The good, The bad, the ugly!!

[robert97dodge]

Well the good is my VF DIG IS WORKING GREAT!!!!!

The bad is my BEC that I put on my steering servo is not working!!!

The ugly is gonna be me throwing my crawler 100 feet across my yard!!!!!!

So the story. I put the Castle BEC on last week and I finally got test it out today. I ran 3 battery packs through it and on the forth I started climbing something and realized the steering was not working. So I pulled the body off and no light on the BEC. I get it home and wiggle some wires and nothing. I soldered all my wires on so I know they have good connections and I soldered the power right to the power wires going to the ESC so I know it is getting power. One thing I did notice is that when I manually turn the front tires back and forth the green light comes on while the tires are moving. I have it wired so that I get the singal wire coming from the RX but the power comes from the BEC so that way I still have the ESC BEC to run my dig servo. I am assuming that the reason why the light is coming on when turning the tires is because it is traveling through the signal wire, throgh the servo and powering up the BEC. I am thinking that the BEC is cooked for whatever reason. Anyone else have any ideas?

[Narly1]

Originally Posted by robert97dodge

Well the good is my VF DIG IS WORKING GREAT!!!!!

The bad is my BEC that I put on my steering servo is not working!!!

The ugly is gonna be me throwing my crawler 100 feet across my yard!!!!!!

So the story. I put the Castle BEC on last week and I finally got test it out today. I ran 3 battery packs through it and on the forth I started climbing something and realized the steering was not working. So I pulled the body off and no light on the BEC. I get it home and wiggle some wires and nothing. I soldered all my wires on so I know they have good connections and I soldered the power right to the power wires going to the ESC so I know it is getting power. One thing I did notice is that when I manually turn the front tires back and forth the green light comes on while the tires are moving. I have it wired so that I get the singal wire coming from the RX but the power comes from the BEC so that way I still have the ESC BEC to run my dig servo. I am assuming that the reason why the light is coming on when turning the tires is because it is traveling through the signal wire, throgh the servo and powering up the BEC. I am thinking that the BEC is cooked for whatever reason. Anyone else have any ideas?

Have you checked the servo to see if it's fried (most likely due to end-points not being set and having the servo forcing up against a hard stop)?

Go with the bare minimum to check: known good transmitter, receiver, and battery power, using that switch and 4 AA cell holder harness that originally came with the radio.

I've heard of the "green LED" effect before. By manually wiggling the wheels you are turning the servo motor into a little generatior which is making enough power to light up the LED.

Let us know the results.....

Narly1

[Robb]

Start from the beginning, and list out all your components and how exactly you have them wired.

[bigflex]

man you have some of the worst luck! As far as your problem. I would have to see the wiring before I could say for sure. You know I am starting to think you aren't supoed to have dig. You should just take it off and sell it to Mexican. Seriously though can you post up a pic of the wiring?

[robert97dodge]

I am running a Novak Rooster ESC, Castle BEC, 5955 Hitec steering servo, 225 Dig servo, MX-6 Remote and RX that came with it. Basically my wire is I have the yellow wire from the servo going to the RX since that is the singal wire. Then I took the red from the servo and hooked to the red power wire on the BEC and the black went to brown wire coming off of the BEC. For some reason Castle didnt use the standard red, black, and yellow wires for the wiring. Instead they used red, brown, and orange. The orange wire doesnt go to anything. For the red and black wires for the power coming in I soldered them to the power wires right off of the ESC where the battery plugs in. This is a wiring diagram I found on line that is pretty much how mine is. Only difference is I have a 3rd channel for where the dig servo is plugged in. This is how we wired up the BEC on a friends and it has been working great for over a month.

[Robb]

Seriously, you need to be honest here on how you have it wired and what is really happening.

You mention a light on the BEC. My CC BEC does not have any lights on it. Are you talking about a light on something else?

And forget throwing a quickie diagram of a 2-channel external BEC circuit............what is the diagram of YOUR circuit?



Have you tried wiring in the BEC in the traditional method of plugging it into the RX BATT plug with the power [red] wire removed from the ESC?

[robert97dodge]

I am being honest of ezactly how I wired it. I just told you. I am trying to get help on why it isnt working why would I lie about how it is wired up that wouldnt help me at all. Just picture a 3 channel on the RX in the diagram with the Dig servo plugged into it. I did not hook it up the way it says to because I have to have the ESC powering my dig servo. That is why I hooked it up this way. I had to seperate where the steering servo gets it power from so that the dig servo would have plenty of power to hold it enganged. Also the light I am talking about is on my CC BEC. It is under the blue shrink wrap. That same light is on the BEC on my buddies too.

Originally Posted by Robb

Seriously, you need to be honest here on how you have it wired and what is really happening.

You mention a light on the BEC. My CC BEC does not have any lights on it. Are you talking about a light on something else?

And forget throwing a quickie diagram of a 2-channel external BEC circuit............what is the diagram of YOUR circuit?



Have you tried wiring in the BEC in the traditional method of plugging it into the RX BATT plug with the power [red] wire removed from the ESC?

[robert97dodge]

Also the end points were set on the servo so I know that was not a problem. Another thing I did notice is that the servo would get pretty warm before I put the BEC on there. When it quit working I noticed it wasnt warm at all.

[Robb]

The CC BEC is capable of producing 10amps via spec. You aren't going to overload it with two simple standard servos.


Try wiring it up the traditional way and see how it works.

[robert97dodge]

Originally Posted by Robb

The CC BEC is capable of producing 10amps via spec. You aren't going to overload it with two simple standard servos.


Try wiring it up the traditional way and see how it works.

The problem is that it is not just as simple at unplugging and plugging in a couple wires. All of my stuff is soldered so i would have to cut it and resplice a bunch stuff. I am thinking it doesnt really matter how the servo is wired up coming off of the BEC. I know I am getting power to the BEC but the BEC is not coming on so it must be a fried BEC??

[dpdsurf]

Originally Posted by Robb

You mention a light on the BEC. My CC BEC does not have any lights on it. Are you talking about a light on something else?

Mine has a light

He's wired it up correctly based on the diagram and his explanation.

Robert,

You're going to have to start the process of elimination and disconnect some wires. Start by splicing the RX connector to the servo so you can test the servo. If the servo works, then it's a bad BEC. Regardless at what they are rated for, more than a few people have had their CC BEC go bad. It sounds like CC is good about replacing them.

[robert97dodge]

Well I just went ahead and cut the wired from the BEC to the Servo and splice them back onto the plug and plugged the servo into the RX and it is working. So it has to be a bad a BEC. I will call up CC monday morning and see if they will replace it.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Robb

Seriously, you need to be honest here on how you have it wired and what is really happening.

You mention a light on the BEC. My CC BEC does not have any lights on it. Are you talking about a light on something else?

And forget throwing a quickie diagram of a 2-channel external BEC circuit............what is the diagram of YOUR circuit?



Have you tried wiring in the BEC in the traditional method of plugging it into the RX BATT plug with the power [red] wire removed from the ESC?

My CC BEC does happen to have a green light on it, to show that its getting power.

I would just wire it up traditionally like Robb said. I'm not to sure if I understand why you are wiring it directly into the servo?

If the BEC works when wired up traditionally I would say that your BEC is not fried, and you possibly had something crossed.

[robert97dodge]

Well I called up castle creations today and told them about my problem and he said that the reason why is quit working was becuase I dont have it grounded to the RX too. He said that caused it to mess up the BEC. He said they are out of stock on those for 2 weeks but I can send it in and they will fix the problem and send it back or if they cant fix it they will replace it. So for now I am just gonna order another one from someone that has it in stock.