The Rocket RC program card to use with my Surpass 120A ESC has now arrived.

As soon as the paint has dried on the underside of my Sea Commander, I will get it connected and make any adjustment needed to work on 2C and adjust the lowest residual voltage setting to prevent any more LiPo batteries getting run out completely.

The program card is aimed mainly at r/c cars, so a lot of the advanced settings are not really applicable for use in a boat, but I will have a play with it anyways as it is the correct card for use with my ESC.

Bob.

Magical LiPo Recovery?

The Overlander 55C 7600 2S LiPo pack that was drained completely flat by my Surpass ESC has been balance charged on my DC-100 charger.

This battery is identified by my Dymo label as 2C 6. In have written ZERO on this label to remind me that this was the LiPO battery that had been drained completely flat.

Although registering “Fuel level ZERO” after it was drained flat, it has been successfully recharged to full capacity (!) and used again another eight times since!

I waited until after I had used and charged the same battery a few times before saying anything on here as the battery had clearly dropped well below its minimum residual level on both cells so it should have been killed stone dead, and unable to recover.

All of the Kopy Commander testing videos seen on here have been run on this same battery and they show that it can still deliver plenty of power.

As my Surpass program card has not been received yet and I am still running the boat on the same Surpass 120A ESC, I have been careful not to run it for as long as I would normally in case the ESC should drain it again - but it has still delivered good power and been used for decent length run times.

After this mornings “rudder testing on the Kopy Kommander I balance charged it again from 45% back up to 100% full capacity.

I always add a strip of masking tape to my LiPo batteries to record the number of charges using simple “five bar gates”

This battery started again with a fresh masking tape record strip after it was totally discharged.

Each time both of the cells in this battery pack have recorded a perfect 4.2 balance with each other, and this was repeated agin today making 9 successful charges.

I think I have been very lucky to recover this battery, and I don’t know if the incident will have shortened its working life, but for now the battery is working very well.

When I go home this weekend, my Surpass program card should be waiting for me in the postbox, so I will set-up the ESC correctly to make sure that it stops working before totally draining any more batteries.

Bob



Battery 2C 6.

The “safety cut-out has obviously failed on this Surpass 120A and is why it drained the battery completely.

I will see if it is possible to dial it back in again when I get the programme card.

Let’s hope we can as the other forward/reverse functions are still working OK.

Bob.

Hi Bob

Yes, the ESCs do have a safety cut-out and as you say the voltage per cell, around 3.0 to 3.4v for lipos, but you have to program in the number of cells, 3S or 4S etc. to set the cut-off at 9v, 12v etc.

Having said that, given how flat your battery went I'm surprised that it didn’t cut-off anyway unless there is a setting for no cut-off?

As for program cards I had to buy one for the first Huntress I bought as it had a Hawk ESC but after that I've standardised on the HobbyWing Quicrun and Seaking ESCs and so only need the one card for those.

There are the odd brands of ESC that will work with the same card but they are few and far between.

Hi Chris, most ESC that are designed to work with LiPo batteries come with a safety cut-off built in as standard to protect the cells from dropping below their minimum residual value.

A programme card can allow you to adjust this value to give a greater or lesser safety margin….as well as a host of other things that are usually more relevant to racing cars than boats such as throttle repose and drag brake.

Other functions that can be adjusted include end points, and the option to add or remove the reverse function that are more useful features for use on our boats including being able to reverse the direction of rotation, although I usually prefer to do this simply by reversing the two outside motor wires.

The new (to me) type of ESC that I will be trying next will be the water cooled SHARK ESC.

I see a lot of them gaining popularity in different model power boats recently and they can be remarkably inexpensive to buy, although their prices fluctuate wildly.

Bob.

I have got quite a few different programme cards for different makes and types of ESC Chris, but I have never had one for any Surpass branded ESC.

To date, I have not seen any Surpass ESC used in any of the r/c racing cars that I have worked on, but I will see if I can find a card that I already have that may consider talking to it 😂

Often a certain amount of programming can be achieved with various combinations of stick movements, but without the instruction leaflet I am not too sure if I can achieve anything without a programme card for this ESC, but I will take a look to see if I can find anything online that may help until the Surpass program card arrives.

I have found one on eBay for a “tenner” so it will be yet another program card to add to my collection of them!

Meanwhile I will experiment with setting it up without the card until it arrives (early November!).

It is surprising to find how many different types of card exist for all the different brands and types of ESC - none of them seem to share a common operating sequence that allows them to be used with any other brand or type.

What was the most surpassing thing about this particular ESC is the way that it completely emptied the battery without any noticeable decline in power - a true “hero to zero” performance !

Normally some slowing down or lack or response gives an early warning that the power is running low.

Bob.

You can get a program card for that ESC which allows you to easily set the low-voltage cut-off and reverse!

What's the new ESC because unless you set the cut-off on that you will have the same problem!

The last time I was out driving and testing my SEA Commander, it suddenly stopped running.

No slowing down or advance warning it just stopped - when out on the water.

All other ESC that I have used in my boats for brushless motor control cut power at a pre-determined cell voltage to protect the battery.

Often, following the power cut the ESC will re-set to allow you to limp back to shore with the boat ready to have another fresh battery fitted to replace the safely discharged one that is in the boat….not this one, it just stopped.

I connected another battery and the ESC worked normally, which I found a little puzzling.

The LiPo was a 2C 7600 Overlander LiPo.

When I connected the LiPo to my Overlander DC-100 charger it gave the “fuel level” as zero!

The battery was completely exhausted.

I always balance charge these LiPo batteries at 2.5 amps, not too fast, but not too slow either.

Fearing that I had just destroyed my LiPo by allowing it to drop below its residual value I pressed the “go” button in any case - nothing to loose!

The charge rate automatically dropped itself to 0.1 amps and very slowly began to increase just before the charger “timed-out”.

I started a fresh (second) balance charge and the LiPo now began to accept a charge at the requested 2.5 amps!

This second charge continued until the charger stopped the cycle and recorded “battery full”.

I am not too happy to run this air cooled (with integrated fan) Surpass 120A ESC again unless I can find a way to programme it to protect the LiPo’s from dropping below their residual safe voltage.

The paperwork that came with the Surpass 120A ESC is at home, so until then I may give my new water-cooled ESC its first run.

As for the LiPo, we will have to see if it can still deliver the power as it has always done, but if it does I will be very pleased - but surprised !

Does anyone else have an experience to share about using this Surpass 120A ESC?

Bob.