the switch fell off my mm esc!!!

anyway, i was driving my stmapede, and the switch somehow got loose and was ripped out by the tires. normally i would just solder on a new switch, but it ripped the solder joints off of the circiut board. so now there is nothing to solder on the board itself...is there another place I can solder to make it stay on? ill put some pics up later. i tried to solder a wire betweeen the two, but like i said, there is nothing on the board itself to solder.

what you could do is scratch the protective coating over the tracks to expose the tracks and then bridge the tracks that way the controller will turn on straight away without a switch.

its possible the heatsink might make this a problem by getting in the way.

the alternative would be to send the esc in for repair but at 50 dollars flat fee is not very cheap for such a simple to fix fault.

[bdebde]

You could always see if they will cover it under warranty.

thats convered under waranty, a friend here had the same prob, and castle will fix it for free, u just ship it to them

ya, i might try to just bridge it, other wise, its off to castle...do you guys know ehre that spot leads to? I might be able to hook it up somewhere else.

[suicideneil]

You would have to remove the casing to see where they go, but i would be careful about trying to solder the switch somewhere else- may create a short circuit.

[Joe Ford]

If the switch comes off without damage to the board itself we will put a new one on for free. Unfortunately damage to the board like this renders an ESC unrepairable and we cannot cover it under warranty...it's essentially the same as crash damage. Ultimately it's up to the repair tech and the repair dept supervisor whether it's covered or not.

[BrianG]

In that case, looks like there is nothing to lose in the attempt to fix it yourself chaz. It doesn't look like it will be terribly difficult to replace the switch if you can find another place where the traces go.

Joe, would it be possible for you or one of your team people to give a hint for a good place to solder the switch wires?

EDIT: I just looked at the PCB for my MM and the black wire looks easy enough to fix, but the red wire must go to one of the sandwiched traces. So, it looks like a little info from Joe will be needed to get this working again. I have an idea about where it would go, but don't want to be responsible for a totally fried MM. :)

would it matter either way Brian it seems joe is pointing out that they would charge 50 dollars to repair this esc if chaz ****s it it will cost him 50 dollors he has nothing to loose really.

[BrianG]

Oh, I thought Joe was saying that it wouldn't even be covered by the $50 warranty either. My bad. Yes, I would do that instead.

[suicideneil]

We need a pic to see how bad the damage is ideally.

The moral of the story- make sure your wires & switches are securely fixed in place.

well its a 50 dollar flat rate repair fee which has nothing to do with warranty.

alright, where do you think that the wires might be attached too? It looks like I will have to send it in, but if you have an idea about how to fix it/a different spot to put it, im not necessarily opposed to it. just let me know, worst case is a lost 50 bucks and a fixed controller

[suicideneil]

Need picture of the pcb board to see where the wires go- will mean opening up the case but its just a few screws I believe.

[BrianG]

I looked at the PCB. The black wire on the switch goes right to the battery + IIRC, but the red wire goes into the board and there are no traces on either side that lead anywhere. There's obviously another trace layer in the middle...