Speedo sadness

[Lone-Wolf]

No matter how well I try and keep the stench of newly burned esc's away from inside the house after an unlucky run at the lake, my wife always can sniff the carnage...she calls it the smell of burnt money...I call it "time to order more in a higher amp rating ASAP". To me what is more annoying than losing an esc is having to gut the boat and clean everything, in a way the hull is forever ruined, I hate it especially when it's a high dollar build. For me it feels like an addiction for sure but I am OK with it. Just today I mailed two MGM 25063's back to Czech for minor repairs (Cap replacement) and upgrades, my big fear was the downtime so I jumped on those Flier 400's we are talking about right now, I have no patience. To make matters worse I have a new order for a set of MGM 40063's...but that's another story. It's come to a point where I am embarrassed when someone asks "how much does something like that cost" and I usually tell them just the value of the esc and that shuts them up...but that's where you guys come in and "enable" my addiction and make me feel a while lot better, thank you Terry for the pic's! ;-)

[T.S.Davis]

Hahaha. Jay and Randy know. That pic of the hacker motor with a hacker dingle berry hanging from it cracks me up. I shouldn't laugh but I did.

This past summer I had a slew of 180's reach the end of their life span. They all went in a short span. I had a bit of a melt down at the pond. Guys were offering up their spare speedo. I was like "does it work? Then don't let me use it. It'll just burn up if I touch it". It wasn't pretty.

Tyler, that Schulze you've probably seen before. Belonged to Brian once upon a time. It's basically perfect unless you put it in the water.

Ray, are those the same speedo that were sold under the Himodel label? Those were tough little speedo. Set a world record with one of those. They would be in the pile too.

Sorry if this thread looked like whining. Didn't mean for it to read that way. That day I lost it I was whining. I'm a racer. I push and break crap. You have to reach a certain zen to not lose your mind.

I guess I just wanted some of you guys to realize that things go wrong. That speedo you broke doesn't have to mean the end of your boat career. Things break. Sometimes you break them. When they do you MUST asses why it happened. Then accept it if it was you.

It's those speedo that die and you haven't a clue why that are frustrating. These 300 lites are examples. I've not gotten anywhere their rating. Those Castle too. I had some Castle failures I still don't understand. Setups that worked on a Seaking 180 but killed a Castle 240? Um..........what?

[T.S.Davis]

Haha

I use to say "Smell that..........? That's the edge. Yep.....found it"

[RaceMechaniX]

Since we are sharing. This was one of the latest ones. Now how many of you can save you bent a solid copper core 40.160 from heat?

It is bad that I kind of like the smell of burnt electronics now? I need a support group!

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[srislash]

Since we are sharing. This was one of the latest ones. Now how many of you can save you bent a solid copper core 40.160 from heat?

It is bad that I kind of like the smell of burnt electronics now? I need a support group!

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We should have some sort of 'sealed in glass' museum, lol.

That's impressive Tyler

[ray schrauwen]

Yep, Hi model.

I burnt at least 4, still have 3 new ones unused.

My little heap
1-T120
1-SF 200 old style
1-T180
2-YGE 120 knock offs
1-SF240

I don't run as much as some of you.

[T.S.Davis]

Tyler..........me too. Love it. I want a cologne made of that. Not sure what to call that smell. Burnt phenolic?

I Ran an Alien 250 with 4400 kV on on 4s. That one didn't even burn The FETs left the board like chicklets at terminal velocity. They were all over the place inside the boat. It was glorious.

Back in the plastic hull days I had a Barracuda burn its' way clean through the deck. So burnt phenolic and melted plastic. Mmmmmmwaaa! Delicious. Spread that on toast.

