Can T500 / Basic ESC 500 be used above their rated voltages?

Very interested to know whether it is compatible with a 8S LiFePO4 battery, that is 29.2v max voltage (T500 and matching ESC).

It doesn’t need to handle continuous 100% thrust, if required I can dial back power to match rated 24v power… but being able to use a 8S battery would simplify project, compared to a 6S LiFePO4 battery that would be annoying to charge.

Hi @aalleexx, welcome to the forum :slight_smile:

I expect our advice will be similar to that for the T200 (i.e. operating beyond the rated voltage isn’t recommended, and doing so voids the warrantee, but exceeding the rating does not guarantee instant failure - it increases wear and makes failure much more likely to happen sooner).

That said, I’m unsure whether additional testing has been done on the T500 and Basic ESC 500 for voltages outside the rated range, so I’ve asked internally in case there’s some extra information we can provide that’s more precise to those products specifically.

Following up on this,

I would reiterate that we design and rate our products the way we do to ensure safe and reliable operation, and pushing components beyond their ratings is likely to end in both failure and upset.

There may be ways to use and/or modify a component that in theory reduce the likelihood of a failure (e.g. reinforcing an enclosure tube to prevent tube implosion), but that’s akin to doing your own component design (which we can’t verify or provide ratings for). Our ratings and advice are based on our analyses and testing of each product as a whole, in practice, for how they’re intended to be used :slight_smile:

Thanks for the quick reply!

Nothing is rated “6S”, it is rated “6S of a particular chemistry”. It seems Adam is working with NMC/LCA/LCO chemistries (4.20v full charge) and I’m asking about LFP (3.65v full charge).

Since the T500 is marketed for “human-carrying applications like kayaks”, I’m pretty sure you’ll get more queries about 8S-LFP because people may want to optimize for safety once the T500 is “generally available” and because DC/DC converters in the 1kW range aren’t realistic in such an application, unless you want to deal with 250v+ batteries (or tether). Other reason is that people will get batteries from a 3rd party anyway because of shipping issues.

I am planning to use T500 for a dpv project. I will use dewalt batteries to power it.2 in series create a10s.
I saw T500 can run max at 24V. Can they handle the 10s battery or this will kill them.
Also can I run two thrusters from same esc(an esc that is capable to handle volt n amps)? Since both are going to run always together

Hi @d_xanthakis, welcome to the forum :slight_smile:

I’ve moved your post here because it’s on the same topic.

As above, our T500 thruster is rated to 24 V because in our testing going beyond that increased the wear and failure rates to levels we considered unacceptable. Choosing to do so voids the warrantee, and would be at your own risk.

If you were hoping to use our Basic ESC 500s, as an active electronic device it is very possible you could fry them by supplying voltages outside their rating.

Per our T200 FAQs:

I’ll see if we can add a similar FAQ to the T500 page.

You can send the same control signal to both ESCs though - that should work fine :slight_smile: