I got both my v2's back today. Ran about 5 minutes and everything seems to check out just fine. Ran ultra cool. The fan seems to blow stronger, but then again, I have been running mine without a fan for the past month, so I might not remember what it ran like.

They added some padding in the case to help prevent the fan plug from breaking. There also appears to be shim on the fan to keep the blades from catching. I actually can tigten down the zip ties on it real good now and not interfer with the fan blade.

I don't think a fan is needed, but they are good insurance. I ran a 30 minute A main with NO FAN on 4s last weekend.

I am really digging the bullet plugs. They seem more sturdy than soldering to the board.

can u easliy direct solder or will it melt the case? he mentioned we can do this without voiding warrenty...

I'm very glad to see you guys getting your controllers.

I have one of the second batch of preorders from Mike. This tells me it won't be long now! :yipi:

The female plugs are directly connected to the board. They(Castle) are sending pigtails with the male ends already on and shrink wrapped in the box along with the controller.

I have mine direct soldered from the pigtail to the motor.

I sort of liked it better with just the wires sticking out, but this is fine I guess.

It's better on the truggy than the buggy. The body is so close with the buggy that there could be some impact on the connectors during a bad crash. The truggy is no problem. And I guess most MT's wouldn't be an issue either.

I gotta say I'm pleased with Castle's performance with this whole thing so far. I bought 2 of these things right off the bat. They both failed and now I have 2 new ones that hopefully will stay together. It's only been a couple of months. Every time I've called down there I get someone who is courteous and helpful. They've been very forthcoming about everything.

Just think if something like this happened to your business. They probably lost their ass. But from their performance during this episode they have turned me into a loyal customer.

Is that enough ass kissing or what? :whistle:

theres been two failure so far on the v2s. someone on the traxxas board reported it. i believe hes on this forum as well.
white smoke came out during start up. he plugged in batteries , turned the on switch and poof.

so either 2 or 3 then (someone else on these boards did the same thing, so hopefully its the same dude!)

i really wonder how many are working and have been sent out, say if 500 of them had been good and only 2 failed thats cool, 1 in a 250 chance... but if only 50 had been sent out, a 1:25 isnt so crash hot!

I don't think there have been 3 failures...only larrydino (on RCM and Traxxas) and mk351e have reported a failure...so, same person on 2 different forums plus mk351e on here...that's 2 V2's. Also, mk351e's died on calibration, so that's probably just a fluke.

Does anyone dispute this? I sure hope I'm not wrong.

yea those are the two i saw.

It's not that I don't want to respond -- it's just that I didn't see your post. I'm only on this forum for a couple hours, and then I'm away for a week or more.

And don't ask me about things like "when will they ship to splatsilvania?" Because I have no idea. That's not my department. I've got three people full time doing shipping -- and they don't consult me on every decision.

And I'm not trying to be a dick -- I really don't know when things ship where...

Patrick

We know of two failures -- both were infant mortality. One we suspect was a bad solder joint, the other we don't know yet.

Patrick

Patrick, please don't take this as ass-kissing (although it's going to sound like it...)

I totally respect that you are able to come back online (from time-to-time) to post replies/comments/etc. As a person that is in a MOST DIFFICULT position, you must find it difficult and annoying to come online and make posts to both defend your company but more importantly to appease the masses. I guess it's part of the business, knowing what the customers are experiencing, but I feel for you in this difficult time.

Please keep up your company's, your employee's and your perserverance!

Thanks Sneaky, we are keeping our heads up -- this kind of thing happens from time to time in any business.

I'm just glad we caught that there was a problem before we made 20,000 units. :)

And yes, we lost our ass on this... and the new MMM is more expensive (by quite a bit) than the V1 to build -- so our margins are hurting a little bit... But all is looking up. We have shipped a ton of V2s already, and still have a HUGE number of backorders getting bigger every day...

:yipi:

:lol: good stuff. .. My MMMv2 is working great (4 hours) and looking forward to receiving my BO ones from your distributors. Hurdle #1 over, now lets get those HV car escs mocked up LOL no break for you :whip: j/k coladas in Jamaica on me

OK, so now I know that MK351e's failures were due to his adding a resistor to the speed control (bad mod.)

So, things are looking pretty good for the V2 so far. :party:

Thanks Patrick. I don't care if I am perceived as an ass kisser or not, I just know what it's like on both sides of this ordeal. You guys have done a phenomenal job thus far and I am sorry that you had to go through it. As you said though, thus is business from time to time.

As one of my favorite original brushless gurus from way back used to say, "keep awn keepin awn!".

You know I love our supporters... :yipi:

But the guys who bitch also keep us on our toes.... :whip:

So it's all good. :yes:

Word!!!

