Have tech questions? Will answer.

[Tralfaz Blecht]

I gotta say as a starter setup you can't really beat a HobbyWing 1080 ESC with a Holmes Hobbies Trailmaster 550 21t. Run it on 3S and have a blast!...

My stuff was waiting for me when I got back in town yesterday. As a fault of nobody's but mine, I was under the impression that this would be a plug-and-play upgrade. Rookie mistake. I'm good with all of the mechanical stuff on the cars, ok with wiring and some soldering which is not a problem for this set-up.

I was a bit overwhelmed when I opened the box for the ESC and found the tiny print with a million things to program. Is there a basic simple set-up to get this going on an otherwise stock Honcho? I have no extra lights, no winch etc. With zero RC technical experience under my belt, I'm contemplating taking it up to the hobby shop and seeing if I can get some help. It's no big deal if I do have to do that. I just figure I'd get an opinion here first. In searching the interwebs I have at least found an enlarged part of the parameter page and it seems like there are factory defaults so I'm guessing that I may be able to wire it up and go? If so I can figure out the tweakage later and after I see how it acts.

 

[Jboucher]

Use the search function on these forums, there was a thread i started about the hobbywing 1080 settings.

Someone shared a very good setup for crawling and trail.

I'll try to find it.

But you can read the leaflet that comtés with it, there is some details about every settings.
You can't break anything really.

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[Browneye]

A lot of how-to in the HW1080 ESC thread - did you find that one?
I have 3 of them, once you understand the process they're quite easy to set and adjust.

 

[Tralfaz Blecht]

A lot of how-to in the HW1080 ESC thread - did you find that one?
I have 3 of them, once you understand the process they're quite easy to set and adjust.

Yes. I did find that. I do search for stuff on here. Sometimes there is so much info or super long threads with a lot of different opinions. That's a great asset to have for sure, but it's hard to weed out the stuff you need sometimes. All good though. I greatly appreciate all of the help available here.

Anyways, it looks like I can run it with default settings and tweak it from there. My main fear was that there are so many settings and a lot of them I know nothing about. I'm learning.

 

[Ninomaniac]

The settings are a bonus. It will work fine out of the box. Take it outside with the program box, tweak a setting, try driving, tweak another and so on

 

[Tralfaz Blecht]

Thanks, guys.

I've been checking out some tutorials and it doesn't look as complicated as I thought. I think I just got a shock from first seeing the manual and I thought I'd have to make a bunch of decisions about things I knew nothing about. Hopefully I'll have some time today to mess with it. We have rainy weather in GA today so I think my prospects are good.

 

[mikemcE]

Don’t get flustered, it’s really not too tricky!


Hang up and Drive

 

[Browneye]

Yes. I did find that. I do search for stuff on here. Sometimes there is so much info or super long threads with a lot of different opinions. That's a great asset to have for sure, but it's hard to weed out the stuff you need sometimes. All good though. I greatly appreciate all of the help available here.

Anyways, it looks like I can run it with default settings and tweak it from there. My main fear was that there are so many settings and a lot of them I know nothing about. I'm learning.

Post specific queries over there and you'll get good explanation on what stuff does and how-to do it.

The stock settings are fine for basic running on lipo power. If you're using crawl mode (not stock) you can ignore the brake settings since you'll use drag instead - set those so your rig stops and holds the way you want it to.

I posted what I use in my first build thread and explained why. You can really smooth out the transitions between starts and stops, and set the bec up higher if you have a high-volt servo.

It can really enhance control, especially on 3S power.

 

[Tralfaz Blecht]

I got it all installed today with no problems. I went ahead and soldered the motor leads since the ESC wires had no connectors. I'm not too bad with soldering, but I did forget to slip on the heat-shrink before I soldered it together. No big, I don't know if that will matter much and I can do another time. I had to trim a corner of the battery tray to make room for the motor, but the battery still has plenty of room.

As for the ESC, that was easy enough. The little program box is simple as hell. Again, I just saw a bunch of tiny print and expected the worst. Today was a good day for my tinkering with this stuff. The more I do, the more I realize how easy most of it is and I do enjoy (tiny) wrenching on it.

So far on the 2S batteries, I have seen no difference in speed. No worries here, hopefully a 3S battery upgrade will help that out some. I didn't get to take it anywhere to crawl today but it all seems nice and smooth just running around the yard a bit.

