Keep breaking ESC please help

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 4:08 pm Post subject: Keep breaking ESC please help

Running a newish Savage HP Flux. Just recently started frying ESCs and I can't figure out why. I just sent in 2 to Castle after frying them one after another. I thought it was because I was over geared. 25/44 on 6s with lowest timing in 105 degree heat. It should have been fine but I just figured it was the gear I was running because it was the first time I ran the 25 pinion gear. BTW there was 0 smoke and they didnt smell burnt but they were completely unresponsive.

Got a new ESC, changed my gear back to 20/44 ran it for 10 minutes on 4s and it just fricking stopped working again. I was running without shell and took the temp 5 times and the highest was 140 (it was about 100 degrees outside0. ESC is non responsive again.

Only thing I can think of and it doesn't make sense to me is that the receiver could cause something small to fry? Gonna by a new receiver and going to prob wait to get the warrenty on the ESC but I dont want to keep playing this game.

Also one thing I noticed is I took the ESC and hooked it back up to the computer to see if there was a signal and there wasn't. When I went to unplug it the receiver wires were really hot.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Yes I have checked the gears, they are all rolling smooth and the test today was on the road on 3.8 Road Rage tires.

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 8:02 pm Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

I am sorry to hear that you are going thru those issues.... I dealt with the same thing only 4 months ago. I burned 5 esc's and one Torq motor! One of the 5 esc's was an actual Castle Creations Mamba Monster!! Hpi customer service is the best. They replaced all without questions. After the 4 esc they asked that I send my whole truck to them for testing. I did and they paid! Kept it for 3 weeks and beat the mess out of it. I have gotten it back now and have been able to enjoy more than 30 sets of 6s lipos since. They could not give me a reason for the esc's burning up??? Niether did Castle Creations for the Mamba Monster! I have a thread going about my issues and more details.. Check it out. I have TCS XL tvps and bigger wheels and all kinds of hop ups! They first thought that my truck was to heavy. Tried everything under the sun. Switched lipos, changed servo extensions, servos, RX/TX, gears, you name it!!

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 8:43 pm Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

thats really helpful, 2 of the esc i have burned were Castle Creations (so are the blurs, but oh well), a left over from my e-revo. i will call hpi racing tomorrow and see what i can do.

i too have hop ups all over and i had previously learned my lesson that trenchers and big joes are not for me. the biggest tire i run are the badlands which are probably close to the same weight as stock tires.

it will be weird to be without this truck for 3 weeks. i purposely have sold 3 cars recently so that i would only have 1.

side note i have been so close to buying a HPI Vorza Flux 2.4 RTR or HPI Trophy Truggy Flux RTR as a new 2nd car. maybe i will pull the trigger if hpi racing will take my truck to figure out whats wrong. not sure if i want a truggy or buggy for the local track. i haven't tried the track yet, just been a basher until maybe soon.

called Castle and HPI today.

Castle said it was a design flaw they had on batch of V3 and Blur ESCs. Something about he BEC being too close to the edge and a few bumps breaking it and the car just ends up going dead for almost no reason.

they are of course replacing them.

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:16 pm Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

Good info,,thanx for sharing what you found out.

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 9:14 am Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

I litteraly have the exact same issue with my savage right now. i bought this truck 4 weeks ago and the reason being is that my 3 nitro savages are to high in cost to run so i decided that a electric flux would be the better option. i bought the castle link and dropped the punch control to 100%. running 5000mah 35c batteries and gearing of 25/44. i pressume my esc went due to the gearing but i don't know for sure. i read last night that its common and HPI even advises that 25/44 gearing is only for them to cover the advertising pitch of the model reaching 62mph even tho its on the brink of the esc over heating. if anyone has thoughts on this please let me know.

what is the best gearing ration to use? i intend on droping my throttle control to 60% once the new esc arrives back from HPI.

for the truck being 4 weeks old i have already went thru:
2x rear diff
main drive in tranny
20t pinion
2x sets of rims and tires

i plan on tunning down the power to get a bit more life out of my savage...... maybe lol

i haven't have any diff or tranny issues. pro-line badlands have done me well, i shredded the stocks in about 5 minutes. i put in HPI 102514 HD Drive Gear 18-23 Tooth 1M and run 20/44 most of the time.

i am converting it this weekend to an XL so i may drop it to a 19/44 or 18/44. i could care less about 62mph because this truck isn't meant to go that fast, its meant to get crashed at 30mph and keep going.

i run it on 6s, 5 on the timing, and 20 on the punch, and more of an arc on the throttle curve.

also i did a lot of the upgrades mentioned by this guy.

http://youtu.be/Pynm-2MAmc4
http://youtu.be/qlOeZqH0c50

btw i got my new ESC back and have beat the crap out of my truck with no esc trouble, plus i ran it with a shroud (its sandy here) and its 110 degrees out. it never got past 140 degrees thru 2 packs. looks like they fixed the glitch.

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:40 pm Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

Just talked to hpi, their customer service is incredible, they are sending a 20t gear with the new esc. As far as them standing behind their product, I am blown away with how well they help out!

I was never interested in the higher speeds, when I switched to the 25t it was with te intentions of slowing the truck down at lower rpm. Turns out the fat joe tires and 25t tire are to much for the esc to handle.

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 1:59 pm Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

Yep, I did that. Big Joes ate one of my esc's on 20/44. If you are running those I'd run a 18/44 or something in that range. Badlands are a good compromise. Not too heavy, good traction and durable.

