MMM V3 dead (yep another)
 

Well mine was a little different than the others but I thought I'd share. Plugged in and all was fine, then after about 2-3 minutes it starts cogging badly, even at high speed. Turn off reprogrammed Tx-Rx good for 2-3 min. Anyway went through every possibility troubleshooting to no avail, Castle suggested trying a BEC while I wait for a new one. Still the same, but after a couple goes at it, the Monster perished completely. So that was my 3rd Monster (2 V2s and 1 V3) hopefully 4th time is a charm.

Sorry no smoke or fire or high speed braking, just a slow stuttering death.

I would have checked all the connections personally. Sounds like there was a high-resistance joint; either a cold solder joint or poor bullet connection.

well i hope:whistle:

Thats what mine did way back in May ( my V1 ) then I checked the joints and found a loose bullet that was masked by the heat shrink....now I've got countless hours on my still functioning V1.....with the fan mod and BEC....tried it yesterday with the new update w/o the BEC and with fan plugged back in and is working good so far....

Trust me I checked all the connections + everything else possible and not so possible, the last thing I wanted was to send this back!! Anyway it didn't act like a loose connection, it acted like the TX/RX freq was drifting, I tried 3 different radios and 4 different rx (FM +AM) but no matter what set up I had the Monster would start acting up after a couple of minutes but I could run my MM with no problems. I tried different motors, all new wiring etc, etc, etc up until the V3 gave up completely.

Could also be the terminals touching the heatsink. As soon as I got my 2- v3's in I checked for clearance. Both had terminals that were touching and both had a small section of fan wire that was bare. I fixed both before using them.

so i have 4 mmmv3 and im really hard with it...:lol:+one hour on each unit...could it be your motor?????i just push the limit on each esc:whip:(respectively) and nothing...:yes: both of my v3 still going strong....anyway now the count is four death mmmv3 :grrrrrr:

4 died on how much made????

i don't think that is the issue...ive try to ''spark'' a old lipo pack on my anodized mamba max heat sink and nothing happen...the anodized aluminium doesn't conduct the electricity ...well after a lot of try nada....nothing

No, an anodized HS won't easily arc, but if enough rubbing occurs where the anodizing wears away exposing the bare aluminum, there could be problems.

right...could happend on a new mmmv3????strange!!??the heatsink still new why could it be rubbing??

Dunno. Patrick said they tried to recreate circumstances where the HS shorts out but were unable to.

right...:yes:

anyway im still thinking that the v3 look to be stronger that the previous version

Don't get much runtime, but my V1 still works! :smile:

mine to and no mod on it:yipi:

so im really curious to know what happen with these unit(4 mmmv3 failed)

Wow, that's a really weird failure! I can't be the heatsink shorting out on the plugs though, as Patrick has already stated that they've never been able to get this to happen...even after scraping the anodizing off. I've heard of ESCs dying as a result of cogging due to motor incompatibility, but this is bizarre.

It seems that most of these faliures so far have been bad luck or user error (bad motor lead connection, battery lead coming unplugged while braking, and a bad setup which appeared to be overstraining the cells and maybe causing excessive voltage ripple)...but this is a real strange one. Maybe a bad solder joint in on the ESC power board, causing a phase to operate eratically?

Weird definitely, nothing external and it didn't happen instantaneously but slowly over a 3 day period. Once it died it was completely dead, no castle link, nothing. When I ran it I didn't do anything extreme just circles, straight runs etc my motor was a Medusa 36-60-2000, and I also slapped in a Fiego 9xl to make sure the motor wasn't causing any problems. Both motors work perfectly with my MM.

I don't think these few failures should be the cause of worry, they are all different and I'm 95% confident that when I get my replacement it will be good, there will always be some failures!

Basso --

We see (rarely) a failure like that -- often they are caused by a cracked resistor or capacitor (or solder ball stuck under a chip, or bad solder joint, etc.) that was missed during testing, and fails shortly after.

What we call that behavior is "two phasing" -- means that two phases are working, but one either isn't driving, or has a problem with the back-EMF circuit.

We'll make sure you get your replacement ASAP.

I know, I'm sure it was a complete fluke! I actually was messing with it last night and got CastleLink to recognize it, so I may try a couple more things.

BTW The Castle customer service has been outstanding, otherwise I would have given up on this months ago! I know this will be a solid products, just those beginning kinks to clear up, I just wish you waited a few months to announce it:yes: