RC Deck - Performance Power Supply With Radio Control

[aFrInaTi0n]

Seems I am the 1st who received his units?! Thanks @NoEXIST - mine arrived today! 😍 Those are really looking great.
Now I need to get me some lipos + a charger to start in some weeks with testing them out!

Some pictures for the interested ones:

 

Spoiler

 

[FriedlS]

1 hour ago, aFrInaTi0n said:

Seems I am the 1st who received his units?! Thanks @NoEXIST - mine arrived today! 😍 Those are really looking great.
Now I need to get me some lipos + a charger to start in some weeks with testing them out!

Some pictures for the interested ones:

 

  Hide contents

 

Wow, looks great! I am looking forward to your test 😊😊

[NoEXIST]

4 hours ago, aFrInaTi0n said:

Seems I am the 1st who received his units?! Thanks @NoEXIST - mine arrived today! 😍 Those are really looking great.
Now I need to get me some lipos + a charger to start in some weeks with testing them out!

Some pictures for the interested ones:

 

  Hide contents

 

You're defending first to post about them:)

Thanks for kind words!

[Lixander]

I just tested the RC Deck and I found out that mine has the JST pins for the PF connectors dead, as it doesn't give any power to the receiver when I connect the battery and turn on the Deck.

The other JST, which is for the PU connector is ok somehow.

Does anybody with external receiver RC Deck experienced that?

 

[everybrickasculpture]

I received my units yesterday, and should be able to do some initial testing here shortly.  My initial impressions are that the unit is very polished, and the form factor is great.  I'll give an update after testing a few models out.

[Lixander]

19 hours ago, everybrickasculpture said:

I received my units yesterday, and should be able to do some initial testing here shortly.  My initial impressions are that the unit is very polished, and the form factor is great.  I'll give an update after testing a few models out.

Oke, I am waiting for the results of the tests.

Also, yeah, the form factor is great.

P.S.: You have to connect both JST ports to the receiver, as the one for the PU connectors also powers the receiver. The other one, which is for the PF connectors, only controls those connectors, it doesn`t power anything.

Edited July 17, 2024 by Lixander

[NoEXIST]

On 7/16/2024 at 11:40 PM, Lixander said:

Oke, I am waiting for the results of the tests.

Also, yeah, the form factor is great.

P.S.: You have to connect both JST ports to the receiver, as the one for the PU connectors also powers the receiver. The other one, which is for the PF connectors, only controls those connectors, it doesn`t power anything.

So far yours was the only one with external receiver. Other units have this done inside.

However I have to say you customers found a flaw I didn't find by myself during my testing. 
 

Seems it need a better ESC for those PF ports, otherwise it can be burned quite easily.
 

I did not found any alternatives that can be used with a current RCDeck body, so I'm thinking of recalling it back. I don't know how much time will it take to redesign it. 

P.S. Customers, please contact me if you already had bad experiences. We'll try to solve that in some way. Sorry for wasted time...

[Lixander]

20 minutes ago, NoEXIST said:

So far yours was the only one with external receiver. Other units have this done inside.

However I have to say you customers found a flaw I didn't find by myself during my testing. 
 

Seems it need a better ESC for those PF ports, otherwise it can be burned quite easily.
 

I did not found any alternatives that can be used with a current RCDeck body, so I'm thinking of recalling it back. I don't know how much time will it take to redesign it. 

P.S. Customers, please contact me if you already had bad experiences. We'll try to solve that in some way. Sorry for wasted time...

A better ESC wont hurt for sure, but in my case, might be the shipping.

Did you tested all the RC Decks, including mine? If yes, it worked then?

Edited July 22, 2024 by Lixander

[NoEXIST]

10 minutes ago, Lixander said:

A better ESC wont hurt for sure, but in my case, might be the shipping.

Did you tested all the RC Decks, including mine? If yes, it worked then?

Every of them were tested, at least one 3s pack with my skyline. I don't know if my driving style is that comfy for the electronics pr there's a different reason.

 

In your case there probably will be a shipping. And then there's a risk of burning an ESC with not careful enough driving. (I ran exact your one with 3s 5000mah 65c battery, I have no clue how the hell it can handle this, but die using 2L motors in other case) 

The only thing I wasn't playing around is 2s or 3s. Always 3s and no problems. From this judgement comes out the problem-free use of 2S. Surprisingly, all the damaged bricks were damaged from use with similar 3S batteries. 
 

As far as I know you wanted to use it with 2s, maybe yours is safe?

24 minutes ago, Lixander said:

A better ESC wont hurt for sure, but in my case, might be the shipping.

I got a sample, but as I said I can't just put it inside an actual version of the brick

[Lixander]

15 minutes ago, NoEXIST said:

Every of them were tested, at least one 3s pack with my skyline. I don't know if my driving style is that comfy for the electronics pr there's a different reason.

In your case there probably will be a shipping. And then there's a risk of burning an ESC with not careful enough driving. (I ran exact your one with 3s 5000mah 65c battery, I have no clue how the hell it can handle this, but die using 2L motors in other case) 

The only thing I wasn't playing around is 2s or 3s. Always 3s and no problems. From this judgement comes out the problem-free use of 2S. Surprisingly, all the damaged bricks were damaged from use with similar 3S batteries. 
As far as I know you wanted to use it with 2s, maybe yours is safe?

I see...........so the shipping it is :/

I tested it with a 2S Li-Po..........after what you said, I will stick with it.

Also, I understand why you cant use a better ESC at the moment.

Edited July 22, 2024 by Lixander

[NoEXIST]

2 minutes ago, Lixander said:

will stick with it.

Time will show us how it goes 

[Lixander]

3 minutes ago, NoEXIST said:

Time will show us how it goes 

Yeah...........first, I have to see what doesnt work :(

[aFrInaTi0n]

As you just asked in a private message about my experiences with my two units: I am not there yet and hope I can test em in the next weeks.

Nevertheless for me the two units are an kickstarter invest and for me it was obvious in the first place that the first generation of a product may have flaws or issues - so to say you can put my two units off any list in your head for doing a callback, they are mine now however they end up, as I find it much better for you staying interested in your product and us all in the future having a cool product (and you finally then some RoI, as I guess currently you are paying us with your efforts of soldering and producing the units with "bare hands".

Happy to support you also in the future for next rounds (after I finally may have time to test the 1st iteration :D). I was questioning myself why nobody is doing R&D in that field as I see a working design filling a huge gap..

 

Edit: The other think I would miss of right now: some little update in the main post with some written up "how to use & better not use" part or something. That would really be helpful to run it in the desired conditions to not easily cook one's units :D

Edited July 23, 2024 by aFrInaTi0n

[NoEXIST]

15 hours ago, aFrInaTi0n said:

Edit: The other think I would miss of right now: some little update in the main post with some written up "how to use & better not use" part or something. That would really be helpful to run it in the desired conditions to not easily cook one's units :D

This is actually a nice idea. Definitely going to so this as soon as possible!

 

 

[aFrInaTi0n]

thanks in advance for picking up the idea ♥

[everybrickasculpture]

On 7/23/2024 at 2:23 PM, aFrInaTi0n said:

As you just asked in a private message about my experiences with my two units: I am not there yet and hope I can test em in the next weeks.

Nevertheless for me the two units are an kickstarter invest and for me it was obvious in the first place that the first generation of a product may have flaws or issues - so to say you can put my two units off any list in your head for doing a callback, they are mine now however they end up, as I find it much better for you staying interested in your product and us all in the future having a cool product (and you finally then some RoI, as I guess currently you are paying us with your efforts of soldering and producing the units with "bare hands".

Happy to support you also in the future for next rounds (after I finally may have time to test the 1st iteration :D). I was questioning myself why nobody is doing R&D in that field as I see a working design filling a huge gap..

 

Edit: The other think I would miss of right now: some little update in the main post with some written up "how to use & better not use" part or something. That would really be helpful to run it in the desired conditions to not easily cook one's units :D

This is pretty much how I see it, and I had two units that let out the magic smoke lol.  I think the product you designed is great and at a great price point, and I am more interested in you continuing the project than discouraging you from doing so.  Speaking of which...

 

So, I had both ESCs blow on both of my units upon testing them with a 3s lipo.  They seemed to work great with 2s though, so I did some digging to try to find the ESC you used.  I believe it's a very common unit, and it looks like it's only rated for 2s, or 9V.  I looked around on amazon and found a small ESC that I believed would work, while providing all of the same functions but could handle 3s.  I settled on this one:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Brushed-Electric-Controller-6-12-6V-Accessories/dp/B0BTNZDW7T/ref=sr_1_95?crid=IDOQ1GB1XBCO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZpPzj7DOpYwRyXIHrYF-vQTSPHZvpPGcWvs6nAP2U56foqUHssaSGxWAVRLZQnmWMLWrNfpmDiuPuG6SvhJI1-pl25O2u6NUkXxXaN9aW-6Fh-2lgEy-2LaxLBzBFX0fjzJJpTPkSSVT6C_WaWBlBcublblPJxD_Qm72pgKZzV7H7CfoqtM94TdS7znoFhXIoJsq7u4zY2NRqNy5ZjU7c45_5hS_jrefZy8ApsWHW9kT_8OWgsbUYqKJBFX_-ddyjiQ7P6RqMXozzOrbqCv10lchSvkAKjKRs2khCpmxjf0.k23Cw1oJrIq5RPDxn5SynHfnNcoyvj-dEY_ddp_-Rzg&dib_tag=se&keywords=brushed+esc+3s&qid=1721659192&sprefix=brushed+esc+3s%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-95

