Hobbywing Xerun AXE

[Jboucher]

I liked the idea of planning the Castle Link connection end inside the fuel cell, as that would help protect it from damage, and if the fuel cell is waterproof (or, can be made waterproof), it would protect it from "the environment".

~ More peace, love, laughter & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

The real long term solution is for castle to get their R&D tech guys to integrate the damn Bluetooth module into the Mamba X.

Call it Mamba X plus or Bluetooth edition and charge 20$ extra I don't care. It's 2020, we need wireless built-in.

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[soze]

Which is why I installed the Castle QuickConnect...does essentially the same thing, at a much lower price. I placed the QuickConnect cable inside the Capra's fuel cell. Yes, I have to undo 4 screws, and remove the fuel cell's "lid" in order to plug the Link into the QuickConnect, but I can have almost 3 QuickConnect units for the price of a single B-Link unit. I don't mind the extra 45 seconds it takes to unscrew/screw the 4 fuel cell screws, especially if I'm saving a considerable amount of money.

~ More peace, love, laughter & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

Of course the quick connect is fine. I wouldn't go out of my way to buy a BT module just to have BT, but if it's already built-in into the ESC it's useful is all I'm saying.

 

[JatoTheRipper]

The real long term solution is for castle to get their R&D tech guys to integrate the damn Bluetooth module into the Mamba X.

Call it Mamba X plus or Bluetooth edition and charge 20$ extra I don't care. It's 2020, we need wireless built-in.

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Agreed.

 

[Panther6834]

Of course the quick connect is fine. I wouldn't go out of my way to buy a BT module just to have BT, but if it's already built-in into the ESC it's useful is all I'm saying.

I'm 100% agreement...tho, knowing what Bluetooth chipsets cost, is estimate the retail cost increase should only be $10, maybe $15 at the most. The chipsets, in bulk, only cost $5-10 (at most).

~ More peace, love, laughter & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

 

[Voodoobrew]

LOL, fair point.

Is the AXE motor slotless or slotted? That is, does it rotate smoothly when unpowered or not? I can't stand the chattering sound of a slotted motor coasting at high speed, though admittedly that's not something that really happens with rock crawlers.

Slotless w/staggered poles, it's the quietest motor I have.

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[fyrstormer]

Slotless w/staggered poles, it's the quietest motor I have.

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Interesting.

 

[fyrstormer]

For me, the benefits for bluetooth are when for some reason you want to change some esc settings, but you have your esc tucked away in a hard to reach place like inside the cage of a Capra. Connect via bluetooth, adjust settings.. done!

Fair enough. My only RC with a hard-to-reach ESC is my Wraith, which has the ESC under the hood, but I haven't needed to adjust that ESC since I installed it. It doesn't take very much testing to figure out the optimal settings for any particular vehicle.

 

[Jim85IROC]

Fair enough. My only RC with a hard-to-reach ESC is my Wraith, which has the ESC under the hood, but I haven't needed to adjust that ESC since I installed it. It doesn't take very much testing to figure out the optimal settings for any particular vehicle.

That's generally true. About the only type of vehicles I could imagine needing to do recurring tweaks on would be a race vehicle where you wanted to be able to adjust punch & throttle curves to suit track conditions. Aside from that, I agree... set it and forget it.

 

[robert@castle]

The real long term solution is for castle to get their R&D tech guys to integrate the damn Bluetooth module into the Mamba X.

Call it Mamba X plus or Bluetooth edition and charge 20$ extra I don't care. It's 2020, we need wireless built-in.

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We've talked about it but I don't think there is any immediate plan to implement that.

There is a lot of complications that trying to fit the bluetooth module into the Mamba X causes. First issue is space. We don't have room on the Mamba X board. It is packed and does not have any room on it. The bluetooth module we are using has a 10x11mm footprint and there is no amount of squeezing we could do to make it fit. We would have to make the case larger just to be able to it in. Next issue is actually talking to the bluetooth when it is in a case. We found that range was cut in half when we cased the bluetooth link with our epoxy that we use for waterproofing. Also the module being mounted inside of an aluminum box close to the ground/chassis is going to make it really hard to actually get a stable signal from it.

The other issue is, would you rather pay $20 more per ESC or pay $60 and have it work on every Castle ESC you own? We designed it to fit inline because we knew there was people who would use one per model or had a hard to reach ESC and needed it to be permanently installed, but we also knew that most people would buy one and move it between all of their models.

We may bundle a B-Link in the box with the ESC or allow the use of the Castle Link Coupon on the purchase of the B-Link, but I don't see us building into any ESC any time soon because of technical limitations.

 

[Jboucher]

We've talked about it but I don't think there is any immediate plan to implement that.

There is a lot of complications that trying to fit the bluetooth module into the Mamba X causes. First issue is space. We don't have room on the Mamba X board. It is packed and does not have any room on it. The bluetooth module we are using has a 10x11mm footprint and there is no amount of squeezing we could do to make it fit. We would have to make the case larger just to be able to it in. Next issue is actually talking to the bluetooth when it is in a case. We found that range was cut in half when we cased the bluetooth link with our epoxy that we use for waterproofing. Also the module being mounted inside of an aluminum box close to the ground/chassis is going to make it really hard to actually get a stable signal from it.

The other issue is, would you rather pay $20 more per ESC or pay $60 and have it work on every Castle ESC you own? We designed it to fit inline because we knew there was people who would use one per model or had a hard to reach ESC and needed it to be permanently installed, but we also knew that most people would buy one and move it between all of their models.

We may bundle a B-Link in the box with the ESC or allow the use of the Castle Link Coupon on the purchase of the B-Link, but I don't see us building into any ESC any time soon because of technical limitations.

Ok, valid points.
Not trying to be an ass or anything but how did hobbywing do it with their AXE system?
They don't seem to suffer too much from reduced range or bad signal.
I would still choose the Mamba X for the AUX channel control myself but I know the AXE is rapidly becoming very popular in the RC groups.

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[soze]

Ok, valid points.
Not trying to be an ass or anything but how did hobbywing do it with their AXE system?
They don't seem to suffer too much from reduced range or bad signal.
I would still choose the Mamba X for the AUX channel control myself but I know the AXE is rapidly becoming very popular in the RC groups.

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The AXE is a bigger ESC. The Mamba X is a bit smaller.

 

[robert@castle]

Ok, valid points.
Not trying to be an ass or anything but how did hobbywing do it with their AXE system?
They don't seem to suffer too much from reduced range or bad signal.
I would still choose the Mamba X for the AUX channel control myself but I know the AXE is rapidly becoming very popular in the RC groups.

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We could do it, it's just not high on our priority list at the moment. We are a fairly small team in engineering(just 6 of us right now) so we have to pick and choose our projects carefully. It isn't that it can't be done, it just can't be slapped onto existing products, it's a design decision we need to make from the start of a product development. It is also hard to justify the extra cost and size. The components to do Bluetooth take up about 60% of the board area of our 8a BEC. If we were potting it in a case we would probably need to use a bluetooth module that allows us to use an external wire antenna like a receiver uses rather than the trace antenna that our current B-Link uses to get it up and out of the case for better signal.


I'd like to take apart an AXE to see how they have done some things on it. The whole reverse polarity protection feature is of interest to me because we know how to do it and have done it for a few industrial customers but it consumes a lot of extra board space to do correctly. In our designs it would add 6 more MOSFETs to the Mamba X making it a 24 MOSFETs ESC instead of an 18. That requires a board and case that is ~30% larger and we already have complaints that the Mamba X is too big for some customers. We decided a while ago that it probably isn't a feature that would be worthwhile/feasible in a hobby product. We are hesitant to add a lot of these features to an ESC and make too big to work in some vehicles or make a compromised ESC in order to fit these features. Out of pure curiosity of my part, does anyone know how many drive MOSFETs the AXE has?

 

[Jboucher]

The AXE is a bigger ESC. The Mamba X is a bit smaller.

I didn't know that, kinda makes sense now.
Thanks

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[soze]

I didn't know that, kinda makes sense now.
Thanks

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Actually, I just looked at it again. They are almost the same. The AXE is taller and without a fan. The Mamba X is shorter but with the fan it's just a tad taller.

 

[JatoTheRipper]

We've talked about it but I don't think there is any immediate plan to implement that.

