| Reverse,
What's The Scoop? Reverse
adds resistance to a speed control. The added resistance of a reversing control will slow
down the racer a little bit, but when installed in a scale application this is not a
factor. Also, reverse ESC's don't handle hot modified motors and this means that the
speed control may overheat if you try to run a low-turn modified motor. (Due to the
marvelous FETs and high-speed switching incorporated in modern ESCs, this is less true
than it used to be; all of Tekin's reversing controls now handle hot modified motors.)
Reverse adds a small amount of weight to the speed control. You now can get better
ESC'c that allow the racer to disable reverse entirely for racing. This means us
boaters have a larger selection on ESC's to choose from.
Set-Up, Do I Need A Degree?
These units plug directly into the radio receiver. They use the digital or pulse signal from the transmitter,
to control a models "direction and speed. This is done by moving the
throttle stick on the transmitter.
You adjust the older-design speed controls
using two potentiometers (little thinggys you stick a tiny screwdriver into and turn) and
an LED indicator.
You adjust newer-design speed controls using
a single button: push the button, then move the stick from neutral to full throttle to
full reverse and then back to neutral; the speed control stores the settings
electronically. The older system was more prone to drift and needed occasional
readjustment; the new system is more prone to forgetting the adjustment entirely, making
the speed control act dead. Since all new speed control designs have the one-button
adjustment (advancing technology makes it both cheaper to produce and, in principle,
more reliable), you don't really have much of a choice here. These are pretty simple
to set-up. |
|
BEC... One Less Battery! With boats, we are at times limited on the amount of weight we can take on
board. Back in the old days, someone got the idea of running the receiver off of the
main battery. This would eliminate the need for the receiver battery all together.
The electronics needed to drop the voltage to the amount required by the receiver
was called a Battery Eliminator Circuit or BEC.
Some people still to this day use voltage
regulators to do this same job. Because the R/C car people wanted to make their cars
lighter, the BEC is now built into some ESC's.
All of today's Novak speed controls and most
of Tekin's feature an on-off switch that allows you to plug in the battery without turning
on the boat; you flip the switch to turn on the boat and apply power to the receiver. This
is extremely convenient. Beware the inexpensive low-frequency speed controls that are
bundled with some radios -- they may lack an on-off switch, making them awkward to use.
Capacitors
Capacitors are to be used on electric motors
when used in conjunction with electronic speed controls. The capacitors help filter out
the 'electronic' noise. Most of the ESC's sold today come with capacitors with them.
Most are 0.1 µf rating (.1 micro farad).
**** **** WARNING **** ****
A diode is an implement that
restricts the flow of current to one direction only. DO NOT USE a
Schottky diode on a reversible electronic speed control, this can damage the speed control
beyond repair. |
