Castle Creations ESC tip thread(brushed)

[Kratos]

must be the solid yellow while calibrating. it never went away and now i cant get my speedo to connect to anything. i wonder if i have a loose wire or something inside the case? i have 3 other mamba micro pros and have not had any issues such as this with any of them. i cut off the on off switch and solder them together then i cut off the white wire since im only going to be using brushed motors. i am really stumped. could i have shorted something out while doing any of this?

[Kratos]

just wanted to say thank you to castle. i contacted them today and they are sending me a new one out today. it was a hardware issue not a software.

[Charlie-III]

Originally Posted by Kratos

just wanted to say thank you to castle. i contacted them today and they are sending me a new one out today. it was a hardware issue not a software.

Cool deal.....glad it's resolved.
I'm also glad you posted a follow-up on this, it may help someone else down the road.

[Kratos]

yea im just really glad it wasnt anything i did cause im not the best person at soldering so i thought i might have messed things up.

[waggaclint]

Great info, i set my sidewinder up like this today and its great

[grave 1]

like chassies in your pic. every see your own thing if reading your tread?

Originally Posted by Chris_The_Battery_Man

Seems like there are alot of people asking questions about some of the Castle ESC's. I have been running em exclusively for well over 5 years now. I only do the brushless a little on the go fast, so I am not an expert there. But in the crawlers, I can certainly help.


As of this post(and for as long as I can see) I run 2 mamba micro pros on 4S lipo. The mamba max and sidewinder can take 4S also. Castle does not advertise this, or warranty it. But I have been running 4S on my trucks for about 2 years now with no problems.



First and foremost. Calibration:

Make sure your radio has the throttle trim is centered, and not in reverse. Once you have done this, you turn on your radio, and hold full throttle(forward). Plug in/turn on your ESC. It will chime, pause, then beep steadily. Hit full reverse after 3 steady beeps. It will do the same chime, pause, steady beeping. Let go to neutral and it will chime/beep again, then chime that it is armed(same as when you turn on the truck). If you did it right, you're ready to rock.

This is always the first thing I do when I install one of their ESC's on a different radio or re-bind a new RX. If you're having some problems with the ESC arming, or it arms when you give it a little throttle/reverse, then re-calibrate. Just make sure all your throttle trims and settings on the TX are centered and factory. You need to re-calibrate even if you install a used ESC you bought from someone.



ESC settings in the castle link:

Below is a pic of what you should have your stuff set at. There are more settings you can play with, but this is all I use. Also, your lipo cutoff will depend on how many cells you run. Otherwise, all the rest should be the same(in my opinion).

Make sure you dont update past firmware v1.24. I have tested this on the sidewinder and micro pro. Haven't tried on the mamba max, but it should be the same firmware version. You just don't want to install the firmware that has the "Crawler Reverse" option under the "brake/reverse type". You want the latest firmware that has the "213% Crawler full-on" option under the "Drag brake" settings.

The reason for this, is that the crawler reverse blows. It limits reverse throttle, and makes the brake softer. This may work for some. But I think the instant reverse in the settings above, is way better. If you have the firmware past v1.24, all you have to do is go into the software tab, and select v1.24, then hit update.






Side note. If there is a setting you're looking at, and don't know what it effects, the click the little blue circled question mark on the top right of every option. It will open a prompt that will explain every option. Pretty handy.

I have also learned that screwing with the throttle curves doesn't really help much. I always go back to the linear curve. If you want to know more about this, I can explain.




Hope this helps some of you. Post up if you have anymore questions. I would be happy to do my best to help. Get a castle link of you don't already have one. Well worth the $25





.

[werner7]

Hello
Question:
I use two CC sidwinder micro, one for channel 2 and the other for channel 3 .
Each esc has a bec..
The two work against each other ??
what if the BEC voltage is not exactly the same ?
thank you !

[Charlie-III]

Originally Posted by werner7

Hello
Question:
I use two CC sidwinder micro, one for channel 2 and the other for channel 3 .
Each esc has a bec..
The two work against each other ??
what if the BEC voltage is not exactly the same ?
thank you !

Disconnect the red wire from the RX plug on one of the ESC's. Cover the loose wire with tape so it won't short out.

[werner7]

hmmm.
this is absolutely necessary ?
I need all the connections for programming with the PC interface ..
no problem with adapter.
But the easiest way is the direct connection.
if there are no problems ! ! ? ? !
has anyone ever connected two parallel esc ?