What about bitchy supporters?:lol:

I have been hammering on my v2 since I got it on 8-4-08. I mean beating on it hard for 2-3 packs a day and it has been perfect. I have to have close to 15 hours of time on it and it is flawless. The only negative to me is having to remove the receiver box cover to change the lvc from 16.2v for 5s to 19.5v for 6s but I ordered a short extension to take care of that. Good job on the new controller, Patrick, it's in a class all it's own!:yes:

I wouldn't say it's ass kissing as much as being reasonably optimistic.
Currently, I am cautiously apprehensive, but so far, it's sounding like maybe the V2s might be ok.

I gotta question, though.
You know those novak caps people hook up to the ESC power leads to reduce temps and glitching and all that stuff?
I know it's debatable as to the benefits of something like this, but I've had one on my MM for a bit now and it doesn't seem to be causing any issues and after running it gets a little warm suggesting it is capacitating like it should.

Anyways, I am probably going to answer my own question here(I will follow the CC instructions to the letter) but does anyone think adding a cap to the ESC power leads is a bad idea(like adding resistors to the battery leads, for example)?

I'm pretty sure the caps on ESCs are always across the power leads - but they have to be the right kind and the right capacitance. Even a lot of ones touted as "Low ESR" arent really low enough for something like this. So I've been told (personally got no clue :P)

AndI doubt it would be needed at all for the Mamba Monster :P People add stuff like that for a few reasons:
1) Super long battery wiring.
2) the manufacturer supplies it and recommends using it with their controller (I suspect this is probably due to poor controller design *coughnovakcough*)
3) when your pushing an esc way way beyond its recommended specs (ie, people running Mamba maxes on 5s and stuff)

Good info. Thanks.
Yeah, I got a couple of the novak 25v ones.
Honestly, I have no idea weather the cap to ESC resistance is any lower than my battery to ESC resistance and until I am able to measure that, I guess there's really no substantiated reason to install em is there? LOL
Yeah, I feel dumb.

Still, the principal makes sense considering that is essentially what the caps on the ESC do anyways(assist the ESC in squaring out the power wave), so I guess I just figured the added cap would reduce the load on those caps and take some of the heat outta the ESC.

I'm falling back to the idea that the MMM will be more than adequate for my needs outta the box and not worry about caps and modding the MMM.

Thanks again

Hello,

I bought on May 11th, 2008, a MONSTER MAMBA MAX on the Web site WWW.IMPAKTRC.COM .

I had the first version, V1.

I went up it on my MONSTER TRUCK with a battery LIPO 4S NEU ENERGY 5000mah, and it was geared 18t / 51t in my RACE BOMB PROOF.


Friday July 25th, I went to run. I have are 100 metres and the TRUCK stopped. I approached and I saw that the MMM caught fire!!!

The welds melted. The assembly was completed.

I have already run several times.


I give you photos


Bye Florian NICOL , french boy,


flo_vtt65@yahoo.fr


http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/9002/photo023nh2.jpg

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/8233/photo024nb9.jpg

http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/5419/photo025va2.jpg


+++

sorry to see your MMM is dead but sweet pics!

Wow...sorry to see it up in flames!

No wonder why flo ESC did burn, great bashing.

You must look the whole movie to understand !

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x61...mb-proof_sport

Wow tone that brake down! cool truck though!

lol man I would only treat a truck like that if I stole it from a guy banging my wife. Thats 1 tough truck.

my trucks go through that punishment every run. Also i am still on a v1 MMM go figure.

The MMM was not broken
it is the supports of body that touch the ground

this video date of 1 month

Do you have UE diffs ? That truck is nice

Well put... :no: :lol:

8 spyder diffs

Would it be possible/economical to take a number of those V1 MMM's with BEC failures, remove the BEC (making it an opto setup), and sell them at a discount? It might be a way to recoup some losses and get something for the hardware that will just be sitting around otherwise. Maybe even include a CC BEC and charge accordingly?

cool Im building some as we speak, just delivered today from UE, I hope mine hold up like that !

yes it's good diff

It is me pilots on this video!!
Or is the problem??
With a MGM or a BK warior I made much worse!!
And are contro roasted has the started.
Anyway if castle is intelligent, they will find where from come the problem.
I I burned(blew) out a MGM and the problem was of programming, nevertheless it roasted at once


c'est moi le pilote sur cette vidéo!!
ou est le problème ??
avec un MGM ou un BK warior j'ai fait bien pire !!
et sont contro a grillé a la mise en route.
de toute façon si castle est intelligents, ils trouveront d'où viens le problème.
moi j'ai grillé un MGM et le problème était de programmation, pourtant il a pas grillé tout de suite.

I would be interested in some if they did.

Well, I just called Castle and they said no. Something to do with the fact that they have a flat repair fee, and dishonest people may later send in their discounted V1 to be replaced with a V2 ESC for cheap. Still, I think they could mark such ESCs somehow so V1's could be differentiated from V2's - maybe some etching on the PCB itself.

It seems such a shame to get rid of all that hardware when only part of it is bad. Many electronically-inclined individuals would be more than happy to do a little modding to get the broken ones to work. In my case, it's not about saving money, it's more about reducing waste.