2 faulty new AE2 ESC's and counting....??

[cogfounder]

Anyone seen this happen to their AE2 yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjpQk2nqCd0

If I pull the trigger slow, they go full throttle in forward and reverse,
but if I pull the trigger real fast, the ESC dies and the motor wont turn.
I have HS645MG servos in all the rigs/ no external bec, but as you see in
the vid its on stands, and they worked fine before.

Heres a little background...

I bought them from RPP, one in January, one in March, and one in May.
The oldest two have both begun to do what you see in the vid.
(started at different times)

It ran fine one day, but when I went out the next time they did this,
with no indication there was going to be a problem from the last run.

Im running them within specs, meaning 6 cell 5000mah nimh batts and
staying inside the motor limits.

Im running them all off an XR4 radio on SCX rigs, but its not
a radio setting issue. I switched the radio gear out and was able
to reproduce the same problem. No problems with the other
rigs running off the XR4 either, but they have different brand ESC's.

I switched out some motors too, same thing happened.

I have the castle field link, and you have to trust me that I set it up
correctly, as they were running great until this started happening.

I even tried things like setting the EPA's on the radio short during
ESC setup, then bringing them back up after, but no luck,
and rebinding the rx didnt help.

Another odd thing I tried to see what would happen is,
I would hold the trigger in position after it stalled,
then dropped the EPA point down. when it got to about 35%
the motor would start to turn again, all be it at 35% power.
Messing with the EXP didnt do much either for that matter,
but I was trying any silly thing I could think of.

Im worried its just a matter of time before the newest one
starts acting up too.

I didnt get them wet or over heat them either,
so I dont know what the heck is going on.

Any of you electronics GURUS have any ideas?

Like I said, they were running great, then out of the blue
started doing this....

[exile182]

Hey, im not too tech savy, the things i would suggest you have done like the simple EPA setup on the esc. But have you thought of maybe any issue now with the radio? I also fly RC planes and my JR maxx 66 did something similar on throttle, i to have a new throttle sensor switch put in. Just a thought.

[Rok Krawl]

only thing I can think of at this point in time is that this happened to me once but all different equipment. I could ease into throttle like your doing and it would be fine. But goose it from dead stop, it would roll a few feet and thats it. My problem turned out to be the battery. Couldn't handle the amps getting pulled from it all at once. I built a few packs and never had another problem. I am not familiar with new radio systems. I still use FM technology.

So when you goose throttle and you loose motor power... while you hold trigger do you have power going to your servos if you turned the wheel on transmitter? Have you tried unpluging servos and just running the ESC and Motor? Same results? You have deans connectors? bullets? or the tamiya (white plastic) connectors on your rig? Tamiya connectors are the worst. You could be getting to much resistance accross it and causing your system to shut down when you gun it. Just trying to think of all the things I have seen when I worked at my LHS.

I used a novak dually with 7 cell pack and 10T motor.
So I don't know if battery issue would be your same problem or not as it was with mine.

[cogfounder]

Originally Posted by exile182

Hey, im not too tech savy, the things i would suggest you have done like the simple EPA setup on the esc. But have you thought of maybe any issue now with the radio? I also fly RC planes and my JR maxx 66 did something similar on throttle, i to have a new throttle sensor switch put in. Just a thought.

I switched out the radio with a few of my other ones and it acted the same way, which leads me to believe its the ESC thats having the problem.

[cogfounder]

Originally Posted by Rok Krawl

only thing I can think of at this point in time is that this happened to me once but all different equipment. I could ease into throttle like your doing and it would be fine. But goose it from dead stop, it would roll a few feet and thats it. My problem turned out to be the battery. Couldn't handle the amps getting pulled from it all at once. I built a few packs and never had another problem. I am not familiar with new radio systems. I still use FM technology.

So when you goose throttle and you loose motor power... while you hold trigger do you have power going to your servos if you turned the wheel on transmitter? Have you tried unpluging servos and just running the ESC and Motor? Same results? You have deans connectors? bullets? or the tamiya (white plastic) connectors on your rig? Tamiya connectors are the worst. You could be getting to much resistance accross it and causing your system to shut down when you gun it. Just trying to think of all the things I have seen when I worked at my LHS.

I used a novak dually with 7 cell pack and 10T motor.
So I don't know if battery issue would be your same problem or not as it was with mine.