[Charlie-III]

Originally Posted by werner7

hmmm.
this is absolutely necessary ?
I need all the connections for programming with the PC interface ..
no problem with adapter.
But the easiest way is the direct connection.
if there are no problems ! ! ? ? !
has anyone ever connected two parallel esc ?

I didn't say cut the red wire off, I said to remove it from the connector. You will likely have issues if you leave both BEC's connected to the RX.

[werner7]

@Charlie-III

ok,ok.. So i will remove it from the connector.. Thank you !

[JDLiles]

I have a 1/10th sidewinder (don't think it's V2). It ran great, then sat for a few months. I got it out to let my boys play with it, and it only glitches. It jumps and cuts out in forward and reverse. Never saw any "magic smoke" and have read this thread from front to back. Wondering what could have caused this? I run a cc bec as well, but the green light comes on. They both connect through my link and I have tried all I've found here and everything else I could think of. The bec does get slightly warm, could this be causing my problem? Any help or thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Charlie-III]

Originally Posted by JDLiles

I have a 1/10th sidewinder (don't think it's V2). It ran great, then sat for a few months. I got it out to let my boys play with it, and it only glitches. It jumps and cuts out in forward and reverse. Never saw any "magic smoke" and have read this thread from front to back. Wondering what could have caused this? I run a cc bec as well, but the green light comes on. They both connect through my link and I have tried all I've found here and everything else I could think of. The bec does get slightly warm, could this be causing my problem? Any help or thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

My first suggestion would be to recalibrate the ESC to the RX (making sure the TX has good batteries in it first)
You also need to check the motor brushes, they may be rather worn or hung, but do the easy stuff first.

[JDLiles]

I've done the recalibrating thing, but the brushes is a good idea. I'll give them a check. Thanks.

[Kratos]

so i have another mamba micro pro woe. i decased the ones in my xr tonight. wired everything back up and one esc will not go forward. it runs in reverse but not forward. i did not do any soldering on the speedo itself. just took it apart, shrink wrapped em, and installed em. i recalibrated both escs to make sure that maybe when i plugged it in it did not set one to default and both were exactly the way described in this thread. i took both speedos out of my truck and wired them one at a time to the rear motor to make sure that it is indeed a speedo problem and not something else. one works forward and reverse and the other only works reverse. im guessing something happened while decasing that i cannot see. but i honestly dont know what could have went wrong. any ideas? im kinda mad at myself lol so im not thinking straight. thanks

[JDLiles]

What kind of dig are you running? Or is it set up through your radio?

[Charlie-III]

Originally Posted by Kratos

so i have another mamba micro pro woe. i decased the ones in my xr tonight. wired everything back up and one esc will not go forward. it runs in reverse but not forward. i did not do any soldering on the speedo itself. just took it apart, shrink wrapped em, and installed em. i recalibrated both escs to make sure that maybe when i plugged it in it did not set one to default and both were exactly the way described in this thread. i took both speedos out of my truck and wired them one at a time to the rear motor to make sure that it is indeed a speedo problem and not something else. one works forward and reverse and the other only works reverse. im guessing something happened while decasing that i cannot see. but i honestly dont know what could have went wrong. any ideas? im kinda mad at myself lol so im not thinking straight. thanks

Did you try each ESC in the same radio port?
Did you recalibrate each ESC for your "out of the rig" test?
Do the LED's change color correctly (for forward & reverse)?
If you have a Castle Link, are the ESC set-ups the same? I like to do a set-up in one ESC (including throttle/brake profiles), save it and then load it into the 2nd ESC.

[fred0000]

to get castle link to work without having to go through the trouble of reconecting the red wire everytime, just plug a battery into the ESC

[Kratos]

Originally Posted by Charlie-III

Did you try each ESC in the same radio port?
Did you recalibrate each ESC for your "out of the rig" test?
Do the LED's change color correctly (for forward & reverse)?
If you have a Castle Link, are the ESC set-ups the same? I like to do a set-up in one ESC (including throttle/brake profiles), save it and then load it into the 2nd ESC.

lets say esc #1 works properly and esc #2 does not. yep i recalibrated each esc outta the truck. i then soldered #1 to the rear motor. tried that esc in channel 2 on my 4pk. worked great. switched to channel 3 and it still worked great. then i switched to #2 and used channel 2 worked in reverse and not in forward. switched to channel 3 and same problem. both escs make the same lighting. both arm and switch colors when going from neutral to forward to reverse. both speedos are setup identical as i too setup up on, save it then transfer it to mother esc.

[pitcher2103]

Originally Posted by fred0000

to get castle link to work without having to go through the trouble of reconecting the red wire everytime, just plug a battery into the ESC

this helped me a bunch.. thanks.