Schulze
 

How do I even start this one. Look at the pictures.

A few more.

and the last 3.

Ouch..

But you're luckly when my MM gave out it rained FETS on my Lipo's. Melted through 2 layers of shrink and 1mm plastic shield and left burn mark on actual lipo...

Hope you're chassis is not hurt

Let me explain what happened :lol:. I found a nice dry spot to run my MBX5T. I was going to run it until my 2200mAh packs didn't have more juice in them. Everything was running very cool since it was 38 degrees and you can also see in the graph I stopped a few times to make sure nothing was over heating. I did a feel full throttle passes and on one pass I slammed on the brakes and did a nice little slide. The truck rolled backwards and I applied some throttle to get it rolling again and smoke :gasp:. That's when I didn't hesitate and went running towards the truck took the body off and unplugged everything. The flames happened very fast and you can see it almost burned the body and the wires from one of the packs. The Velcro straps melted in a couple of spots. Man, I was loving this controller as all I heard from others was the horrible stories of it catching on fire. So if you have a Schulze and your vehicle rolls backwards, don't hit the throttle. Wait until it comes to a complete stop :lol:.

The fire happened fast too. I've had ESC burn on me, but it was usually just smoke. I was able to get the body off fast enough and I kind of tilted the truck so the flames and any hot stuff would just fall to the ground. I actually saw that the copper traces was red hot.

I've had three MM reduce themselves to charcoal worse than this :(

The first was understandable the motor magnet had cracked at created hudge driveline drag.

The last two are still a mystery to me...

This is by far my worst case. It stinks as the truck was very fast and the most AMPs it was using was around 75A spikes. The last when the fire happned the darn AMPs went to 182.

Looks like another candidate for Serum's burnt Schulze museum...

Luckily, I've never had an ESC burn out on me (knock on wood).

That stinks man, but Castle is right here in the USA and I will probably not even hear from Schulze if I do send them an e-mail with pictures of the carnage.

I remember that same happened with me. I raced on dry track then suddenly car stoped i thought maybe it thermaled and start to run from pit stand to downstairs and then i run to truck i saw how white smoke start to fill the track. I opened my car body and felt how heat try melt the car body. In the full of white smoke tried to disconnect battery i burned my hand, those stupid deans! I turned car upside downand start to shake it and ESC fell apart to ground i saw how PCB glow RED. After that i had some complex some fear all the time then i run my E-LSP

Look to this thread http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/show...ht=9920&page=2 Dejavu :)

Mine is basically like that. In the pictures, you can see the heat sink is only there because of the shrink wrap. The smell is what drives me crazy. I'll see how well my BK 9920 will drive the 6 pole Mega.

I'm also extremely happy that this little 2200mAh packs held up. Man 182A should make any other battery a little hot. This little guys stayed cool.

That's what a schulze looks like.....

added a picture to the gallery..

Thanks for sharing Lutach. simple send it back to schulze and see what they say. perhaps they changed their service for a change.

Yeah smell is terrible :D
I tried to wash chassis and body no luck hold parts car outside in balcony. When i work on truck my wifes everitime tells me that smell it is? and then I sniff my car now it still smells like hell after more than half year.

I'll send them an e-mail first just to see if they are even going to bother.

Looks good in there :lol:.

yeah.. It feels right at home..

hi

looks very bad. how did those 182A happen?

i guess if you send it in you will get the option of buying a new one with 30% off. or was it a new controller you just bought?

@serum
when do you start your other brand walls of shame? :whistle:

bye
rhylsadar

well, hand me a collection and i'll upload them. I bet it's less interesting, since schulze replaces nearly none under warrantee while some other brands do. Bare in mind that only 1 was replaced under warrantee, and the owner needed to pay for 'investment costs' too..

I feel like repeating myself lately over and over; schulze sucks bigtime in warrantee/service, Instead of blaming them for their worthless service i get the blame for this gallery? it's not about IF a controller smokes, it's about the customer service that stands behind their products. schulze seriously lacks in this department.

