wide-open for 2 hours. To a guy that had not that long ago been ecstatic if something had gone 10 minutes on a single pack, this was revolutionary. Jolly Green gets less than an hour out of one of those 4300s. He is a beefy boy.

[@ekpauly]

I think you need to test this on a basher/speed vehicle, it’s purely perception on a crawler. There’s definitely something with the higher C rating gives your mind the thought that its better. But in the end, batteries are consumables, try a different one when that dies its final death. There’s another thing to test with batteries, the HV batteries give more “initial” power…also not going to be noticeable on a crawler. I know people i crawl with mind dealing batteries and glitches with their rigs blaming on batteries. Idk. Like you said, its the magic pixies.

[@eddytoy9496]

I love my Ovonic Air 2200 packs, but they are the only packs I have that I have felt a power loss surge when I really get in my rigs and hit full trigger on a climb or something.

[@TheAmericanUhate]

I use ovonic 2200's usually. Just got some adventure series 3600's to try too

[@deanblaxall4080]

We use the xt60 connectors on our racing drones that draw in excess of 120A with no problem at all, 4s 1500 battery gets down to 3.5v per cell in 4 minutes and comes off hot and the connector merely warm. Draining a 2200 battery in 1.5 hours is never going to challenge the discharge rate of the batteries. I think to get a conclusion to your test both of the batteries would need to be the same brand, quality and age. I have a pair of the ovonic 2200 for my crawler and they are great.

[@CrawlerCanyon]

I agree on the batteries-- there was definitely more oomph out of the brand-spankin' new Ovonic than in the CNHL that's just a lil' fatter than it was when new. I have always just operated from the position that ALL of the numbers on the label are ballpark, from the C-rating to the capacity. I've had 1500s take 1650 on a charge, and most worryingly, on my older, less "smart" charger I've had more than one go to 4.25 or 4.3 volts per cell.

[@polishguywithhardtospellna8227]

IMO, small high c rating batteries are great if you have a crawler and a fast car, that run same voltage. In case of crawler breakage, you can "fun discharge" at the spot or at home, those batteries you had charged for crawling instead of discharging with a charger. Also for extra long bashing sessions, you can pop every battery in a fast car instead of only the big ones

[@Fantaman900]

30C in a dry climate not too bad, but people like me live in high humidity climate and 30C gets very smothering as your sweat doesn't want to evaporate in already humid air. 25 and up it starts to get uncomfortable with high humidity for me.

[@dkmgm2011]

Agreed. 😂

[@CrawlerCanyon]

Now see, I had to go to a conversion calculator, because those are just numbers to us over here. Luckily we generally have very low humidity when it's hot-- sometimes into the single digits-- but the exchange for that is the temperature, which for about 4 months of the year we around 35ºC for a daytime high, and get at least two weeks of the year in the 43-44ºC area. Had a couple of days of 47ºC and we hit 51ºC on September 5, 2020 (it just scrolled by on my weather station.) At 35% humidity, we all think we're going to die.

[@Fantaman900]

@@CrawlerCanyon We have like 30-40% on 35C afternoons during a heat wave. The nighs are way higher so you die in the morning too. Our record of 39C, was just NUTS and yes a car without A/C was nearly the death of me. Edit, my room is around 50%, so more than a few days of 30C and I need A/C to not slowly cook myself.

[@bazzani21]

I run 4s 800-1200mah drone packs. Light weight and full of power

[@derrickhays3627]

Thanks so much that really help those of us who are electricly challanged😅

[@Team_ReVolt]

Very interesting. Nice to see an in depth on battery's. Question: can you point me in the direction of a good battery loading device? Keep in mind I still need to build my first rig. Which will be followed by at least a second one. I found out today that I ordered lots of stuff, and it all slowly arriving, but I still don't have a loader. Btw: yesterday my radiolink rc4gs v3 arrived😊

[@CrawlerCanyon]

I'm gonna use my brain's version of Google Translate to arrive at "battery loading device" being a battery charger. This is an instance where you truly don't need anything fancy. Some version of the B6/B6AC/B6 Dual Power has been around since the introduction of LiPo, and they still work just fine. What you want to look at, regardless of number of channels, or how many bells and whistles a unit might have: watts. Something around 80 watts is the bare minimum for a single-output charger, and I like to stay around 100w. I'm using an absolutely overkill Protek 610 Quad, which replaced a MUCH older 610 Duo. A decent single output 100w charger is going to be $50-60USD, and the prices really climb when more watts are involved-- a 200W/channel might be 2-3x as much. Take for instance this Tenergy flavor of the B6: amzn.to/44SOtIn. I have the exact same case, display, buttons, everything, on a charger called the Sigma that dates back to around 2008. If you want to stay "name brand," I don't hesitate to recommend Protek, as I've never had a single issue, and have been using their chargers for 15+ years. That Sigma is still hooked up in my garden shed for "emergency use."