My batts are brand spanking new Duratrax Onyx 7.2v 5000mah "True Rated" type.

The steering servo works fine while the ESC/motor is stalled out,
and I just unplugged it to try that too, same ESC/motor stall issue.

I am running Tamiya connectors, but I dont think thats the issue
causing this particular problem because it was running fine before,
and these are new batts and connectors. Even my sloppy, loose ones
on my old batts didnt have this happening to the two rigs/ESC's
that are affected now.

[Rok Krawl]

if you think maybe its BEC in ESC you can bypass this system for a test. Unplug the red wire that runs from your ESC to receiver. Leave black and white hooked up. Then hook up a 4.8 or 6v battery to your receiver. Battery will run your servos, receiver, and signal going to your ESC and bypassing the BEC circuit. Just a thought you would wanna try.

[cogfounder]

Originally Posted by Rok Krawl

if you think maybe its BEC in ESC you can bypass this system for a test. Unplug the red wire that runs from your ESC to receiver. Leave black and white hooked up. Then hook up a 4.8 or 6v battery to your receiver. Battery will run your servos, receiver, and signal going to your ESC and bypassing the BEC circuit. Just a thought you would wanna try.

I honestly dont think its the internal BEC. The HS645MG servo isnt a huge draw, and it happens with the servo disconnected anyway. I tried that right after you suggested it.

I probably shouldnt be calling it motor stall because that would possibly indicate a BEC issue.

I get the impression its a problem with the setup limits and the ESC
not logging it correctly and keeping it in memory the way it just all of a sudden happened to one, and then a few days later it happened to another.

All the rigs I am talking about are set up pretty much with the same running gear, just have different scaler bodies on them.
So its not like one has a killer motor in it or another has a 600 ozin
servo.

[JohnRobHolmes]

did you turn off the lipo cutoff? Sounds like a battery issue to me as well. Or at least a voltage issue.

[cogfounder]

Originally Posted by JohnRobHolmes

did you turn off the lipo cutoff? Sounds like a battery issue to me as well. Or at least a voltage issue.

Oh yes, first thing I did in January when I bought the first one was get the Castle Field Link just to turn off the lipo cutoff.

I liked the way they performed so much I got the two others,
but then just like that, this issue crept up on the two seperate rigs
that as I mentioned, are very similar and were working great.

[cogfounder]

Ok, just to show im listening, and paying attention, and taking notes....
I took a 7 cell batt and plugged it in.

And wadda ya know, seemed to work fine again.???

Then I took a small screw driver and closed up the female pins on the ESC connector, took the new battery I was using, plugged it in, and guess what?

It seems thats working fine again too.......

Now it has me remembering how tight the connectors on the new batts were, and thinking I may have bent out the pins struggling to disconnect them.

I am going to go give it a shot on the other rig, and if that does the trick,
I think you guys might have hit the nail on the head and solved my problem.

I know these connectors are crap and I do plan on getting better ones,
but I truly didnt think the issue would be that simple.
Its just not how my luck runs, ya know?

[cogfounder]

OK, it really looks like that was the problem.

The connectors on the Onyx batteries were the tightest Tamiya style I
ever remember messing with, and I had to twist and pull on them
like crazy to get them apart.

It looks like doing that spread the female pins out enough
that I was getting a seriously bad contact.

Im a little embarrased about not catching on,
but Im so happy thats all it was Im sure to get over it quick.

I really love these ESC's and my Axial rigs.
Hell, I got six of them after all!

And if you knew my luck,
you would understand why I figured it was going to be
a worst case senario.

Thank You folks, I cant even tell you how happy I am right now.

Looks like I will be placeing an order for some better conns this afternoon.

[MG200]

Glad you got it figured out.

[JohnRobHolmes]

Deans all the way baby!

[TexasSP]

Originally Posted by JohnRobHolmes

Deans all the way baby!

Anything but Tamiya plugs!!!!

Dean's, Traxxas Plugs, Power Poles, all beat the crap out of Tamiya plugs.

[Rok Krawl]

Heck reminds me when I rebuilt small lawn equipment engines. After trying everything you wouldnt think it was all because of a spark plug. Cheapest little part kept it all from running smooth.

But yep, get you a bunch of deans 2-pin connectors. That is all that I use.

[cogfounder]

Sad little update....

