da1gr8romeo

I have a traxxas electric 2wd truck with an aftermarket engine. It really hauls for me anyways and has always ran like a champ. Its called a speed gem 2. has traction control. Anyways, its not working too well right now, I hit the accelerator on the radio and nothing happens.... everything else works good, steering is fine and dandy, new batteries in radio and well charged humppack battery in truck. Sometimes if I turn both wheels forward real fast and hurry up and hit the accelerator then it goes, but it dies down quick, almost like the battery is dead, but i'm positive it has nothing to do with the battery. I just re-soldered the power wire the other night, so i'm pretty sure that it has a good and stable connection and no wires are touching each other or disconnected, etc.
I did take the engine off the car (checked the gears and all that looked fine) for a minute and manually spun it and hit the accelerator and it worked fine then(seemingly). I put it back in and took it outside, it ran for about a minute before it started dying on me again.. same thing. I'm not sure what's up.

Any Ideas guys?.. thanks

caseyddr

My Feedback: (13)

sounds like you either overgeared it and burnt out the motor, or you burnt out the ESC. I take it your a newbie and dont have a 4 cell pack. I'd say try running the motor through your battery (direct connection) and see if it runs. Check and make sure your brushes are still good, see how the com is, clean out the motor. Also try your old motor again and see if it works, if it doesnt, it syour ESC. Can your ESC handle a hot modified motor? give me more details man.

da1gr8romeo

sorry about the limited information, yes your right I am a newbie.... I just got this truck about a month ago from a buddy of mine and he only ran it twice before I got it, so its in good shape and ran great for a long while till recently. I still need to get the stock motor off him to check that way. My battery I think is a 7cell , i know its a hump pack dynamite ultra sport 2000. I just tried the direct connection to the battery and it acted the exact same way it does with the other stuff hooked up, so it must me the engine. I am not sure of the lingo or abbreviations yet since i'm a newbie so please be patient I am willing to learn. Here is some of the things you mentioned that i'm not totally sure what you mean

brushes
com
ESC

If the esc is the "brains of the truck" I like to call it, (the box that connects the batt. to the engine & steering, etc.), then I can tell you that it says TYPHOON RCline setup(yellow circle) FMA direct, has a torque adjuster and neutral and high led lights.

but since I did the direct hookup to battery, im pretty sure it's something with the motor, I will try cleaning it up and see if any changes occur.

da1gr8romeo

well I just got back inside from running the traxxas, I fixed the problem, here's how I did it... I put my fingers on each side of the motor Pos. and Neg. on the metal parts and I noticed that when I did that the motor worked fine when I had my fingers on it.. hmm.. ok so I'm thinking maybe there's a poor connection ...

so I remove one finger from the Pos. side and the motor still seems to be working fine with considerable pressure from my other finger on the Neg. side. Then I switched(pressure on Pos. side) and it went back to acting up again. So I assumed that my finger helped the current out on the Neg. side... kinda like a free connection tester. Then I unscrewed the neg. screw that lines directly into the engine, cleaned everything, light wirebrush scraping on all the Neg. material, screwed back in the Neg. screw and BAM everything's fine. Then I went out and ran the truck in the light rainy conditions outside on my street(I know that's probably a no no with an electric motor with no protective cover), but it was fun nonetheless. Not only that, but I think the moisture helped clean the motor up a little bit.

I still wouldnt mind knowing what some of the abbreviations you use are, anyone wanna be kind enough to make me out a short list of things newbies might not potentially know, like slang and stuff. (I did read the newbies read this topic already).

Thanks for the help guys.. lata

caseyddr

My Feedback: (13)

No problem, I'll jus show you pictures Gives me something to do.


this is an ESC (Electronic Speed Control). They control throttle/brake/reverse etc etc

The COM i cant find a picture of, but it is what the brushes connect to to create an electrical current.


these are brushes, and are used in rebuildable stock/modified motors. They can alter the performance of your engine to either give you longer run times, faster excelleration, or faster top end speed.

jus a few things

da1gr8romeo

great.. that clears a few things up.. thanks a lot. Oh yeah by the way.. since you mentioned reverse, I just assumed my truck didn't have a reverse.. wasnt sure if it was because of the engine(speed gem2 11turn ..i think) I know it has ABS and when I push the trigger all the way up it slows the truck down.. but never goes in reverse.. or if it was because of the esc. But either way it doesnt go in reverse. Its not that bigga deal its just if it IS supposed to I would've liked to known why it doesnt before I bought it, lol.