A fellow racer recent had a bearing explode in his 5800 and the motor locked up. I haven't talked to him since so I dont know if there was any damage but all of the little balls were stuck to his rotor. He hadn't had it out of his car since Feburary. It prompted me to check my bearings after mine had been in my car for 6 weeks without taking it out.

A fellow racer recent had a bearing explode in his 5800 and the motor locked up. I haven't talked to him since so I dont know if there was any damage but all of the little balls were stuck to his rotor. He hadn't had it out of his car since Feburary. It prompted me to check my bearings after mine had been in my car for 6 weeks without taking it out.

That could happen with any of them! I recommend replacing them with the BOCA ceramic nitrate bearings with the metal sheilding that cost about $9 a piece, but they last alot longer and have alot less resistance/friction. Even the Plettenbergs I get, I replace them with these.

Craps - One question I haven't heard asked yet is "What kind of batteries are you running?" Even with 3300's, most types of R/C racing use most of the battery up in 5 minutes, so how do you go 20 without a battery change? If it's just low gearing, this should be easy on the motor and it shouldn't overheat. :confused: Has anyone checked their motor & ESC with a temp gun after it shut down? The earlier units shut off when the motor hit around 175°F, the new ones are supposed to be around 200 (I've seen 190 on mine without shutdown). But if your batteries last 20 minutes, I can't believe either piece would get very hot.

Craps - One question I haven't heard asked yet is "What kind of batteries are you running?" Even with 3300's, most types of R/C racing use most of the battery up in 5 minutes, so how do you go 20 without a battery change? If it's just low gearing, this should be easy on the motor and it shouldn't overheat. :confused: Has anyone checked their motor & ESC with a temp gun after it shut down? The earlier units shut off when the motor hit around 175°F, the new ones are supposed to be around 200 (I've seen 190 on mine without shutdown). But if your batteries last 20 minutes, I can't believe either piece would get very hot.

These guys all talk to one another and are having problems where we race a 12 minute main. They all know how to gear them and I have used a temp gun twice on them myself that they are thermalling at low tempertures in the 140 degree range for some reason. I think the thermal sensor is not a very good quality that can fail at anytime and will thermal at anytime and any temperture. Novak has alot of bugs to get out of they're system.

We are running 8000 mah li-pos.

My 3300's last near 20 minutes geared properly on my track and they are unmatched cheapies from cheapbatterypacks.com

These guys all talk to one another and are having problems where we race a 12 minute main. They all know how to gear them and I have used a temp gun twice on them myself that they are thermalling at low tempertures in the 140 degree range for some reason...

The first unit I had started doing the same thing. The replacement they sent me routinely comes off the track at 200+ without shutdown, so I would suggest sending them back for repair. Or maybe wait until the GTB becomes available. Novak usually offers an "upgrade" price for newer, better ESCs.

We are running 8000 mah li-pos.
That explains a lot. In a touring car, I've run 7.5 minutes with 3300's, and could maybe squeeze 10 minutes out of it with 3800's and conservative driving, but 20 minutes just didn't sound right.

My 3300's last near 20 minutes geared properly on my track and they are unmatched cheapies from cheapbatterypacks.com.
Still sounds like a stretch to me. If you do the math, it means your average amp draw needs to be around 10 Amps for a 420 pack. Unless the track doesn't let you use much throttle or off-road cars get a lot of help from the regen circuit.... :confused:

The only place I use full throttle on my track is on the straight. I also have a soft throttle finger. Heck I could do 8 minutes with a stock motor in the days of NiCads

If everybody would legalize li-pos, the battery wars would go away and make even the stock class simple and speaking of the stock class, the Novak 4300SS has been made legal at some tracks for the stock class and I hope it is made legal every where.

Isn't the 4300 faster than any stock motor out there?

I'm not sure LiPos are the way I want to go. I know the chances are low if you handle them correctly but I would rather not burn down my house. They would sure put alot of battery matchers out of buisness. I always thought "battery wars" were blown out of proportion.

The 4300 is alot more powerful than a stock motor, and runs very close to a 19-turn on 6 cells. It's officially rated at 175 watts by Novak, while a stock motor might make 130 before it heats up. Now if the 4300 replaced stock class, I wouldn't mind a bit.

Even with 4 cells the 4300 is not too far off from a 19 turn... it's most deffintely faster then a stock motor with 4 cells... you have to gear it alot higher to make use of the power however... cause the RPM isn't that high.

These guys all talk to one another and are having problems where we race a 12 minute main. They all know how to gear them and I have used a temp gun twice on them myself that they are thermalling at low tempertures in the 140 degree range for some reason. I think the thermal sensor is not a very good quality that can fail at anytime and will thermal at anytime and any temperture. Novak has alot of bugs to get out of they're system.

We are running 8000 mah li-pos.

Yes, I have seen some people who's units thermal at low temperatures. They simply sent them back and the problem was solved by Novak with no hassle. To shed a little light on things I doubt these units hvae a "sensor" that determines the temp. More than likely they simply have a PTC thermistor on the circuit board. It is simply a chip resistor who's resistance changes at a given temperature. I assume an IC sees the voltage change and shuts down the speedo or motor depending on which over heats. I have been told that manufacturers don't tend to hold very tight tolerances on thermistors. My guess would be Novak had a bad batch and if you send it in the problem is now solved.

That kind of things happens and there really isn't a lot Novak can do about it other than stand behind the products when there are problems. By all accounts they do a pretty good job of that.

Just wanted to update this week we ran an 8 minute main and the Super Sport did not miss a beat. The other guy running a super sport forgot to charge his battery and dumped after 4 minutes, ran off the drivers stand to change batts and took a nose dive in the gravel.
One of the other trucks was runing an Orion V2 10x2 with 3800's and dumped with about a minute to go, I was running unmatched 3300's and continued to run about 3 minutes after the main was over, I pulled my truck cause I was bored probably could have ran a 10 minute main easily.

Well I made my first run of the season on my home track without the SS5800. I was runing an old Peak Spitfire stock motor cause had it in for last week to race stock and never bothered to take it out.

Results were my best lap times were only slightly off from the 5800 but more consistant. The end result was I equaled my best performance with the SS5800 with an old out of date stock motor. So I decided that I am going to buy a 4300 motor and try to split the difference between stock and the 5800.

My home track isn't that great on traction and is really really bumpy. The stock motor made the truck alot easier to drive

Pat, please refresh my memory, you are runing the original SS5800 right?

thnaks

Rick

Rick yes I am

Is this the system, that you can actually flick a switch to run mod, or stock.

thanks
dave mac

Sort of, there is a limited mode that limits the maximum RPM.

I have to replace my capicator on the esc on my super sport+ does anyone know if there are advantages to adding a a bigger or smaller capicator. I accidentally cross connected one of the connections when soldering the wires back on the motor. I have had this problem once before and sent in the ESC to novak. Now i notice in the SS+ directions it say if you are getting shuttering while driving to replace the capicator. This is my problem so this is what I am going to do is replace the capicator.

The jury is really out on capacitor size. On a regular ESC I have gone from none, to a normal size one to a large one and personally couldn't tell the difference between any of the setups. Some people claim they can but I couldnt and I regularly beat some of the people that say they can tell a difference.

Best bet is just to get an exact replacement.

Sounds like a good plan...im sure novak picked the 680 uf size for a reason and since im not electrical engineer why change it?? going to good old radio shack tommorow after teaching gym class for 5th graders......

You might want to get the cap from Novak, there are stats on the cap that are not apparent. The cap on the ESC should be a very low ESR cap (fast response time, low resistance at high frequency), The caps Radio Shack sell are just cheapie general purpose caps.