Hi all,
I'm building my daughter a six-wheel-drive mountain climbing wheelchair which will have 20" wheels with 1500w 48v hub motors (the type you see on E-Bikes and the like). These motors aren't intended to spin at the low speed I'm after and I've been advised that one way to prevent them from overheating at this low speed is to run them at a lower voltage than they're rated for and find a controller that is capable of supplying high currents at say 12v. Controllers for large scale radio control cars spring to mind.
One ESC that's caught my attention is the 200amp Turnigy Trackstar which has a burst current of 1,000a and will take 4-8 LiPos.
Before I go ahead and make a purchase though, I wondered if anybody could advise if this ESC is suitable for my needs?
One thing in particular that I'd like some clarification on is the 4-8 LiPos - I plan on using LiFePo4 cells, is this OK? Let's say each cell had 3.2v. To make up 12v I'd need to use 4 cells wired in series. One group of 4 cells isn't going to supply current long enough to do what I want to achieve so I'd need several groups of 4 cells, with all groups wired in parallel to still give me 12v but with increased amp hours. Is it OK to do this with an RC controller? The reason I ask is that I believe some RC controllers auto-detect how many cells are connected.
I'm building my daughter a six-wheel-drive mountain climbing wheelchair which will have 20" wheels with 1500w 48v hub motors (the type you see on E-Bikes and the like). These motors aren't intended to spin at the low speed I'm after and I've been advised that one way to prevent them from overheating at this low speed is to run them at a lower voltage than they're rated for and find a controller that is capable of supplying high currents at say 12v. Controllers for large scale radio control cars spring to mind.
One ESC that's caught my attention is the 200amp Turnigy Trackstar which has a burst current of 1,000a and will take 4-8 LiPos.
Before I go ahead and make a purchase though, I wondered if anybody could advise if this ESC is suitable for my needs?
One thing in particular that I'd like some clarification on is the 4-8 LiPos - I plan on using LiFePo4 cells, is this OK? Let's say each cell had 3.2v. To make up 12v I'd need to use 4 cells wired in series. One group of 4 cells isn't going to supply current long enough to do what I want to achieve so I'd need several groups of 4 cells, with all groups wired in parallel to still give me 12v but with increased amp hours. Is it OK to do this with an RC controller? The reason I ask is that I believe some RC controllers auto-detect how many cells are connected.