Smoke, no fire (yet)

Hey...I'm in a lousy mood. I rec'd my 4mm and 3.5mm plugs today to hook my Mamba up to my E-Truggy. I wired it all up, everything went well. Plugged it all in and there was a steady trail of smoke coming from the Mamba. Oddly it did seem to work, I did all this on the bench, no wheels on the truck, just a dry run. The motor was unusually hot for just spinning there for a few seconds at a clip. I tried two different motors, one I had been running and one new one. Same thing. I eventually stopped and pulled the ESC out as the smoke and smell grew. At first I was telling myself it was the flux I had used to wire my UBEC but I know how that smells when it burns off, this was not that smell.

I'm only using 4s and to be honest, they are only half charged (15.5v was the reading on my Nomadio) - I don't get it. I'm hesitant to actually give it a try, it just seemed all wrong. There were even a few very odd revs of the motor. Seemed wrong, like the system was having trouble "talking" with the motor.

The Mamba I used was nearly new, I rec'd it after participating in the beta for the system. I installed it into my XXX-4 and ran it only two race days (maybe 8 packs or so). It worked fine in the XXX-4, no smoke or odd behaviour.

Confused and a bit frustrated...

DM

[MetalMan]

That is odd... I'm guessing it won't work too well on the ground pushing the truck, since the load is much greater than on the bench with no wheels/tires.

[BrianG]

The smoke would definitely concern me too. Can you tell exactly where it is coming from? If several FETs smoked, then even the small load is being put on fewer FETs and they will heat up. After all, there would be less Rdson values in parallel if there are fewer working FETs.

I've reverted to the 18.97 and emailed Castle for help. At this point I know something is wrong and this unit is wounded at minimum. I think sending it in for service is the only recourse. Just my luck, so many of you are running these on 4s with no problems...I just plug it in and poof...(well, slow poof)

DM

[BrianG]

Hopefully you ust got a unit that was bad from the start and they'll replace it for you.

[gixxer]

wow dave your bad luck must be rubbing off on me ;). I have been running my buggy on 5s for awhile with out any problems. I just got another mamba to set up my truggy. changed all the wire to 10gauge and 5.5mm connectors. plugged it in to test it out, the esc got hot then, smoke.

I mailed my to Castle, they mailed me back a very nice postcard saying they were working on it. Nice touch...I think...perhaps yours is about to make the same journey...must be an issue with a certain version of the controller. Odd but hopefully fixed soon.

DM

[gixxer]

dave, are they charging the $50 out of warranty fee? or are they going to cover it even though you had 4s on the esc? The other thing that sucks is I really want to try the neu but now I dont want to risk frying another esc.

[BrianG]

I don't know why CC doesn't rate the ESC for 4s when they do rate it for 12 cells, which is the same thing (ok, a 0.4v difference).

Just wanted to update the thread...I rec'd a replacement MM today from Castle. I'm pleased...it's not a repaired model, it's a brand new one. What's extra nice is that since mine came from the Beta, I never got a box/manual and now I've got one! Anyway I think I'm going to keep it running in my XXX-4 for now and wait for the MMM to drive my E-CRT. Regardless I'm very happy at the moment.

DM

hi i have the same problem i plugged the car in today and got a lot of twitch from the motor.
i am concerned that i will have a problem getting replacement are they ok with this ki8nd of thing (i have only had it a week):035:
i am running a 3700 mah mi-mh
a yokomo mr4 tc
mamba max 5700kv

any ideas
cheers marc

[skellyo]

Originally Posted by marcrimie mamba

hi i have the same problem i plugged the car in today and got a lot of twitch from the motor.
i am concerned that i will have a problem getting replacement are they ok with this ki8nd of thing (i have only had it a week):035:
i am running a 3700 mah mi-mh
a yokomo mr4 tc
mamba max 5700kv

any ideas
cheers marc

Can you describe the "twitch"? It sounds like yours may simply be cogging, not a smoked ESC.

well when the esc beeps when turned on the wheels judder to the beep and when i push forward on the throttle the esc smokes??

[skellyo]

Sounds like a bad ESC to me. Smoke is never a good sign when it comes to electronics.