E-revo. Vxl instant thermal. Help?

[trev3813]

Hey guys, got one of those 1/16th e-revo's with the vxl. Turn it on, regular 7.2 6 cell pack, push button hit throttle and just chatters. 3 seconds. esc off thermal, heat sink HOT. i actually still have the fins burned into my thumb from a week ago. Im thinking motor? i dunno honestly. Any help?

[_paralyzed_]

sounds like a demagnetized motor.

[brainanator]

call up traxxas, they are pretty dang good about sending out replacements.

[trev3813]

Its only 4 months old. My friend josh left it at my house and i literally drove it for 10 minutes. Put it away in my room, and it just started doing it. Whats demagnetized mean? (besides the obvious...)

[_paralyzed_]

if the motor gets too hot, the rotor will demagnetize. Then the motor has literally no power and it just stutters like you described.

Does it roll freely when pushed? If not there is binding somewhere, which can cause the same thing.

Does the nimh seem good otherwise? Maybe there is enough voltage drop to cause your symptoms.

[trev3813]

Ah, gotcha, No binding, rolls fine. Ni-mh is good, just to make sure i plugged my 2s lipo in and it did the exact same thing.

Aw man, that sucks. Check all the connections to make sure everything is in place, and try maybe a different motor, reset the ESC to default settings, etc.

[What's_nitro?]

It's a dead motor or ESC. If the ESC is thermalling that means the connectors are fine since they are allowing all that power to get through.

[BrianG]

Assuming drivetrain is ok, and gearing is stock (or close), I think the ESC is bad. Unless you were running that motor WOT for a long time unloaded, I don't think it would get hot enough to demag the rotor on 6 cells. You could test the motor on another ESC just to be sure.

[_paralyzed_]

Good point Brian. Throw an MM in that little guy just to test the motor.

[trev3813]

Called traxxas, guy thinks its the esc too, the motor turns but stops itself like normal. Trying another esc this weekend.

[scarletboa]

i have a vxl esc that only gives the motor about 60% power, makes the motor get hot very fast, much faster than any of my castle escs, and thermals after about 4-5 minutes on 2s. it also wont go in reverse and the brakes are iffy. i opened it up to find that 2 of the 3 capacitors had brown spots on them.

[trev3813]

Ended up being the esc. Got it warrantied. :D

Pic of it.