I replaced the connectors with Traxxas high current ones.
Not the best, but certainly better than the Tamiya I had been useing,
and the problem is still there.

So to recap, I have....

>rebound and reset the RX/ESC/EPA's countless times
>replaced the connectors
>switched out radios
>switched out motors
>spread out all the electronics on the bench to see if it was interferance
>put in a CC BEC (which caused the steering to glitch when the motor cut out at full forward and reverse when I goosed the throttle like in the video
so I took it back out)

None of these things helped, so the only thing left to try was a different ESC. I dug through my parts bins and found a Futaba MC230CR and when I hooked it up, IT WORKED FINE!

First I hooked it up without changing the radio, or resetting the new esc, then I did the esc startup process, and it worked both ways just fine.

So I have to tell you, It really does look like the two AE-2 ESC's went bad,
in the same way, and both running within the spec limits.

I did turn off the lipo cutoff using the CC Field Link from the start,
and to further confuse things, the esc seems to work fine on an 8.4v nimh
battery pack, and I have used several different packs, both 7.2 and 8.4, to see if there might have been an issue there, but it seems thats not the problem either.

I have not done any long runs using the 8.4 battery yet to see if things go bad after the voltage drops, but thats my next move.

This is driving me nuts, so if anyone has any more ideas, or things for me to try, PLEASE jump in and let me know!

[Jus]

You aren't the only one my friend.. I recently ordered one of these from RPP and installed it in my wifes scx-10 running 6 cell nimh with 27t axial motor and the same thing is happening I use traxxas connectors on everything btw... I had a hunch the batteries are getting weak even when charged and causing the esc to try and pull a lot of amps and then just fall on it's face so I plugged in a fresh 3s lipo and tried it, instant throttle and lots of power... Haven't run it since, but something to add to our diagnosis...

[cogfounder]

Originally Posted by Jus

You aren't the only one my friend.. I recently ordered one of these from RPP and installed it in my wifes scx-10 running 6 cell nimh with 27t axial motor and the same thing is happening I use traxxas connectors on everything btw... I had a hunch the batteries are getting weak even when charged and causing the esc to try and pull a lot of amps and then just fall on it's face so I plugged in a fresh 3s lipo and tried it, instant throttle and lots of power... Haven't run it since, but something to add to our diagnosis...

WOW, Jus


Thank You for posting up that information!
I find it particularly curious that we both got these from RPP...............


I am going to email them a link to this thread to alert them
to the fact there may be problems with a product they are selling.

It might be a good idea if you wrote them too.

RPP is a great company, and I am sure they would like to know about this.

It could be that they got a bad run of these ESC's in their kits,
but since I bought my first one back in January,
(then one in March, and another in May)
and these are said to be virgin take-outs from new kits,
and I have seen them go out-of-stock on new kits
AND these ESC's in their salvage yard in that time......

Well lets just say it adds to the mystery of the issue at hand....

[Jus]

Have you tried it with a 2s lipo with a good C rating? I don't have any to try.

Corey is great and all but as I understand it we pretty much bought these *as is* so lets hope it can be solved without major problems.

[cogfounder]

Originally Posted by Jus

Have you tried it with a 2s lipo with a good C rating? I don't have any to try.

Corey is great and all but as I understand it we pretty much bought these *as is* so lets hope it can be solved without major problems.

Jus,

I have not made the switch to lipo yet, as I have been incorporating the weight of the nimh batteries to my advantage in my
scaler and crawler builds.

But I can tell you this, the 8.4v batteries I used for testing today
worked OK on the bench, but once the ESC got some "real world" loads on it, it failed just like we have described previously with the stated 6 cell/2s lipo/19t motor specs and limitations.



I understand that RPP said that these ESC's were a non-returnable
purchase, but I am certain RPP would like to know about it,
and would do something to help its customers find a reasonable resolution. Its just in everyones best interest to do so.

If RPP, as a merchant, talks to Axial about this issue it surely will carry more weight than a few end-users emailing them about odd problems.
It might also help them both trace the issue, and figure out
what is going on.

Dont get me wrong, I am very happy to have found RPP through the RCC boards, and once this dang Wraith shows up in stock somewhere,
it will be my sixth Axial purchased new-in-box.

So no hater attitude from me either way.....

But this issue needs attention, and nothing will happen if we dont let them know about it.