One last question...

So now that I've moved on to this ESC, where do I plug my lights up? Do I need to use the extra channel in my receiver or something like that?

 

[Jboucher]

The esc has nothing to do with lights.

My lights get power directly from the battery with a JST connector on the esc xt60 plug.

The it's connected to a light controller from HeyOK which is plugged in channel 4 of my receiver and i can do on/off from my radio

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[Tralfaz Blecht]

The esc has nothing to do with lights.

My lights get power directly from the battery with a JST connector on the esc xt60 plug.

The it's connected to a light controller from HeyOK which is plugged in channel 4 of my receiver and i can do on/off from my radio

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Ok. The reason I asked is because the stock Axial set-up had the lights plugged into the ESC. I'll search all of that. I'm sure it's easy enough.

Thank you!

 

[Browneye]

>snip

So far on the 2S batteries, I have seen no difference in speed. No worries here, hopefully a 3S battery upgrade will help that out some. I didn't get to take it anywhere to crawl today but it all seems nice and smooth just running around the yard a bit.

One last question...

So now that I've moved on to this ESC, where do I plug my lights up? Do I need to use the extra channel in my receiver or something like that?

Good to hear you got it going. Whew!!

And yeah, the esc won't make any difference in speed - that's a matter of motor winds and gearing. I went up a tooth on the pinion one rig and two on another, which really improved speed with 3s power, and both still crawl very well. They are much more difficult to control for noobs though, throttle control is very fine and they run hard enough to break stuff now. So I'm only loaning out my basic ones for new peeps to try them out.

For lighting you can get power right off your receiver if you have an empty channel. When you power up the rig your lights will turn on. They draw so little that they won't affect your servo if you're running it off your receiver as well. If you go high-power you can then look at alternate wiring options with a BEC and leads direct to battery.

If you want to be able to control your lights you'll need a lighting control module that plugs into that receiver channel, and then your lights plug into the controller. I went this way with some cheapo ebay-china lights and controllers and very happy with the way they work. I did a pretty good write up in my build threads. For $5 a lighting controller is a cheap and good option IMO.

 

[Tralfaz Blecht]

Update:

I really didn't get to test the new setup properly yesterday since it was raining and cold and I didn't want to be out in that mess. All that I knew was that it seemed about the speed as before. Before I installed the motor and ESC, I tested the polarity with both motors powered through the ESC since the new ESC had yellow and blue wires. I wired the new motor accordingly. Running it today I was immediately concerned that it was even slower than before since I was actually walking behind it and out-pacing it. Anyways, I went back to the program card and swapped out the defaults for forward and reverse and now it scoots pretty good. It's 10 - 20% faster I'd guess in a most unscientific manner. It's about where I wanted it to be when I was considering upgrading. Now I just have to tweak it to my liking. The drag brake is so powerful that it does a stoppie wheelie when I let off the throttle.

So all and all I'm very happy with this setup and it was very cost effective. I plan to order a spare motor so when this one needs maintenance I'll have a backup while I'm learning how to do that. So as a note to any other guys new to this out there, don't be afraid to try this stuff. It's way easier than it sounds and there is good support here if you get stuck.

Thanks all, I learned a lot.

 

[socal gto]

I can't seem to find a straight answer for this. I just got a Holmes dual esc and the dual bypass for the cc bec and I was wondering if I still need to remove the red wire from one of the esc leads.

 

[mikemcE]

Yes one red needs to go, only one esc needs to power the RX


Hang up and Drive

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

yes, remove one red wire from one of the ESCs rx lead.

 

[socal gto]

thanks guys removing the pin was way easier than I thought. last one I did many years ago I clipped it out

 

[Jboucher]

Most likely already covered elsewhere but i can't find it.

What would be the RPM of a 21T 550 motor on 3s in the axial bomber?
Trying to figure out the brushless equivalent...

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[JohnRobHolmes]

Go for 2000 to 2200kv

 

[Jboucher]

Go for 2000 to 2200kv

Actually it gives me the starting point for the jump to brushless [emoji41]

If i like it now and it's fast enough then i know 2700kv should be good.
If i find it slow i might look at faster.

Thx a lot

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