AE-5 Blown no warranty replacement until late May

[805crawler]

I'm a bit bummed since it's been over 20 years since and my brand new SCX-10ii RTR just blew it's AE-5 ESC. I now know after looking though the posts that this is nothing new. What really sucks is that I won't be getting the warranty replacement until late May! This is just crazy to pull as a company. Axial should offer a replacement of some sort to someone who just purchased their product and not wait 2 months for a replacement. I now know I'll never buy an RTR again

[LSXGMC]

Buy a Hobbywing Quicrun 1080 WP and never look back. $41.99 and they're a fantastic little unit. Sell your replacement AE5 when you get it


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[805crawler]

Thanks! Done and done

[Sneetches]

Yep, Axial has no inventory lately, what were the symptoms of the AE-5? On my friend's, with two failed units, the truck would go full throttle and stop responding to input.

[805crawler]

So I plugged in the battery as usual and then the wheels would chirp every few seconds and there was no steering control. Red light flashing on the esc then a quick little pop ESC was super hot and then smelled smoke. All of this happened in about 10-15 seconds. I still think it's bad business that you can drop $400-$500 on a brand new product and within days of receiving it it breaks and they don't have a fix for two months

[84yoda]

Its just bad timing. Axial is switching warehouses over seas so thats why everything has been back ordered for a while now.

[805crawler]

My point is that Axial knew this was coming and should have had something in place for this kind of issues. They should be able to give some sort of alternative replacement or credit so the affected customers can get something else. It's just bad business. I've run mail order companies before and we always had something available for our customers in cases that were similar to this

[84yoda]

They didn't know it was coming. The place got shut down. But I totally agree they should take care of you, with a different esc or credit.

[LSXGMC]

They've been pretty quiet about it. I am hoping they offer something to existing customers who have had warranty claims. I anticipate they'll offer a sale of some sort on trucks once they're stock is established again. 3-4 months of no inventory is ridiculous, never mind in the spring.


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[CoolRunning]

2S or 3S?

What were you doing at the time (crawling for a while in warm weather or just trailing) and were you monitoring temps?

I could got my AE-5 hot easily in warm weather with some very moderate (ie nothing hardcore or crazy slow, no binds or repetitive attempts) crawling on 2S in a RR10 with stock heating.

20 min of crawling in 30+ C heat on 3S for me would be a guaranteed ESC BBQ.

Is there any reason you expect something more than a simple warranty claim?

Just getting something warranty'd without a fight often is a major bonus in itself. No one has EVER offered me something on top of a new replacement part...

[805crawler]

I was doing nothing. Just plugged it in as I stated before. At most 15-30seconds from plugging into smoking. Only using a 2s. I live near the beach in SoCal and it's been 50-mid 60's F here. Just got the complete package RTR from Tower. Again, I'm just shocked in the low quality of this product and a 2 month wait after just purchasing this and only using it only a few times. I bring up that there should be a workaround they should offer considering their very long time delay. Again, having run a mail order company before we always tried to have alternative options set in place for situations like this however rare they come up.

[CoolRunning]

Only you know what you've done with the truck and I am no Axial apologist or fan boy. Without monitoring temps or at least regularly feeling the motor/ESC so you know how hard you've worked your ESC in previous drives (like when repetitively climbing and getting things cooking hot) you really won't know.

If you've just trundled around not getting hot and never run 3S and it's failed then welcome to the wide world of cheap/affordable consumer electronics! It's unfortunate but a pain.

I would suggest you personally get a Hobbywing WP 80 brushed ESC. It's cheaper and far better ESC than the AE-5.

You should read my thread about my saga with Hobbywing ESC's. Man, what a cluster $#*^ that was. Did I rag on HW? No, I didn't as HW are not crap products. I've actually just bought two of their ESCs and believe they are by far the best of the affordable ESC's on the market (many third parties get HW to make their gear) but I still suffered some major angst. It's just life sometimes and you have a bad run. I got all my stuff warrantied and ended up exchanging for something else but I wasted a LOAD of time and effort in the process. I did not get ANYTHING for free let alone a discount.

Just realise that your servo will die prematurely, the motor is DIRT cheap and will burn up or just stop due to brushes...on it goes and don't forget the broken servo horns or issues with gears stripping and stuff breaking. It's RC ultimately. Unless you pay big dollars or buy a kit and spec all great gear, you'll have failures and hit problems. You should read some of the guys that spent mega dollars on their Yetis and how they still have expensive problems on $2K trucks.

If you want your soul sucked away, get into RC 3D helicopters. Now there is pain. Only the toughest survive that experience! lol

The AE-5 is generally regarded as a decent entry level ESC. A supply problem is just unfortunate. My 4 week old Losi AVC gyro'd RX failed yesterday. I had a buy a new RX as I honestly had no idea how long I would need to wait to get a replacement. I'm not hating on Losi or Horizon Hobby. It's just life.

[805crawler]

I get what you're saying but I just don't roll over and take it. If someone sells a bad product and can't make good on it in a timely fashion then yes, I for sure as heck am going to say something so others know about it. I don't expect things to last forever but less then half a dozen runs and dead and now a two month wait. Ya, I've got an f'ing problem with that. If I got even a few months of use out of this I probably wouldn't be as pissed.

[Hydrocarbon92]

Is anyone with a blown AE5 using a separate BEC? My guess is your internal BEC died. Most ESC's use linear voltage regulators, meaning extra voltage above 5v from the battery is turned into heat. Mine got uncomfortably warm on 3S powering the receiver & servo with the internal BEC, then was ice-cold after I switched to an external BEC (actually dual 3A for 4WS).

Since it's already dead, see if you can power it with a separate receiver battery pack. Don't test with a Lipo pack just in case the internal BEC shorted power to ground. My brother had a Tekin ESC that was brought back to life with an external BEC after a crappy winch controller fried it's internal BEC.

[nightcrawler48]

Originally Posted by Hydrocarbon92

Is anyone with a blown AE5 using a separate BEC? My guess is your internal BEC died. Most ESC's use linear voltage regulators, meaning extra voltage above 5v from the battery is turned into heat. Mine got uncomfortably warm on 3S powering the receiver & servo with the internal BEC, then was ice-cold after I switched to an external BEC (actually dual 3A for 4WS).

Since it's already dead, see if you can power it with a separate receiver battery pack. Don't test with a Lipo pack just in case the internal BEC shorted power to ground. My brother had a Tekin ESC that was brought back to life with an external BEC after a crappy winch controller fried it's internal BEC.

X2 After running my Wraith stock for a while, blew up the servo so replaced with a Hitec 7954 and a glitch buster. Then added an external BEC to replace the glitch buster. External BEC was plugged in to the receiver and power wire removed from ESC plug in receiver. Started running 3s and the problems started. Fortunately never fried the AE-5 but ended up wiring the BEC direct to the servo and reconnected the ESC power wire to the receiver. Everything cooled down and haven't had any issues since. To this point I've run the AE-5 in all vehicles I run and all now set up same as the Wraith. Other than the heat before powering the servo directly with the BEC, never had a problem with the AE-5's. However, based on all the positives I've seen on RCCrawler for the Hobbywing 1080, I've ordered one and looking forward to trying that out.