Castle Creations Marine ESC's.....

[LiPo Power]

Can I please get your feedback on this subject please?
I love Castle Creations marine ESC’s.
Here on OSE forums you can find many times people are complaining about Castle ESS’s .
My question is why? What is the reason? Is it because we sometimes trying to get out of them way more juice than we should, overloading the manufacturer specifications?
I can see pictures of burn ESC boards and negative feedback on Castle ESC and so on...
Will someone point me please to the thread showing some kind of bench testing as proof Castle ESCs’ are not keeping up to the manufacturer specs please? Did anybody ever did for real testing proving they will fail?
I have full 100% confidence in Castle marine ESC’s and that is why I think it is not the ESC that is giving up. I think we are always trying to: Let’s see what will happened, it is only 3 volts more than it should be or whatever......
Please put your few words here and say what you think.
I have burned one Castle LV-120 once but it was pilot error.
Thanks in advance
Robert

[Rumdog]

my only complaint is the price. I've never burned one. I also never use the bec on ANY esc.

[Rumdog]

A lot of people run to max voltage specs, ie: 6s on a 240 lv. That is where i've heard of problems as well as I've heard of hv240's smoking on plug in.

[Eodman]

I have been using Castle ESC's almost exclusively and have 2 Etti's --- I have smoked 2 120's & 2 240's and am sure the 120 's were my fault! The 240's smoked on plug in but Castle stood behind all four ESC's and repaired/replaced all four!

Now I 'm still a novice but as long as their support is strong I'll use them! Joe Ford has been extremely helpful! And the things they do for our Troops and Veterans is just first rate!

I like the Etti 150's but only used them for a few months so far!

[LiPo Power]

So fare so good, please go on.....

[wakeboardfusion]

One thought i have is that i have also seen a lot of complaining about castle and etti. Maybe it is because people pay a higher price for them and expect more quality and for them not to blow. On the cheaper esc's maybe people dont complain because they think that they get what they pay for so if it blew just buy another and not waste the time complaining on the forums because its not a high dollar good. So in fact, maybe there is more complaints about the cheepo ones but people just dont express their thoughts.

[hide]

My HV120 smoked after 10 seconds on the water. However Castle replaced it for no charge and sent it back asap.

[LiPo Power]

My HV120 smoked after 10 seconds on the water. However Castle replaced it for no charge and sent it back asap.

Fair enough.... What was the situation? Did you do all the way it should be done?
Please tell us more....
Robert

[Jeepers]

I like Castle products they are reliable I had 1 Hydra 120 burn,but that was pushed hard for 3 years. Though the other day I had one just stop working no throttle no led doesn,t respond to castle link etc not sure what happend other then that no problems.

[BakedMopar]

The one problem I don't like about the Hydra is theres no auto calculate for cut-off rates. Unless I'm missing something I need to manually change when going from one cell count to another.

[T.S.Davis]

None of them are immune to failure. More often than not I can't identify the true cause of a crispy critter ESC.

I think it's the complaints are a cost thing. Makes people more vocal when they fail. I complained about a Schulze because of the initial cost coupled with a repair that resulted in me still not being able to use it. Is that indicative that the Schulze stuff is "bad"? No way. There are more success stories than failures. It's just that when everything goes just right nobody talks about that. The same is true for the others.

I personally love my Castles. I had one of the first 240's to be released. Ran it 2 seasons on 6s before I damaged it in a crash. I had to pay for a replacement that time. You hear people say you can't run the LV on 6s all the time but if your setup is sensible they work fine.

[tth]

A bad reputation gets around alot faster than a good one..........

[domwilson]

On some ESC's I've found is that the higher current ratings are for 4s. When running higher voltages, the current rating drops. Don't know if that applies to many. But it could be a safe guideline.

For instance...

http://lightflightrc.com/

This ESC is a great match for large motors that draw up to 200 amps.

170 amp Max 5S-6S
140 amp Max on 7S

Programmable features include:
- Brake on, off, soft, medium, hard
- LiPo cutoff 2S-7S
- Auto NiMh (0.8V per cell)
- Throttle setting: auto or 1.1ms to 1.8ms
- Soft or hard start
- Reversible
- Soft or hard cutoff
- Timing 1/7/15/30
- PWM 8KHz or 16KHz

[LiPo Power]

...ummmm, little off the topic I think....
What is your expierience with Castle Creations Marine ESC's?

On some ESC's I've found is that the higher current ratings are for 4s. When running higher voltages, the current rating drops. Don't know if that applies to many. But it could be a safe guideline.

For instance...

http://lightflightrc.com/

This ESC is a great match for large motors that draw up to 200 amps.

170 amp Max 5S-6S
140 amp Max on 7S

Programmable features include:
- Brake on, off, soft, medium, hard
- LiPo cutoff 2S-7S
- Auto NiMh (0.8V per cell)
- Throttle setting: auto or 1.1ms to 1.8ms
- Soft or hard start
- Reversible
- Soft or hard cutoff
- Timing 1/7/15/30
- PWM 8KHz or 16KHz

[Rumdog]

I'm sure that he means this could be leading to the failure of some castle esc's. Couldn't make the connection?