My xl-2 caught fire
 

I was bench testing my mamba xl-2 combo in my car and it almost destroyed my whole rig . I am not really worried, castle customer service is top class but i thought they fixed this . Anyone else have a this happen ?

There's a pic

http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/t...G_00000119.jpg

A friend of mines caps exploded in 1 minuet of his first run with it.... Scary....mines working great

My Baja which has a Castle esc is stored without batteries in it, and when it's run I have a fireproof blanket near by as a precaution. I agree it's not something we should have to do, but it seems to be part and parcel of running Castle gear.

mamba xl2 fire
 

yeah big, Got my car all built and did the first run with it and blew both cap banks. Loud pop, and a small puff of smoke. yes, castle will replace it, but i called today and they told me that there taking four weeks just to process incoming packages.:oops::oops: I thought they fixed this also......

4 weeks is a long as time when the season is just beginning.

Same thing happened to me(it started to smoke on the 3rd run), very frustrating as i have waited months for the xl2 replacement and the one that i shipped in was working great (rev 2) and now i have to ship it back again and that will cost me 62usd just in shipping costs + allot of waiting time.

Also i mailed them and haven't gotten any reply back yet, guess they are busy

A optimal solution is for the LHS that I bought it from to so in store exchange only warranties for at least 6 months if they have problematic hardware. It would save them alot of time and keep us happy and buying .

I tell ya, this is really frustrating, I think from now on, I'm gonna buy two of everything, just so I'm not down at all. I'm not patient at all. I really makes me mad, especially when it's not my fault. I have my own business too, and let me tell you, I'm never out of stock, never. I always like to tell my customers, I have it in stock, come right down. My friend is in the headlight business, and he personally flies to China to bring back a trailer full of headlights, cause he doesn't trust shipping,customs, what-not, etc. Just my opinion, I guess. They need to put a fire on there suppliers so there never out of stock, whateva!!!!

I called castle . I told them what happened and after a few routine questions . He offered to fix it the best he could . I was a little upset earlier but the castle team really knew how to handle my problem . The customer service they provide in regards to warranties is unsurpassed . Hopefully I will get a part sooner than later .

I think Castle is experiencing some growing pains. As soon as they see whats wrong they make some adjustments. I retract the wish for them to delegate warranties issue to the LHS. In this instance they did a better job than my local store did.

It's discouraging though, how a lot of Castle ESC's do seem prone to 'explosive decompression', How many fried MMM's did we see, then the MMMXL, V2 revision and now the MMMXL2 which was supposed to be fixed, has fried on you. Warranty times were out to 12 weeks, and yeah I know these are just toy cars, but when you've coughed up $300-$350 on an ESC and it fries, it piSS@s you off! RC for some is a destress, but this is anything but destressing.

Hope you get it sorted quickly! I am still waiting on an ESC / Motor to come back via HPI Australia from a Savage XS that did the dodge on me, and that was only on 2s lipo!

Well, going by the precedent the MMM set, the MMXLv3 should be much better & more durable... :lol:

*runs and hides*

....how long until V5?

I don't think its a castle thing at all, all RC companies are on the forthfront of technology advance, every new release castle is pushing out is a first of its kind not revision's.... that a few ESC/Motors might blow here and there this is still there first 8S rated surface ESC. Something that just 4 years ago while the Mamba Max was the king of ESC was just unthinkable. Thankfully castle is a company that backs up everything they sell unlike many others. Im a huge castle fan, and to be completely honest if it wasn't for a company like castle id still be a nitro guy....(sad i know).

I personally like to take a small fire extinguisher and keep it in the car JUST IN CASE. Not because i don't believe in castle products but because freaky things just happen sometimes!!! So far ive only blown ONE MMMv3 ever out of the 7 i currently own and it happen on a ESC that i had used many times and one day i plugged it in and the second i did poof little cloud and DONE. It was a fluke, it happens but that happens in anything in life..... i think calling it a castle thing is unfair.

I think this would open the doors to too much fraud with castle taking it pretty hard in the you know where......

True but the focus now seems to be too much on acquiring new customers as opposed to keeping existing ones happy. Don't get me wrong, pairing up with Axial (Wraith ESC), Traxxas and HPI to make some kick ass high end rc's is great for sales (and the bottom line) but is it worth hundreds of people waiting ages for warranty in the long term?

I I dont know the fail rate, but i do know that its easier to write about an broken esc than one that is working(for obvious reasons).
And the XL is one of the most versatile esc out there, allot of programing features and so on..

but i agree, waiting so long do not make sense, i have an spare esc so im not in that hurry( i was a bit worried about it ruining my motor since i can pull the red motor wire out from the esc, but with another esc it is completely fine).. but it shouldn't take that long. It have have gone 6 days and im not even getting an reply.. thought i previously have gotten extremely good customer service.

wow -- so angry fastbaja --

We do try try try to make every ESC perfect, and try to take care of every customer as quickly as we can.

We're not always perfect -- but we try.

We have very few failures on the XL2 -- lower than any other car ESC we make (much less than 1% --)

Just FYI - -

We are planning on splitting up the OEM and Castle Creations branded business in to two units -- so we can make SURE the OEM stuff doesn't impact Creations' day-to-day

Peace and love brother,

Patrick

Don't get me wrong, I am quite happy with my XL2 but after going through 5 MMM's (incl 3 V3's) and still having a Flux Vapor Pro from a Savage XS in warranty limbo land I can appreciate that people are frustrated. Glad to see a separation of OEM and Castle branded gear though, Castle built up a huge rep for customer service in the early days with the Mamba and Mamba Max and it's sort of sad to see it start to get eroded by sheer weight of numbers, also one look at the Traxxas forums and it's obvious the people buying cars with OEM brushless (ie E-Revo BL, Traxxas X01 etc) don't necessarily have the knowledge that a lot of Castle direct users have (ie the gurus on rcmonster :P)

Dude, u blew 5 esc and still complained OMG

...I shoulda waited until # 6? Actually I did 5 MMM's, have also done one a Flux Vapour Pro (Sidewinder) which just went for no reason, so it is 6 :P

Also have a Mamba Max Pro that won't run any servos at all unless I have a receiver cap in there (even with a Futaba S3003 servo!), but it's hanging in there :)

But to be honest I had a Hobbywing Xerun 150 let go last week on 2s Lipo with a 17.5 motor, and I've had a Quark 80A let go just in programming, so to say I only blow up Castle esc's isn't entirely true.

On the flip side I have a $26 Hobbyking sensored esc that is tortured, neglected and at the moment is covered in silicone living in an rc boat and the bastard just won't die!

All of the issues with the Castle ESCs might not be their fault. It could be bad components that Castle has no power over and only finds out what's is wrong when the units go bad. Some of the electronic components in these ESCs can be fragile. Vibrations and G forces might be causing problems as well. I had a product made that had issues with the capacitor's lead breaking and caused a few magic smoke :lol:, but it was fixed and Castle will get things fixed. I'll bet that the electronic components manufacturers are cutting corners, I've been in the business for a while to see things happen. I've even sold huge amounts of components that were factory defects without knowing and it's crazy seeing a few thousand TV sets not work because of it.

I got the new xl-2 to replace the other one. Best customer service ever i might add . Thank you Patrick . I have run this car as throttle heavy and mean as i could. No problems yet.

I think to avoid it catching fire one MUST do the following :

1. use a extra cap pack
2. Use a external bec

And to keep the car going straight use gyros.

WEEE

wow, that was fast.. im not even getting any response on the mails i have sent.
Guss i can just ship it in, but like to get verification

The best thing to do is call and let them help you.. It would be the best long distance calls you ever made. 1pm today I was bombing up and down my street with my land missle.

External BEC - check

External Cap pack, almost impossible to solder onto the XL2 and if you do get it on there, it hangs precariously over the motor taking every bump with it, as I am only on 6s Lipos, I actually removed it, ripple voltage change was minimal (from 1.5v to 1.61) and I'm not looking for a loose wire from the cap pack every 30 seconds. It shouldn't be 'essential' however, isn't it more of a bandaid for running an esc close to it's rated limit?

Regardless I have an XL Ver 2 on it's way for recall replacement and that will be my spare.

I dunno why the cap pack is hard to solder. I did it in like 2 seconds. I even put one on the monster mamba

I've got a version 1 system in a car I've run twice. I also keep an extra system on hand in case of fires.