ESC opinions??

[GSMnow]

I had a bit of a mishap with my truck the other day. My Orion CORE stock actually threw a wind and jambed the motor. I noticed it right away and didn't try to drive it at all once it stopped, so I thought all I would need is a motor, but with a new motor the ESC is acting up real bad, so it seems it was hurt.

I put in one of my old Novak T4's and it is driving fine again, but I certainly miss the smoothness of the high requency (I had a Novak 410 M1c) and the brush arcing is much worse with the 60 hz control too, so it has to be harder on the motor as well.

I am looking for a good control with high freq operation and a current limiter. I have had good luck with the Novaks, but they have not even responded to my e-mail (it has been 2 weeks) and I am open to any suggestions. I may even consider a Mamba Max since I am thinking about brushless for the future. Has anyone here used one on a brushed motor? LRP and Tekin also have a few good units. I don't run super low turn motors, but low on resistance is good even on a stock motor or 19 turn. I currently have a 17 turn double in the truck and it is plenty powerful for. I race with a Trinity CO27 in stock.

I am starting this thread just to get any actual experience any of you may have on ESC's you like or that I should run away from. The more info the better. Maybe this thread can help others too.

[shadowghost1]

Maybe the thread should be split between racing and bashing esc's due to the obivious differences between thier performances.

[Losi motor man]

Just for starters

1- Was your ESC hot when that happened ? (Might have gotten stuck on High Foward and burned out )

2- Did it thermally shut down due to the motor malfunction ? ( ANY SMOKE ? )

3- Were you under FULL throttle when the motor blew a wind ?

You might possibly have had a feed back spike that Blew your ESC or disrupted the Smooth High Frequency responce that You had before this happened. Thats a tuff one with out actually being there and smelling , seeing, touching the ESC .But all I can tell you is that Novak Is Usually Good with this type of problem. Did you call there HOtline # ?

here is the info:

Hours: Monday-Friday: 8:00 am – 5:00 pm (Pacific Standard Time)
Telephone: 949-833-8873
Fax: 949-833-1631
Email cs@teamnovak.com
Address: 17032 Armstrong Ave., Irvine, CA 92614


IF NOT HERE TRY THIS LINK :

http://www.teamnovak.com/cs/index.html

[t-maxx3792]

i have a ? will the traxxas xl-10 esc fit in my traxxas bandit

[GSMnow]

Here are the details of the failure.

I am an old time RC'er. I raced alot 15 years ago. Dug out my gear and was out motor'd and out battery'd. Bought the CORE stock and 2 IB4200 packs. WOW more power and duration than I had running mod back then. Took a few weeks (only a few chances to get to the track) to dial in the setup. I was running over geared and the motor was getting very hot. With the huge capacity of the IB4200, I was still getting ovewr 10 minute run times, but the motor was really cooking.

On the fateful day, I ran a full pack through without a problem. Motor hot, but ESC and Battery were both barely warm. I planned to let the car sit a while and cool off, but another driver was ready to run and I wanted to gauge my progress, so I only let it cool about 10 minutes, the motor was still hot when I hit the track.

It ran 2 very stron laps and then started acting a little odd like I was getting radio glitches. Nothing major, but I stopped and checked over the truck. Motor still a bit hot, but not terrible. All wiring looking good and ESC/Battery cool. 2 more laps and still okay, but it would not make the big double jump on the third lap and when I got to the back straight it accelerated good and then I though I hit a rock or something on the track. It darted left and I let off the throttle and counter steered to straighten it out. When I pulled the trigger again, it didn't roll. I walked over and saw smoke from the motor. The wheels were locked, so I shut down the car and went to the pits.

Motor and mount plate were too hot to touch. The ESC was still cool as well as the batteries. I took off the pinion gear and the wheels spun free, so my fear of a jammed gearbox turned into "What locked in the motor?" I was not running a filter, and the CORE has big cooling slots, so I figured it ate something.

I plugged in an old 19 turn mod motor and the speed control seemed to run it fine. But that was with no load. I opened the motor and found the tossed wind stuck between the arm and magnets. The motor had probably 25 to 30 full pack runs on it with my dialing in, and a race day, and I knew it was over worked a bit, so I wrote off the motor and bought a new Trinity CO27. This is where it gets real bad. I install the new CO27 and the car takes off, but I am getting bad radio glitching. If I ease on the power it will accelerate to a high speed and seem okay, but a fast punch results in bad stuttering. I swap in the old T4 ESC and it takes off without a glitch, but after just 3 accel runs the wheels again lock solid. ***!!

I don't know if this helped kill the ESC or not, but the new CO27 blew it's arm apart. The balance holes were drilled so big and deep that the laminations failed and the little tips flew off and locked it up. I ran less than 2 minutes on this motor. It is obvious the lamination tips wee hitting the magnets right away, and this may have been causing all kinds of electrical noise, let alone the obious lock when they got caugh in the magnets. This was not a good day. The guys at the hobby shop know me pretty well, and saw the damage so they were very cool about handling the dud motor with Trinity (one time only deal) I expected I would have to send it in for Trinity to look over. This service really impressed me. They had another CO27, and it had much smaller drill holes. I put it in the car and it has been running great. DAMN fast stocker. But when I tried the 410 M1c again, it still won't take full current without stuttering, and it does seem to get warm even at moderate loads. I tall works, just has far less current capability than it did.

I disected the fried CORE stock that started it all, and all the windings are quite blackened and there are several places it looks like a few turns may have shorted from the enamel burning off of the winding wire. I assume this made it pull much more current like a lower turn motor which lead to even more heat and the resulting burned through wire that flew of into the magnet path. So YES the ESC was asked to supply far more current than it normally would with a stock motor. But it is equipped with a batt side "solder pop" fuse that can save it from a reverse polarity battery and the current limiter was set to just 60 amps. The fuse never opened. If I drive it careful not to stutter it, the ESC does get warm now, so something is seriously wrong.

I only e-mailed Novak's tech help, but I have not gotten any response at all. This ESC is about 12 years old, I found the reciept and box, but it was one of the top end, and one of the first high freq ones on the market.

Thanks for the other contact info, I will give then a try. I don't expect a freebee at all, I got my monies worth. I am just curious what failed and if it is worth fixing. If it fried an FET or three?? It should not be a big deal to solder in a couple new ones. I may try to test it under resistive load and see what it does. I can easilly make a load bank pull 20 amps and see what the pulses look like. I have a scope and I service electronic equipment for a living. I have even fixed a few "frame rate" ESC's with stronger IRF FET's back in the day. My concern on the HF unit is I don't know if it uses the inductance of the windings as part of the current control. If it does, then a pure resistive load will not work. That may also explain why it may have failed as winding started shorting as the inductanse will fall very fast even with one shorted turn.

I am really leaning towards getting a Mamba Max system. I can run it brushed for stock class, and drop in the 5700 for practice or mod class when I have grip to take the power.

Gary M.

[BTE214]

I got a Novak T4 second hand a year or two ago and it ran fine. I installed it recently in my brother's new car and it worked fine for the first day or so. Then all of the sudden it would get twitchy. Finally when i switched it on and all it would ever do is go full throttle no matter what adjustments I made. Maybe the T4 gremlins come out a decade after it is released?

[GSMnow]

My T4 is at least 15 years old and still works like new. It is just a bit course at light throttle. When the track get slick with a torquey motor it just spins the tires at a slight touch on the trigger. When I used to race on a damp clay track, I loved the hole shot the T4 gave, and actually complained about the soft response on the new tech high freq ESC. Now with IB4200 batteries that can dump huge current, and motors that can turn that into torque, I really liked the smooth linear control the HF gave.

I have another T4 working exactly the same and an original Novak4 which is probably from 1982 or so. The 4 has no brakes now, the FET fried and I never fixed it. I used it in an airplane. No brakes needed.

Gary M.

[Pubert]

Maybe the thread should be split between racing and bashing esc's due to the obivious differences between thier performances.


^^^What he said....

[highroller]

I own the same models T4, T1, T1X all the way to the Cyclone. The problem you encountered could be multiple issues 1, overgeared 2, amp draw are two comon issues that can damage the older esc. Todays stock motors are making power that old modified motors like Reedy Pink Dot and some of the early Trinity mod produced. Even back in the day Novak produced a Stutter Stopper to reduce that lost of control, when motor drew to much power - that momentary lose of radio control when getting hard on the throttle.
I've thrown winds or had a strand snap off causing motor to lockup, but luckily the esc was never damaged. But it possible that something may have been damaged in your case. Try doing a voltage check along the power wires, first at the battery pack, at the connection point of battery to esc, then at the connection point of esc to motor and directly at motor. It should be simple to inspect the inside of the escs to see if a diode or something has blown - the area near it made be discolored.

[GSMnow]

A close visual inspection in the ESC found nothing discolored at all. I even unplugged the 2 boards from each other and all components and traces look fine. The voltage from the battery to the ESC is rock solid and with my Fluke digital meter (pretty fast update rate) I never see the voltage at the ESC input dip below 7 volts even when it stutters and jumps. My car does not have a slipper clutch, and when it jumps it jerks so hard I can hear the ball diff slip. If I pull the triger slow and moderate load, it seems fine but the ESC does get warm. If I pull the trigger quick with it loaded, even not going full throttle, it is almost like it puts out the correct power to a point, then shuts completely off for a fraction of a second, and them slams full throttle for an even shorter pulse before returning to the commanded throttle position. It is very odd behavior.

Gary M.