cheapo esc went up in smoke, motor issues found, but were they the problem.
 

Well, the little ebay 60 amp esc went up in smoke. Here is the rundown, losi xxxt, 3s 4000mah, hobby city L can 380, 4800kv. I have ran probably 8 packs through the truck, pretty much a rocket, the esc has gotten really hot, but never shut down, or acted like it was having a problem. The last pack, about 2 min into the run, started cogging really bad, wouldn't move, started smoking. I took off running to it, smoke was rolling out of the controller. I uplugged the batt. Nothing had really changed, took a closer look at things tonight, first off the front plate of the can was loose, second off, where the motor wires exit the can, there is a some shrink wrap over all the wires, I slid the shrink wrap back, and the wires look to all be bare, and touching. Now I don't really know how a brushless motor works, but I wouldn't think it should be like that. At first I figured that was the problem, I took a ohm meter and measured for continuity between the leads, and they all did. I tried every other brushless motor I had, and they all do to, so I guess that may not be the problem. I hate to try the motor on another contoller, in fear of frying it too. I find it odd though that the cheapo esc had been doing just fine and then took a dump with no real warning. Would the loose front plate cause some kind of a short? Thanks for any help. Here is some pics of what I am talking about, and the inners if you are curious.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ssmotor001.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ssmotor002.jpg

The loose front plate would cause a short inside the motor winding, IF the armature was rubbing the winding inside. Take a look down it's throat. It should be easy to tell if it was. There will be some of the copper winding that is ground away.

On the motor leads, you will get continuity because they are all connected internally since it is a 3 phase motor. Either wound with a Delta or a Wye Termination.

The only test that you can really do, without expensive ohm measuring equipment under a load, is to check for continuity between the motor leads and the casing. If there is, then there is an internal short.

If the ESC was running hot anyway, it probably just overheated and gave up.

I would put the motor back together and try it with a different ESC. Just a short test shouldn't burn another ESC.

I checked cont. between the case and leads, and it shows good. I think the problem might be stemming from the rotor touching the windings, If I move the shaft any at all, I can get cont. between the shaft and the leads. I can crank down as tight as I can on the front plate, and sometimes it will show cont. and some times it won't at rest. There is enough slop between the bearing and the plate that it will move enough to pretty much always get continuity. I hate it, I know its a cheap motor, but it really ran good. Now its got me wondering if it had been making some contact all along and thats why the controller was running hot.

If the winding isn't damaged severely, you might be able to just replace the bearings and go again. :yes:

It's not a bad, after a number of runs, to back the motor off and check to see how much bearing slop you have.

I'm sure this is what took your ESC out.