If you familiar with soldering then replacing this cap is 5 sec deal.
Black usualy goes with panasonic tantalums, EPcos yellow -> and there more brands and styles.
I am sorry but this one doens't look like 0805... check with the rest of the board
and 0805 ceramics caps have different color as well tantalums

Different board great example... thanks to Brian

I'll stick by my assumption it's a ceramic. It's not the yellow color like most tantalums...it's more beige/tan in color. The lighting in your picture and his are completely different and I'm not sure how you can compare them since it's not the same component on the two pictures. And it very well may not be an 0805, but I don't have much size reference in the pic to compare it to anything else. A quick check with some calipers would let him know for sure.

Although, I still say it's BS that the cap caused the smoke mark unless it's cracked or has a busted endcap.

Man...
We talking about caps or smoke? Heck I know where smoke came from, read post above, that the part which was broken...
I am sorry for you that you cannot see my point in comparison...but it is not the color which is counts (you can paintbrush with any) but size and shape which matters. If you that curious then check on web for surface mount components sizes and everything would be clear.
Lots of guys here have the same controller and this cap looks like located in easy to reach and snap picture place.
So bring better picture in studio and I will tell you what it is. From current views I am confident with what I published earlier!

Ceramics do not have reasons to blow, while tantalums are known for that.

Zero, I said "one small change", because I soldered the fan plug before the quark plug, but didn't feel like changing the diagram in MSPaint :)

for everyone:
I don't have any better pictures of the component before it smoked, but here's the one I already posted, at original resolution. I don't see anything on the component at all..
http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/7...0214dh3.th.jpg

and here's some pictures after it fried:
http://a4dtm.com/lsp/3fry.jpg
http://a4dtm.com/lsp/1fry.jpg
http://a4dtm.com/lsp/2fry.jpg

I didn't just assume what part fried.. I took the side of the case off, and looked, and that's when I posted what I think has fried.

I might have to bend the side of the case down a little more, because that is very little room to get a soldering iron in there, and try and hold the component in place.. and add solder,, ect.

We order from digi-key quite frequently at my work, and as for soldering, for the last week, I've been soldering about 4 hours a day.. We've got hakko soldering stations, and multiple tips, including tweezers, which might come in handy. I guess I'll have to contact S&T and see if they'll tell me what that component is, and I'll go ahead and order it, and try and get it replaced..
Do you guys have any other thoughts?

If it IS a cap, I'm puzzled as to why it smoked. Caps are either used to "store" DC or pass AC (depending on frequency). Neither application really lends itself to blowing unless you exceed the working voltage of the cap.

Is it possible that there was a metal shaving laying alongside the device shorting across both solder pads, and when you plugged in the ESC, that shaving acted like a fuse and incinerated? This would create a decent spark and deposit the vaporized remains of the shaving on whatever was close by making it look like the device is blown.

A4, it sounds like you've got it covered.

look at the second picture I posted (http://a4dtm.com/lsp/1fry.jpg). it got hot enough to actually ball up the solder..
There is/was no metal shavings big enough to to short out anything. after the case was cleaned after milling, and after I put the controller in, I blew it out w/ canned air. I tested the controller, and it worked fine. took it to the track, and ran it for a few minutes w/ out any problems. set the truck down.. my heat came up, and i plugged it in, and sparks. I really don't know what could have caused it. other than the second battery making contact on and off. which I'm not sure how often that happened.. the solder joint was broken, and electrical tape was holding the wire to the Deans plug.. being wired in parallel, the voltage wouldn't have jumped up by much, if any. but still possible? i don't know. :025:

Time will tell lol

Well, it was just a thought...

I appreciate it. I really don't know jack, without yours and everyone elses replies, I probably wouldn't be in this hobby. :024:

I am a little bit confused with pictures, is it possible to get a picture which cover full board at once? Quality is great but one piece is always better.

Brian as you mentioned caps can fail under overvoltage and when exposed to currents higher then rated. Rated voltage depends on temperature. Reverse polarity also cause caps failure. Now if you put al this together it can be clear how and when they can fail, especially with poor battery connection.

For tantalum caps reversing polarity is very bad and irreversible ending up with short (90%) or open.

So far looks like tantalums here Ok. By the way what is sparking or where you see sparks?

whatever pictures I have posted are the only ones I have. I didn't take other pictures before I assembled it, and I can not remove the controller from the casing.
Reverse polarity isn't a possibility. and for overvoltage, I'm running 5s on the truck, so don't think so. and it sparked when the controller was switched off, and the truck was just sitting on the ground..

if you look on the first page, there's a picture of the gap in the case, that's a result from my friend milling out a pocket in the case. a few sparks shot out of that opening,. I immediately unplugged the batteries, and smelled the controller, and it smelled like electrical smoke..
so I'm still as clueless as when it first blew.. do you guys think we're getting somewhere? :032:

Well, assuming that you used arctic alumina epoxy, you can get it apart. I've potted small converters in this stuff and had to dig through it to change sense resistors. Really, if you heat it up in a controlled environment, like a toaster oven to about 170*F, the arctic alumina gets gummy and you can actually separate parts and remove the epoxy with an exacto knife.

If you use an oven to do this, be sure to preheat it for about 20 minutes or so before putting in the esc. Ovens tend to spike the heat to quickly attain the desired temp, before settling on the set temp. The hotter you go, the more gummy the epoxy gets. Just don't melt the esc.

Putting it in the freezer works too as it makes the epoxy more brittle. Just a gentle prying action breaks the connection quite easily. Whatever works...

Griffin, I realize that the cap could have had too much current, but wouldn't it have had to be multiple high current charges and discharges? All caps have the inrush of current on initial charge. From the looks of it, that cap is simply on the + and - inputs so it's not like there was an oscillator circuit on it to rapidly charge/discharge. Of course, this assumes that the batteries were connected right - which I'm sure they were otherwise there would be more issues that one cap I would think.

I still think there was something that caused this that isn't directly related to the cap, even though it looks like it suffered for it.

Are we all sure it is in fact a cap and not some sort of avalanche diode to shunt voltage spikes that are too high to ground. It does look like a cap though...

So this is the cap we talking about, right?

As for polarity and overvoltage we covered that earlier in differnt threads, if anyone interested I can explain later in different thread or via PM.

So have we come to agree that this is a ceramic cap? This would take away one explanation, as to reverse polarity, they aren't polarized as you probably know. I did the internal mod to mine, and I am sure that it's ceramic.

None of this makes any sense though, this is a tough one. :032: