Whats it going to take
 

To get the failure rate of our esc's lower.

I miss the days when you could just yank the red wire from the rx plug on a Mamba max and go run forever.


It may just be my horrible luck- BUt i have been through almost a dozen mamba monster's, and My brand new (ran one day for a total of 1/2 hour) died.

It never is a whole product failure. Its always the worlds smallest solder joint or something like that that cripples the esc- Being soo close to working.


How long until we see the reliability of these newer units to become set and forget.

when it rains lollipops and gumdrops, and there are free unicorn rides at every street corner, and money is obsolete and all women loose, and government gives way to a eutopian existence.............

i would say its your bad luck, ive beeen at this for 2 years and only fried 2 MM's and 2 MMM's

Sadly, this is true. There are ways to make the ESCs almost bulletproof for our application, but it would cost a pretty penny, either eaten up by the Brand (i.e. CC, Tekin, HW, etc.) or by the customer (most likely as the brand will just transfer the cost to us).

Just a couple of things they could do:

1. Buy components with additional shock testing at specific levels that replicate the most severe cases in a 1/8 RC application.
2. Design the PCB/layout with larger solder joints for improved mechanical hold (also improves heat dispersion, along with the use of large ground planes). Also support mechanically sensitive components with epoxy.
3. Stricter mfg inspection acceptance criteria (lower yield, or spend the money to improve mfg processes).
4. Conformal coat everything (adds a bit to mechanical strength, mostly to small components only).

There are more options, but all adds up to more cost that the brands will not want to eat. Sadly, this is like the exotic car industry...the consumers will gladly accept the faults of the product for the privelage of running them AND there's no one that will stray from the main to offer something that is dramatically better at the same end cost to the customer (because they know the market will still buy them). Take Ferrari...Kias have better paint jobs than most Ferraris, but people will willingly pay $225k for one with orange peel paint because of the reasons above.

The physically larger components required to handle the power of 1/8 applications also makes them more prone to physical damage due to stress. That's one of the reasons why 1/10 applications don't see the same failure rates.

Tightening acceptance requirements and/or improving mfg processes will likely yield a drastically improved product to the end customer, but they will eat more cost than to have customers send in product to be replaced (especially with the short warranties of most companies requiring the customer to pay a partial fee for repair/replacement).

If you have questions on specific mfg processes/improvements/etc., let me know. I'm in electronics mfg. HTH.

Businesses are there to make money, it's more economical to sell a new item every 6 months to the same customer than provide an item that will last the customer years, we're a throw-away society.

Kinda contradicts the whole eco-sustainability thing but nothing is more powerful than profit. ESC failures mean you have to buy a new ESC or wait up to what, 4 weeks for warranty. New ESC = new sale = more profit.

Do the $400.00 MGM's have the same failure rate? I've never used one so I don't know. I've had a bad run with motors lately.

from what I read they do

I have had a bad run with escs.

started when me and my team mate had both of ours fail in a period of half an hour.

in the last 6 months 6mmm's, 2 mamba max, 1 tekin rx8, a neu 1515 1.5d, and 1 rc-monster 5200mah hardcased 2s pack..

i've heard the ezrun 150a esc is pretty solid. its bigger footprint allows for some stronger and larger soldering. the only issues i've seen with them is the programming when it comes to timing or punch control.

Is that the one that smokes if you try and change the default timing / punch control?

I killed my 80A EZRun ESC (same physical size and package as the 150A) this Saturday from a big impact landing on the lid off a jump. I'm not sure the solder joints are any larger...they might be considering the size, but I'd have to see the package opened up (which I'll do with my now-dead 80A) relative to an opened MMM or other ESC. But yeah, the most often failure mode of the EZRuns has been messing with the timing and punch. At least for my failure, I know generally what it was due to (hard impact).

i dont know if its just luck but i have bought 3 MMM and all have served me well.i even have a v1 that i just replaced recently coz i broke coz of a very hard impact(my fault)that never gave me problems.

maybe its because ive never tried anything above 4s and ive never hooked it up to the castle link

More trial and error

Still, its amazing the abuse we put these vehicles through. The best thing you can give the esc's an offroad vehicle is foam/padding underneath it.

I think the old(er) school esc's such as MM and Quarks had lower failure rates than these new units (RX8, MMM).

I agree totally that the build quality on them is quite bad, as far as physical abuse, vibration resistant. Also the brains boards of an esc should be replaced with a small IC (integrated circuit) that would take the place of the relatively large controlling board, that would make room for more FET's, which would equate to lower temps, or maybe more power capacitors.

I have had a Quark 125 for 2.5 years now running 7s A123 and 6s lipo, still works like a charm.

Exactly that went trough my mind a few weeks ago. I sold my MMM because I was to scared that it would go poof. I bought a Quark Airmaster 125B for 80 bucks (new!) and it works amazing! I got it in my Rustler VXL which goes 60+ mph and my 1:8 heavy LST, and in both it runs awesome! I made jumps which were 20+ meters far and 3.5+ meters high. And the Quark is just going on and on! I also had a Quark 80B, which ran perfect also. I'm running Quarks about a half year I think now, I like them. :yes:

ive had a MMM since day one when they came out and never had one fail, only had one mm fail and that was due to a software glitch while updating it the program shutdown and left the esc "dazed and confused" but in the last 2 years i havent had any problem out of my 2 tekin rs, my 2 mm, 2 mmm, 2 sidewinders, mgm16180.....

my in other cars of our locals ive watched coutnless die, but never mine.... knock on wood

many things that happen within fractions of a second are usually neglected...
for example, a good slipper clutch [properly set] can save an esc`s life many many times...

My MMM is going strong after close to 40hrs. I heard BrianG say that he doesn't think the EZRUN has a TVS.