Carisma MSA-1E battery question
 

Hi gang, I'm sure this is beneath all the owners of "serious" rock crawlers, but I've got a new issue that I'm stumped on. I have an MSA-1E 1/24 crawler that I've used probably 10 times. It's still pretty new. I have two 7.2v 130MaH batteries for it. I was trying to keep the batteries in good shape, so would make sure it was completely discharged before charging it back up. I would do this by leaving it on the truck and running the LEDs until it was dead.

Anyway, I charged a battery and went to drive it, and I'm not getting any forward power. It moves for just a second and then stops and bogs down, like it's out of juice. If I wait a few secs and squeeze the throttle again, it moves another few inches and stops. But the servo is fun and the LED light rack is on full blast.

I tried another battery (I have two) and it does the same thing. At this point I have a few options:

- I somehow messed up two batteries
- the charger (USB dongle that came with truck) doesn't work
- the motor is busted?

I haven't worked in RC cars since the 90s when I was a kid, and they've changed a lot. I wonder if you guys have some suggestions or could tell me what you'd do next.

Re: Carisma MSA-1E battery question
 

motor or ESC is damaged. try tapping on the motor to see if that helps. IF it does, new motor. If it stays random, probably ESC or a connection to the motor.

Re: Carisma MSA-1E battery question
 

My 1/24 Carisma did the exact same thing right out of the box and in my case it was the sloppy transmission. I expected it to be the pinion to spur mesh, but it happened again and I ended up taking the motor off and feeling some very slightly binding in the transmission without the undersized motor. I took it apart completely and didn't see anything obvious, reassembled made sure it spun freely, made sure the pinion to spur mesh was ok, and it's been fine since. I had a second one used that didn't have that problem. My only guess is there was enough slop in the transmission to cause something to bind and the undersized motor to stall out because they both stall against nearly any obstacles. IDK why they went smaller than the average 030 which is a bit too small, then added a heat sink to cool it down. Perhaps that may be your problem? Though I have heard of a few people burning out motors and ESCs. While you have it apart if your interested in actually crawling with it you may want to remove that huge 14t pinion and replace it with a 10t like they have on the updated version. Hopefully it's an easy fix

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Re: Carisma MSA-1E battery question
 

Thanks for the help, you guys were totally right. It was the motor. Got a new one and debugged the old one as I disassembled the car. Would not work even when it was removed from load. Have not had the gear lash problem JRHolmes mentioned, it worked great out of the box and works great now. Gearing seems to be nice and tight. Thank again!

Re: Carisma MSA-1E battery question
 

Does anyone know if it can handle 3s?

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