Basically, all the controllers in my gallery are not warranteed, except for 1. That's a a lot of money down the drain. it also took money to replace that controller that was replaced for 'free' Go figure.

so you expect from a company to replace any smoked esc basically? i wonder which company can/will do this in the long run.

i see 182A there. don't know what caused it exactly but i guess any esc would have burnt.

the only thing i do not like about your collection is that it seems to implicate that schulzes do burn more often than any other esc which is most probably not the case at all. i do not say that you intend to implicate exactly this. but it sure will make this (unintended) impression to many unexperienced users.

but hey that's just my view and therefore its not important at all.:yes:

bye
rhylsadar

I have no clue what caused that spike. I guess the Schulze didn't like going forward after it rolled backwards. I just tried another controller in the truck and it is working fine, so it's not the motor. Nothing got stuck in the drive train. The controller is not new so I might as well forget about it, but I'll send an email with the pictures to Schulze. Germany should be the country to have the best engineering and customer service, but I get better service from Asian companies. I was afraid of using my Schulze after all the stories and I more afraid now. Imagine if my 40.160 burns. I hear people are paying up to $800 for it now.

Spike is simple Short in ESC, and its like a lavine untill it fully burned

And it what I stay away from schulze and german made BK 9920/12020 :)

Sorry for your ESC Lutach. One could expect from a high end ESC that it senses when the car is rolling backward. In this state it should apply brakes when you move your throttle forward. Only after the car has stopped it should apply power again ... atleast that is what i'm used to with the Kontoniks Jazz ESC.

Rhylsadar: do you have your schulze setup for reverse? What does the schulze do when your rolling backward and you apply throttle forward?

182A from a 2200mAh pack is impressive indeed. When my endbell came off my Neu 1512 my Eagletree micropower showed an Amp spike at 128A. Could be the limit of my Eagletree logger or the limit of those A123 cells i use. Luckily the Jazz 55 survived.

wow, that looks familar. I have killed two schulze 18.97's like that but actually still have a schulze that works (12.97). of course it probably only still works because it doesn't get used much :)

actually the only reason I know it works is I tried it while waiting to get my MM back.

hmm, suddenly I feel hungry... might go get some TOAST. Bad luck Lutach, that really sucks for you man.

Funny thing though, everywhere I go, and there are alot of websites/forums I visit on my travels, I always see threads about burnt schulzes, and I always hear about the lack-lustre customer service. Usually the customer gets blamed for bad wiring or improper use erc, regardless of the actual circumstances surrounding the esc buring up.

I know theirs arent the only escs that go bad, but they do seem to go bad quite spectacually; not just a burnt fet and some smoke, or suddenly stops working.... nope, bursts into flames without warning. The name Schulze has much the same negativity around it as Integy does....

It's cool. I have a few ESC that applys the brakes when it goes backwards and I like that. I also have a couple that will go forward after it determines the speed is low enough. I'm liking this packs a lot. I might bring a few of them in.

Schulze should be setting the standard for every other manufacturer out there, but USA (Castle Creations) and a few companies from Asia are really locking the market down. They offer outstanding CS and very often they just replace the product without any question. I might try one of the value controllers from Schulze mainly because they will use the larger FETs and all the controllers I tried with the D2PAK of DPAK MOSFETs have lasted longer. Actually the only one I burned was the sample I got from the company that is doing my controller and that was my fault.

i spent/wasted a lot of emails with that company about my controller when it smoked.

first they didn't want to replace my controller, i got a 30% discount, after a few emails i got 50% discount, and after a few more emails i got my replacement for 'free' i needed to pay roughly 50 euro for 'research time' (didn't know this until i received the controller)and i was blamed to machined the plugs. (it was a loose contact matter according to them)

I used plugs they didn't approved (but i asked them about these plugs before i even bought them) later they 'realized' that i probably machined the plugs.

I don't feel obliged to support a company like that. they put me through quite some stress back then.

