Design Flaw...
 

So I have a v1 and a v2 that are still working. I also have a v2 that went up in flames that is currently at Castle.

It is pretty obvious there is a design flaw in how the board sits in the case. Every Monster I have owned has had the fan plug break off after a race or two.

I was performing some routine maintenance on my car after a race this weekend in which the monsters performed FLAWLESSLY. However, when I took the case apart on both I noticed that there is a little chip thingy that was crushed on both of my Monsters. :surprised: It is obviously getting slammed around in the case. I am wondering if this is why the Monsters are failing.

Here are some pics. Both of these Monsters are working fine, but this chip obviously bothers me. It is the one with the 223d written on it. I hollowed out the bottom of the case and it has the padding in it, but it still doesn't seem to be enough to prevent the chip from slamming against the bottom of the case. I understand the v3s will have a little more clearance in the case.

Just some additional data for Castle.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...o/PA130271.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...o/PA130273.jpg

That broken part is the main BEC switching coil. And yeah, it must be hitting the case pretty good to break off. You might want to take some 1/8" - 3/16" thick foam bits and apply them to the motor and power solder pads as a sort of standoff. Yeah, you shouldn't have to do this, but anything to keep these running, eh?

Brian is right with the foam. That is exactley what I did to mine. You can find pics of what I did here: http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15249

I did the same thing to my v1 and it is still kicking...

There is foam in the bottom of the case. That was one of the first mods I did to it. The pressure is pushing it down through the foam.

I am going to dremmel out the bottom of the case some more and see if that helps. I am tempted to put the external BEC on it to be safe now.

Actually, using foam on the whole bottom does pad it, but still places pressure on the relatively sensitive brains components. I was referring to adding thick foam bit ONLY under the large motor/power solder pads. This would leave the rest of the PCB suspended and (hopefully) not touch.

I know what you mean and where you coming from so don't take this the wrong way but it's funny to hear people say that. For as long as I can remember now most in the BL world have done some kind of modification to there ESC's to run them in larger vehicles. Looks how many modded quarks just to keep them running cool.

I think at this point CC has it figured out. I would also imagine their having to mod or change the case in some way to remedy that issue as well.

anyone mount it on the side ?

maybe if you mount it so the load is spread across the whole mounting face, there wouldn't be much of an issue. The load would be supported by the edges instead of in the middle of the case.

This may be a design flaw in the MMM, but it is not the root cause of all the problems the MMM is having.

It doesn't explain the people (me included) who have had a V1 or V2 go poof right out of the box after setting up with receiver and never getting any road time.

I did a little research and it seems the batch of components Castle used in V1 and V2 had frequent occurrences where the physical casing of the individual surface mount components was made too thin. So, all that was needed was a little jarring (maybe weakened during shipping), or even a change of atmospheric pressure to cause the smoke to break through the thin shell. And we all know once the smoke leaves, no workie no more.

I used some fuel tubing around the edges of the case to hold the board up and keep it from hitting the bottom case. I also dremmeled it out pretty good. I basically just cut a piece of fuel tube and glued it vertically in the corners. It seems to be working pretty well.

Hopefully, the new versions will be out soon. I think these two I have are on their last leg.

also heatshrink the bullet plugs that are on the pcb, another possible problem if a dead short across the heatsink

Whaile your doing the heat shrink, bent the close heatsink fins away from the bullets.

Or just remove the bullets and solder wires directly to the PCB, but that will probably void the warranty...