[@Team_ReVolt]

@@CrawlerCanyon could you tell me if this would be a good choice: Htrc Lipo Lader Ac/Dc 150W 10A Rc Balans Thx.

[@CrawlerCanyon]

@@Team_ReVolt Looks pretty good to me. I would buy a dedicated charge lead for whatever type of connector you're using, I hate those octopus leads. Also, it was charge MUCH faster on DC input rather than AC (this is true of pretty much every "dual power" charger) but if you're not in a hurry, it won't matter.

[@IowaBudgetRCBashers]

Put em in a basher and go out and beat on it from full charge to lipo cutoff, and see which one lasts longer. Crawling is mostly low throttle with a few occasional bursts, so it doesn’t put the batteries to the real test.. I get say 15 minutes out of my ovonic 2200 3s in my Bashers or monster trucks, and that same battery will last 1-1/2-2 hours in my Gen8 or gen9’ depending on how rough the trail is

[@CrawlerCanyon]

But I'm not interested in that at all. How long a battery lasts in a basher is meaningless to a rock crawler, and I would know-- I'm both. I view them as completely separate endeavors, because they are. In answering the unasked question of do C-rating matter to crawling, the answer is at the very least anecdotally no. No one is asking this question in the basher/racer world, because we already know that it does. Well, cell quality (and therefore internal resistance) probably matter more, but let's not start splitting hairs. The smallest capacity batteries I run routinely in go-fasts are 4500mah 6S packs, while everything in 3S is 6000mah and up. Would never even occur to me to put a 2200 in one of my bashers.

[@themountain59]

My comp rigs have 850mah 3s or 650mah 4s and they are all +50 C....if they really have that I rather doubt that. More important is to check them for low internal resistance.

[@TheRCBuildersPost]

With crawlers I never really noticed much of a difference. Now when I drag race, it very much so makes a difference. But, I run 5mm bullets on my drag cars

[@CrawlerCanyon]

Yeah, anything fast. I tried one of the bash-around builds with XT60s and "normal" packs and could feel it bogging down badly after even just a few seconds of heavy throttle.

[@SivartCustomRCs]

Doesn't "C" rating also affect the charging amperage? The higher the rating the more amps you can push into it to lower charge times.

[@dkmgm2011]

I will say no. Most manufacturers recommend 2c charge rate regardless of discharge or capacity.

[@CrawlerCanyon]

I think I've only seen one or two brands touting 5C charge rates, which is something the cells will not like. I was 2C all the time with the 1500s, but now that I have a 4-port charger it's back to 1C because I've no need to be in a hurry. Charging the 6000MaH 6S packs on the other hand... oof. Those packs do loudly specify not to go above 1C charge rate.

[@Gmcworrior1]

Esc, controller or the battery

[@ChairMan71196]

Bunch of dig runs

[@Steve_J81]

I see plenty of guys who use a JST for the power plug while using a 600mah drone pack, I would think C rating doesn't matter to us crawler guys.

[@CrawlerCanyon]

Which to me is just crazy. All the years of working on car stereos have rendered me incapable of running wire or connectors that small for anything asking for power. I can't remember running a speaker with smaller than 14GA, and even now when I'm putting on a tap for a direct-power servo, 22GA wire and a JST is just... it's so SMALL. And I'm one of those "monospec" guys, so if all of the crawler batteries are on one plug, all of the crawler stuff is on that plug. No XT30s sneaking in here.

[@Steve_J81]

@@CrawlerCanyon Most of the direct power servos draw more amps than what a JST is rated for. My crawlers all use XT60 and my bashers use EC5.

[@CrawlerCanyon]

@@Steve_J81 from what I can gather, the JST XH variant is rated to 5A continuous, and 20GA wire can supposedly push 10A, so it might be one of the few instances where the stuff we're using is neither underspec nor overkill. Most of the direct-power guys I've tested come in under 5A, with the NSDRC stuff hovering around 2A. What we should be questioning is how is the 8A that a hungry RX-powered servo desperately wants supposed to (continuously) get that through a Futaba plug and 26GA wire.