 

It arrived today, and the first thing I did was liberate it from it's plastic housing.  To do that I had to drill two small holes in the side with a pin vice and work a small pry tool in.  After that, I swapped the unit with the blown red ESC by soldering 7 wires and jumping the power switch with solder.  I have only ran through one battery charge worth of testing so far, but it seems to work perfectly!  The only downside to this is the size of the board is slightly larger than the red one, so getting it in the case will probably require some clever arrangement.  I do think it's possible though.

 

 

I will update you with my future findings.  My next plan is to order another one of these and see if I can find the clever arrangement to get it in the case.  Worst case scenario is that I will need to make a new bottom plate with a little clearance for the new board.

Edited July 24, 2024 by everybrickasculpture
fix image format

[NoEXIST]

34 minutes ago, everybrickasculpture said:

So, I had both ESCs blow on both of my units upon testing them with a 3s lipo.  They seemed to work great with 2s though, so I did some digging to try to find the ESC you used.  I believe it's a very common unit, and it looks like it's only rated for 2s, or 9V.

Yeah, those esc's are also usually being described differently, even through it's the same damn thing. Now I have this one to thinker about.

This one is clearly rated for 4s so we do have a clearance. Although it's rated 10A It was working with 4 buggy motors without a problem. No matter how are you going on throttle. You can pretty much do whatever you want with your throttle!

 

However it has a weak BEC circuit which cannot handle a geekservo as it is(it can provide 0,5A). So because PU isn't THAT useful thing for such type of bricks I'm about to leave it without one. But instead of it, there's going to be a dedicated UBEC controller (it's continuous current is scheduled to 1,5A which is probably enough for typical 1/10 scale servo) allowing you use something more than only geekservo. For example more torque or speed rc servo. 
 

All of these in a new body:) With 4 full size PF ports and more convenient build.

Port and ESC arrangement required a little bit different body... so it's completely new. Hoping for a better cable management too!

[Krxlion]

I am so happy that this topic is getting more and more attention. In a future when @NoEXIST will figure out here how the best configuration for RC Deck looks like, maybe there will be a time to prepare a case for battery or even combine the two of it in one unit (something like I presented in Brushless topic).

[NoEXIST]

1 hour ago, Krxlion said:

maybe there will be a time to prepare a case for battery or even combine the two of it in one unit

Well, actually more I'm hanging around this topic, more I understand this is not really a right way. 
 

Now as I was testing new components and it was simply easier to throw everything in a car:)

Seems like this topic is showing me maturing into a real RC hobby grade electronics:)

In my opinion separate housings are just a way to go!

[NoEXIST]

I added some instructions about first samples in the beginning of the first post in this topic. 

[Krxlion]

Hi @NoEXIST, I was just curious if we have any progress on RCDeck? Have new ESC meets your needs in the project, or are you working on a different problem right now?

[NoEXIST]

On 8/8/2024 at 2:27 PM, Krxlion said:

Hi @NoEXIST, I was just curious if we have any progress on RCDeck? Have new ESC meets your needs in the project, or are you working on a different problem right now?

Working on connections layout and trying to build one.

 

[NoEXIST]

Trying to figure out if there's a problem with new version of RCDeck unit or with my 4 cada buggy motors. 
(there's a throttle delay and similar things)

During previous days I built the RCDeck and exchanged whole electronic units trying to find the issue. Seems like it was not the components issue.

Trying to find more arguments to say that's the motors fault and move on!

With all my remaining motors it seems to work fine. But I'm still not sure

[Ryokeen]

@NoEXIST so you have 2-3 Motors per PF Output. Keep in mind that Motors draw more current while starting and that with such an amount of motors the voltage could drop quite a lot in the frist few moments. I don't think smaller ESC have that much capacitor storage to compensate for that.

[NoEXIST]

5 hours ago, Ryokeen said:

@NoEXIST so you have 2-3 Motors per PF Output. Keep in mind that Motors draw more current while starting and that with such an amount of motors the voltage could drop quite a lot in the frist few moments. I don't think smaller ESC have that much capacitor storage to compensate for that.

Most of the motors still have less current draw than a buggy motor, but the point was to load it more than 4 buggy motors might do. Interesting for me is that it works fine with this amount of motors, but not with 4 cada buggy motors. 
 

Also, all of these ports are still synchronised. Technically it's one port powered by a single ESC