There is a lot of complications that trying to fit the bluetooth module into the Mamba X causes. First issue is space. We don't have room on the Mamba X board. It is packed and does not have any room on it. The bluetooth module we are using has a 10x11mm footprint and there is no amount of squeezing we could do to make it fit. We would have to make the case larger just to be able to it in. Next issue is actually talking to the bluetooth when it is in a case. We found that range was cut in half when we cased the bluetooth link with our epoxy that we use for waterproofing. Also the module being mounted inside of an aluminum box close to the ground/chassis is going to make it really hard to actually get a stable signal from it.

The other issue is, would you rather pay $20 more per ESC or pay $60 and have it work on every Castle ESC you own? We designed it to fit inline because we knew there was people who would use one per model or had a hard to reach ESC and needed it to be permanently installed, but we also knew that most people would buy one and move it between all of their models.

We may bundle a B-Link in the box with the ESC or allow the use of the Castle Link Coupon on the purchase of the B-Link, but I don't see us building into any ESC any time soon because of technical limitations.

I won't pay $60 for a Bluetooth module. I would pay $20 for the ESC if it was built in.

 

[Voodoobrew]

Ok, valid points.
Not trying to be an ass or anything but how did hobbywing do it with their AXE system?
They don't seem to suffer too much from reduced range or bad signal.
I would still choose the Mamba X for the AUX channel control myself but I know the AXE is rapidly becoming very popular in the RC groups.

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My axe is the first gen hardware an the Bluetooth range is less than 2 feet with my Samsung note 8.

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[Jboucher]

My axe is the first gen hardware an the Bluetooth range is less than 2 feet with my Samsung note 8.

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Still enough for programming. Just like plugging castle link with a USB cable within 3 feet of a computer.
Hey I remember the Nintendo with wired controllers, wifi and Bluetooth are just pure win

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[robert@castle]

My axe is the first gen hardware an the Bluetooth range is less than 2 feet with my Samsung note 8.

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When we were first setting up the bluetooth, we had ambitions of showing realtime telemetry data on your phone while the car was running. So we achieved a range of 75-100 feet on cars and 150-200 feet on planes/helicopters(being close to the ground really hurts range). This goal has proven problematic partially because Android has some really dimwitted limitations in it's bluetooth library. If you lose connection(aka go out of range) to the link, iOS has a 1.6 second timeout before it allows you to reconnect. Android has a 20 second timeout for the same thing, but it doesn't start that 20 second timer until the link comes back in range. If you make a post on the android bug forum stating that is too long, you will get a reply that says it is working as expected and then they will close your bug.



Now that we know that it isn't feasible, we could probably make a link that doesn't get as much range and be absolutely fine, but 2 feet is unacceptable close. We have observed that anything beyond 50 feet gets about 50% data rates, and at 65 feet we get about 10% data rates. So while we are sill in range, and can talk, it's not great. If they only get 2 feet before it disconnects, the data rates are probably pretty poor at 1.5 feet.

 

[Panther6834]

This goal has proven problematic partially because Android has some really dimwitted limitations in it's bluetooth library. If you lose connection(aka go out of range) to the link, iOS has a 1.6 second timeout before it allows you to reconnect. Android has a 20 second timeout for the same thing, but it doesn't start that 20 second timer until the link comes back in range.

Honestly, I know this isn't necessarily the truth. This sounds to me like it's a limitation of the Bluetooth chipset your using, and not of Android.

Although I could give more examples, I'll give just two - a Bluetooth headset, and a smartwatch. With both, once out of range (approximately 20ft for a Bluetooth 3.0/3.1 device, 30ft for a Bluetooth 4.0-4.2 device, and up to 60ft for a Bluetooth 5.0 device), my smartwatch connects almost immediately upon being back in range, and my headset connects within a few seconds after that...and, yes, I have actually tested this several times, under different companies.

Additionally, although I'm a professional chauffeur by trade, I review tech products on the side. As I'll be driving a group from Google's Android division tomorrow, I'll be sure to ask, and, if I get an answer, I will post whatever is said in here tomorrow night.

~ More peace, love, laughter & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

 

[Lashlee]

I would certainly like the option of using the coupon to get a BT module, especially since I have two Mamba X's and would buy two except for the cost. $40 is much better than $100!