The battery leads, receiver lead and switch wires are soldered onto the board by hand. This can lead to some variations of the solder connection.

Thomas Porfert
Tech Support
Castle Creations.

IIRC the best way to get the heatsink off is to put the esc in the freezer overnight and then a small amount of pressure between the sink and a fet should pop it off. Clean off the glue, and use thermal paste. Not sure of the brand but generally the paste has a better ability to transfer heat than the adhesive. So use anhesive on the 4 corners and paste on the rest. Also a good idea to make sure the base of the heatsink is perfectly flat, so use a good straight file or a piece of sandpaper on some glass. Use the min of paste/glue.

Thanks for also a good tip for removing the heatsink.
Mine new esc soldering job could a little better.

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/IMG_4734.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/IMG_4735.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/IMG_4736.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/IMG_4737.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/IMG_4738.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/IMG_4739.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/IMG_4740.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...r/IMG_4741.jpg

Thanks for the tip. I am sending in my out of warranty smoked MMM tomorrow for replacement and added a postit note on the esc itself to "please replace with a nib Version5 unit". Do you think that will do the trick or should I still call even though I have already filled out the information online to send it in before I saw this thread?

I think anything going out by now would be a V5 unit. We made the change a long time ago. :)

That is a lot of Frankenstiening, but why?

Have you seen the rest of his rig?- the guy has a serious fan-fetish... :lol:

Looking at the insides of this MMM reminds me of the good ol days of modding the MM. I actually managed to replace a few of the surface mounted fets on one of my MM's.

We used to pop off the heat sink and sand the fet's perfectly flat, sand away the anodizing on the sink, and use thermal paste and thermal adhesive to hold it all togeather.

I still have my frankenstien MM that never even got warm to the touch...
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/c...now65/esc4.jpg
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/c...now65/esc1.jpg

Those were the days, I remember fondly Arthur's double FET boarded MMs & the franken-quarks...

I dunno, I'm kinda liking like just plugging in the XL or MMM and not having any worries about the quality of my micro-soldering LOL. I do have to admit though that it's hard to resist the urge to pull open the XL and revamp the heatsink to have it contact ALL the fet's... maybe a "pics of the inside of an XL" will eventually show up :-)

As manly as I claim to be, I must admit part of me is sad I haven't seen or heard from Arthur in a long time, I even sent him an e-mail a while back trying to touch base with him.

Yeah, he dropped off the radar a while back when he said he was moving house & job I think, said he would be quiet for a while whilst he was getting settled in etc. Shame really, he was a seriously smart bloke and brilliant engineer.