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:38 pm Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

Just convert to center diff, over heating and broken pinions are a thing of the past.... just being silly Very Happy

my youtube · Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:31 pm Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

what size lipos?

Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:35 pm Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

i have only blown 1 ESC on this savage (that was my fault, i think) i was running Traxxas LiPo 3S 11.1V 5000mAh 25C with Big Joes on 20/44

i only ran for maybe 10 minutes and no smoke, just stopped. they replaced it already, i don't mess around with too big of tires anymore, i seem to just break more stuff then its worth.

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 1:32 am Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

What are centre diffs and how do I go about changing that out on my unit?

Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 8:49 am Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

Hi All,

I cooked 4 escs in 12 months before I started to look at the ESC in more detail for an explanation. All internet experts offered various reasons for my failure such as not resting the truck every few mins, pinion gearing too high, extended high speed runs, long grass, heavy tires etc etc. None of the reasons were conclusive and I was at a loss to explain why such a tuff truck could "die" so easily up to 4 times in 1 year...

What I found out was the Castle ESC has 3 capacitiors on it which are in my opinion, way too small for any serious work. Almost all of the failures I had were due to melted capcitors ( 2 fires essentially wiped out the entire ESC so hard to tell...but I had my suspicions..the other two failures were clearly melted capacitors).

So I reasoned that the capapcitor circuit could not cope with the power fluctuations when punching the car around hard. To cure this annoying and expensive issue I did the following...

What I did was solder across the ESC power feeds an additional 3300 uf capacitor (essentially 3 time the factory spec @ 1170uf ), that in combination withte standard capacitirs gavce me 4 times the power filtering . This ensures that ripple current is absorbed and not fed into the ESC.

The castle design is optimistic at best and just silly if you actually use the truck hard. I use my truck every week and bash it flat stick, full speed, no rest on 6s. I can say that for over 2 years now since i did the modification I have not burned out an ESC.

I know it is doing its job as the big capacitor gets very warm at the end of the bashing session...if it was not there it would have been pumped into the ESC...which would have failed ages ago..

So Moral of the story...

Get an extra capacitor into the ESC to help it along....i used 3300uf and it works a treat...dont go too big as the spark up at connection time gets bigger..thereby arciing and pitting the electrical connectors over time.

Leave the stock gearing in place

Use the lowest timing on the ESC

Use 6.5mm Bullet connectors

Use 45C or higher batteries

And bash to your heart's content...without fear of melting the ESC.... :)

Cheers
Engineer

Essentially

Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:22 pm Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

So you put the cap on the + and - of the battery essentially, but on the ESC itself?

Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 4:41 pm Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

Wow Engineer that sounds like an excellent solution engineer. But in saying this i myself havent had the issue. I have run big joes through many sets of batterys on 4s with 25/44 gearing and not had any issues other than the splitter power leads getting very warm so i will be upgrading to 6.5mm bullet connectors. The ESC doesnt get hot, after a good hard bash ill drive the truck back you can hear the ESC fan going but then it turns off after only a minute or so. Maybe it has something to do with the 40c-80c discharge batterys i run but it has been fine so far. But for peace of mind i will definitely be soldering up an extra capacitor that sounds like a very easy very cheap bit of insurance!
Simon

Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 5:28 pm Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

Wow! 3300 uf, the Cap pack that castle offers is 880uf. the spark on 6S should be huge!
For the spark why not use a resistor at connection, i am using it on my MMM and Mamba XL2, works a treat, even on 6S.

But will look at adding some more capacitors...

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 2:44 am Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

Hi All,

On 4s the ESC is far less stressed and therefore you wont likely have any issues unless you are going flat stick all the time. On 6s the ESC is on the edge all the time which is why the extra cap support works. I too have 54-90c batteries at 5000mah. I have run over 100 charges through this car (probably more) since doing the modification and it is super stable. The ESC is not getting too hot at all...but I notice the external cap gets quite warm (not hot)...so there is obviously current hitting it. The ESC fan does cut in...but I had one esc that had a stuck fan for ages and we thrashed that car all day on 6s at full speed for 6 months and it never gave way..the fan now works..I think it was very small rock that had jammed it.

To wire up the cap you simply put the -ve to the -ve wire of the esc and the +ve to the +ve wire. I shrink wrap the cap legs and then cable tie the cap to the chassis so it does not move.

The arc up of the cap upon connection is not that bad at 3300uf...it is stronger than stock but not too much.

This mod is a must for the 6s guys...the ESC is a marginal design on 6s...it is stable at 4s though assuming your batteries are 40C or higher on the discharge rate.

If the cables are getting hot just ditch the Deans plug and go to castle bullets at 6.5 mm. They wont get hot anymore..Deans is only rated to 80 Amps..the Flux will pull 120 amps and eventually melt the deans plugs if you are hard on the throttle all the time...which I am.

I have cooked 4 escs all to this issue and castle were not much help...but a $5 cap made all the difference Smile

There is no negative aspect to doing it...just do it! Smile

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:21 am Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help

Yep i will be doing it even though i only run on 4s at the moment i may step up to 6s later and its cheap insurance as far as im concerned!
And yep im ordering some plugs tonight. I have melted and replaced the deans plug three times on 5 battery charges on 4s only.
They are an awesome fun truck and any little insurance mods like these to makes things last longer are brilliant!
Simon

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 5:21 am Post subject: Re: Keep breaking ESC please help


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