dead Castle BEC(s)
 

hello,
i've cooked two castle creations BECs. i'm sure i've done something silly but i'm struggling to identify what it is. i've done a lot of searching and spoken to a grip of peers... no smoking gun. any help would be greatly appreciated.

the servo is powered directly from the BEC while the RX is powered through the ESC.

servo: futaba S9157
RX: R614FF
ESC: novak M2 dig
motors: blitz 40t
lipo: thunder 3 cell 850mah 45c

everything works fine for about 15 minutes of play then the servo suddenly and completely loses power. at that time the green light on the BEC is off... never to light again. throttle/the ESC continues to work.

again, two CC BECs have died this way. what have i done?

http://lunarbomb.com/CRAWL/BEC-01.jpg

Since you can only run that servo on 6.0V, why did you wire the BEC directly to it? You should be fine wiring the BEC in the manner that CC suggests. The Rx should be able to handle that input voltage...

thanks for your response. when it was wired per the instructions the reciever would glitch severely (cutting out, steering glitches, and unpridictable throttle. sometimes going full reverse when forward throttle was applied). i wired it the way you see in the picture based on feedback from some locals and a tech thread i found somewhere on this forum. it fixed the glitching... but yeah...

is there any reason i can't run everything off the ESC?

You can absolutely run everything from the ESC, however, when the motor gets in a bind, the ESC's built in BEC will divert power from the servo to the motor....which will result in your loss of ability to steer.

I have never had an issue wiring BECs as per Castle's instructions. I have not used Futaba Rxs, but it certainly sounds like there is a problem with yours.

people tended to think it was an issue with the M2 dig or my RX when it was glitching. the BEC was never really suspect.

i'll run it without the BEC until i resolve this.

thanks again.

Yeah, electrical issues are always the most difficult part about RCs and 1:1s...

I burned one up with the M2 also. check out the thread in this forum on the M2, there was an issue with it and the ccbec. Novak has released a firmware update to fix this issue. Unfortunately you need to buy a Novalink or have access to one for the update.

Yea. Seems that there is new firmware available for the M2 that is supposed to fix the issue. Try that out.

On a side note, if the weather is nice enough we should go crawling soon. Hopefully it will warm up friday or saturday.

fantastic! i'll find that thread pronto!
...but now i need a novalink? does it come with a free CC BEC??? :evil::roll:

again, thanks for the input fellas. i appreciate it.

definitely. i'll try to get this sorted by the weekend. if not, i'll be doing the scaler thing. my scaler has been my saving grace while i figure this berg out.

Can you get a closer pic? It looks like you have the bec and servo wired together and plugged into the reciever. That would be a big no no if you are trying to power your servo with the bec and the rx with the esc.

I know its far away but im sure hobby town will have a link you can use.

I blew up two in a row a few months back too. Really weird because it worked for a while about 5 minutes and poof :x. Now I dont have the guts to fork out the 25 to see another one go.

It was wired just like this too.

http://forum.losi.com/attachment.php...3&d=1289838328

I have 3 dead ones laying around. Just need to send them in