Castle Sidewinder SCT in Associated SC10 review.

[fastbaja5b]

Let me start by saying I am not a Castle fan boy. Read back through the posts I was probably the most critical of the MMM Speedy.

That said, I picked one of these combos up for the SC10 so here's what I have so far:

Arrived well boxed, soldered on the deans and hooked it in, go to Calibrate it.... nupe. I have had this issue with every Castle esc I have run from a MM Pro to a MMM and now this one. they do not like to calibrate to a spektrum DX3S radio, just won't do it, throttle, yep, brake, yep, neutral... nope. I've seen quite a few threads on this, but even this new ESC does it. Another thing I noticed is a gentle touch on the heatsink, and you can see the whole board literally moving within the case. Tempted to shore this up with some silicone on the outside but not sure how that would affect my warranty.

After 3-4 gos it sort of works, not sure how precisely calibrated we are but we'll see how it goes. (may try to change the neutral deadband manually as I don't have a castle link)

Initial take off...

First thought, forget low speed this thing cogs! Battery is a brand new Polyquest enerland 5050mah 35C 2s Lipo so I don't think it's a "Zippy lipo"syndrome here, once you get past 10-15% throttle it's fine. I know from past 4 pole motors I have had that they prefer 15-20% timing, from what I can see in the ""Drivers Ed Guide" it's set to "Normal" so not sure what that is. ESC struggles BEC wise with my Savox servo, A Spektrum glitch buster cap helped that greatly. (My Hobbywing Xerun 60A ran it fine )

Full speed is brutally fast, geared 23/81 in the SC10 it gets there and gets there quickly, exposing the fact I still have a bog stock gear diff (and should really play with the diff oils)

Once you get into a decent flow, it's a monster, only hampered by hesitation on standing starts (cogging), also thinking changing my throttle expo from Linear to a more exponential curve may assist.

anyway, had the eagle tree on it (only a short test out the front for now)

At this point, I think it was great value no doubt, the motor alone is worthy of the price tag IMO compared to what a VXL motor goes for (just shattered a rotor in mine yesterday on 2s Lipo in training mode!) The ESC feels cheap, the board moves around in the case, the BEC struggles and cogging is a significant issue at low speed. Hopefully playing with some settings I can minimize it but still....

Here are the pics / graphs (3 distinct runs, 100% EPA, 65% EPA and 80% EPA)