@rhylsader; 182A; that is most likely from a dead-shortening in the controller.

and your opinion is appreciated, but I think you also need to respect mine in this matter. You know the entire story behind it. You also know how many threads there where on monstersparadise about smoked schulzes.. I am surprised to see your reaction to this. What controllers did you wasted if i may ask?

rene of course i appreciate your opinion. i am not at all a schulze fanboy or something. i don't have any feeling at all for any brand actually. all i can do is refering to is my experience and that of many others i read (and i also read a lots of forums also german speaking ones, where maybe german esc are used more often). and sorry dudes but my impression is that there no real indication that schulzes burn more easily or more often than any other esc. i also didn't made that bad experience with their service. so what do you expect from me that i join your elegy about schulze? i can not because my experience is different. i had my 18.97 in use for almost four years with countless batteries through in my savage before it burned up due to my fault. i got a new one with 30% off and this one works for a year or something now without issues. my rc buddies have three 18.97 in use also (savages and a mp 7.5) and they work also properly so far. i read in forums of people after trying different other esc returning back to schulze because the 'issues' of the others. so its simple: there are other experiences as well. but i may repeat myself as well. if i was in the US i would probably also go with others because i clearly see the hazzle of dealing with a company overseas that actually is speaking another language etc.

i also have to admit i do not understand the claim many people seem to have that a company is somehow obliged to send you a brand new controller when you have messed up the old one? this sounds a bit weird to me. of course there may be some cases where the warranty applies but sure not in all cases.

@othello
i have to check this rolling backwards. but just like that i would say it does not go directly into forward but stops a second and then you have to move the throttle again.

but dudes i am not on a mission here and i surely don't want anybody to change his mind. i just don't see that the negative overall judgment is really qualified imo. there may also be a tendency to celebrate burned up schulzes in forums more than others because one really feels bad about it due to the quite high price one has paid for it after all.

bye
rhylsadar

A few months ago i had to make the choice as to what ESC would be the right one for my cars. Price was the first thing which drew me away from schulzes and those pics of burned up Schulzes were the second reason. So yes those pics and threads of burned up schulzes do have an influence on opinions (i know MGMs, Castles and so on are also letting out smoke at some point).

Rhylsadar i sure am the last one who wants to argue with you about this subject as i do respect your knowledge you gathered far earlier then i did. But my point of view is why not integrating some sort of over current protection. Those of us wanting the ultimate power may have the option to switch it off at the risk of burning up their ESC. And others could switch it on with the peace of mind that overcurrent would never be an issue. Maybe this solution would be too expensive (i really don't know). I'm just thinking about someone driving a golf cart or whatever and their ESC burns up because his wheels got blocked or similar. I guess that is something you will never see because those esc have more safety features integrated. Truelly our ESCs are not meant for man carrying purposes.

On the other hand some 1:10 scale ESC have the ability to set a max current value as to reduce torque of the motor when driving on a slippery surface. This is one feature i would want to see in a future 1:8 ESC. Maybe this also suffices to protect our high priced ESCs. Our motors can take huge amounts of amperes when starting up due to their low internal resistance. This stresses batteries, drivetrain and results in possibly unwanted wheelies. Driveability could be greatly improved and especially race drivers would benefit a lot of this feature. But i know depending on the components you choose you will influence amp draw too and you can choose how agressive your setup will be by adding more cells. But the freedom you would have to tune your car from a super agressive wheellie machine down to a 540 can tamiya type acceleration seems to be very compelling to me. Maybe this small dream will come true in a not too far distant future.

Ok. Got an e-mail from Schulze and this is what they said:

"Hello,

thank you for the photos - but unfortunately you did not take a picture of the important cause of the failure:
Please unmount the controller and the batteries, put them on a table with stretched out cables and a folding rules beside. Take also photos of the power connectors."

Ok, now I need to know what he means by "folding rules beside". This is really impressive as I was planning on buying another 40.160 a few months back and they never replied to my e-mail.

Guess they want to know how long your cables were -> rules should be reading ruler.

Ok. Thank you.

Yeah, most likely a ruler.

Please report back when they replied to your email.

@rhylsader; It's all good.

It's just that schulze has the habbit to blame to customer to begin with. They never doubt their product.

@lutach
did you have a fan on the cooling rips?

@serum
yeah dude no hard feelings. we have just made some different experience. thats all.

bye
rhylsadar

It's funny, I have a feeling they will blame me. In the pictures I have most of the plugs next to the controller and they couldn't determine the length of the wires and Deans plug http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/show...43&postcount=3. I also saw in another thread a guy who bought that expensive new charger they have and he is having problems with it. He sent it to Schulze and Schulze said they didn't see anything wrong.

The weather was in the 30's and I stopped the vehicle a few times to see if temps were ok. Everything was cold.

Arh, i guess they won't say that with your controller.. (oo,)