[@Steve_J81]

@@CrawlerCanyon I currently have a NSDRC RS1 (receiver powered) and it seems to do fine, although now you got my thinking about hooking it directly to the castle bec instead of thru the receiver. I have at time’s ran direct power to a standard receiver powered servo with no issues.

[@Steve_J81]

@@CrawlerCanyon Now that I’m thinking about it I’m tempted to open a cheap high voltage servo and add direct power leads just to see if it performs better.

[@kel5944]

People die at 100 degrees when it’s humid or when they are unprepared and used to highs in the 70s.

[@CrawlerCanyon]

Like when the UK had that heatwave where it got into the mid-90s, and I remember the news talking about an airport shutting down because the "runways were melting." I'm a lifelong denizen of the desert, and have never in my life seen a runway not made of concrete. But at the same time, my street is asphalt, and it's never melted. Not even once. Even the runways over there can't handle the heat.

[@kel5944]

@@CrawlerCanyon like the power grid and water lines in Houston couldn’t handle the cold and the streets where I live are crowned to promote water runoff. Most places are only designed to withstand normal conditions for that area, otherwise it is just over engineering. I’m sure some of the people who died from that heat wave couldn’t have survived somewhere here it was normal.

[@Rombo-86]

I’m gonna start to say I’m Swedish and uses Celsius. But you say it’s hard. I don’t understand Fahrenheit 🤷‍♂️ think like this. -35°c is very very cold (cold winter day up north). +35°c is very very varm (hot summer day) 0°c water freezes. 100°c water boils. Very very easy 😜 like the metric system. 1 meter = 10decimeter, 100cm, 1000mm. Imperial is like 1 yard = 3 feet? 250 inches? 16/32 of a inch? 😂🙈😜🤷‍♂️

[@CrawlerCanyon]

The Metric system is great for weight, distance, and volume (you know, pretty much everything) but it's terrible at temperature. A hundred degrees between water freezing and water boiling is not enough, maaaaaan. We've got 180 degrees between those two, and we decimalize, so there can be 1800 steps. See over here, -35º and a whole lotta people might be dead. 35º is still damn cold. Up at 100º, that's getting warm (to us desert folk.) I feel like I've gone half-British, where I'll talk about measurements of something half imperial and half metric. This rig has got a 313mm wheelbase, and weighs six and a half pounds. 1.9" tires, 45mm wide. 🤪

[@Rombo-86]

@@CrawlerCanyon haha 😂 but when you talk about you rig with 1.9” and pounds I understand very good. I’m Sweden we also use inch when we talk about wheels and mm in the wide. Even in full size cars 😊 I like all your videos and servo testing and so on when you show it in kg to. It’s only the Fahrenheit I have a real problem with. 🤔

[@CrawlerCanyon]

@@Rombo-86 It comes down to what we were raised on. Still to this day, the news from some far-off metric land is like, "Residents suffering in 40 degree heat" and I'm like.. what? How much is that? HOW HOT IS FORTY. So I have to Google it, and I"m like, oh, 104º... that's pretty hot. They continue with "X number dead! Schools are closed! IT'S A STATE OF EMERGENCY! And I go back to being confused again, because we get at least a week's worth of days 46-47º celsius.

[@Rombo-86]

@@CrawlerCanyon yes I agree. And I can understand your confusion. And as a Swedish resident (about the same height as England) I can understand why sensitive people can die in that heat. I was in Albania last year and it was like 38°c (100.4°) there for a week and I had a tuff time handling that. If I was where you live with that heat you say I probably die to 😂🙈

[@mitsuman5555]

To make this more scientific it should be blinded. You could easily do this if inside guy installed the batteries without telling outside guy which was which 😅 On a serious note, this is an interesting topic. If you could figure out a way to bench test them, I'd tune in for it.

[@CrawlerCanyon]

That takes me back to the days of "discharge tests, " where they'd put batteries on a big bulb discharger and see how long it took to pull the packs down-- back in the days of assembling your own NiMh packs out of matched cells with the little printout spec sheets stuck to each one. Those were NOT the days.

[@dkmgm2011]

​@@CrawlerCanyon this is still a viable option with lithium.

[@HRDNTS]

Celsius is easy man - 0 is freezing. If its getting close to 0 its getting cold.

[@ChairMan71196]

Drag race for once. Lol