[kfxguy]

I'll admit I've been lucky. I can count on one hand how many I've burnt. The first one was a Fightercat esc. It lasted about 15 seconds. I think it went like this: 32" Rivercat, 1515 2200kv castle, 6s and a three blade prop with a lot of pitch. It was smoketacular. Then I took out a seaking 180. Same Rivercat. 1900kv 1521, 8s attempt. It doesn't like 8s. That one just quit. No burn. It had LOTS of passes and abuse. Months worth. It was worth keeping and hanging on the wall. Then the next one I burnt was an MGM 25035. The lehners motor I was running took it out. The magnets shifted. Kv changed. (I don't remember all the details that happened to it, Tyler has it in his possession) and it exploded. Yes. Exploded. Like I had a m80 firecracker in it. The canopy almost came off, it flexed and let out the smoke and pressure. It was awesome and I didn't even get it on video. Then lastly I had a sf300 go out. No burn. No smoke. Just quit. I flipped the boat very hard at 100mph and it dead stopped in less that 2 feet (I have it on video and it was quite awesome to see it stop so fast). Nothing. Never worked again. Maybe the g force. I dunno. So yes I've been lucky. Might mainly be because I just make a straight line pass of two and bring it in. I do have some riggers, and a couple other boats that I "drive" but because I'm not racing anyone I don't keep it wide open for a whole race. That's got to be hard on stuff.

[ray schrauwen]

Back in the plastic hull days I had a Barracuda burn its' way clean through the deck. So burnt phenolic and melted plastic. Mmmmmmwaaa! Delicious. Spread that on toast.

The two YEP's weren't nice to my PTSS. Bubbled the new paint

[raptor347]

Since we are sharing. This was one of the latest ones. Now how many of you can save you bent a solid copper core 40.160 from heat?

It is bad that I kind of like the smell of burnt electronics now? I need a support group!

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Yes, but the hull survived!

Medical examiner's report: Severe migratory FET syndrome.

[raptor347]

You know what they say: "Friends help you move, real friends help you move burnt ESC's".

Sunday afternoon at a time trial, Tyler says it best "Tune for maximum smoke".

Since we're doing group therapy here, why limit this to cooked ESC's.

"Hello, my name is Brian and I race FE model boats."

I used to buy round cells by the case. There's the cell zapper that I built with enough capacitance to make a hospital defibrillator look like a kiddie toy. Cell matcher, hammer head soldering irons, etc. Ten runs was the total life span towards then end of round cells. 2006 was a 2 case season.

Remember when Deans connectors were considered overkill?

I've got SAW boats on the bottom of three lakes in as many states.

Burnt ESC's? Let's just say I can identify the country of origin by smell.

I had a Seaking 180 that emitted three different colors of smoke when it went up! Cool in a barbaric, viking funeral kind of way.

For the old timers here, that old Aveox sitting in the drawer, I probably wound the stator. There's still about 40Lb of magnet wire hiding in a cabinet in the shop.

Let's not even get into the number of props. Bent, cut too much, thrown blade, lost in the lake, you name it. Sort of like potato chips, "crunch all you want, we'll make more".

How about the shed full of obsolete hull molds?

It's an addiction and there is NO 12 step program. Pretty cool group of fellow addicts though.

[T.S.Davis]

Brian..........is.....a........junky. Sorry man. I feel yer pain.

Your molds made me think of my vacuum forming stint. Randy must have two tons of plugs kicking around from when plastic was king. My wife and daughter thought it was funny to label my home made machine the easy bake.

Those plugs are everywhere. These are just a handful.

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[Fluid]

So yes I've been lucky. Might mainly be because I just make a straight line pass of two and bring it in. I do have some riggers, and a couple other boats that I "drive" but because I'm not racing anyone I don't keep it wide open for a whole race. That's got to be hard on stuff.

Actually, WOT on the oval is probably much less stressful on an ESC that zip-zip running. Rpm are high most of the time meaning lower amp draw. Logged amp spikes on my oval boats are relatively low compared to my SAW setups, like 30-40% lower, and then just at the start. It is strong acceleration with a potent setup which really draws the amps, when rpm are lower and climbing. Once running the average draw isn't bad. Too, I tune my oval boats enough to win, not enough to put smoke on the water.

I am puzzled by so many Castle controllers dying on folks. In the past five years I've only burned up two, and those were taken out by the same defective Neu motor (brand new from Neu, shorted windings. Blew the ESCs 20 seconds into the very first mill lap!). But most (not all) I do modify, usually the 200-amp Lite versions with water cooling. Add at least 1000 mF of capacitance, sometimes 5000 mF for SAW controllers. Keep them dry. I used one ICE 200 Lite for three different SAW events in two different record holders, then for two seasons in my oval boats - and it is still running.

Maybe I'm just lucky. But as seen in my post above, I've burned up my share over the years. There were plenty more I didn't post, and others which burned up prior to having a digital camera. Cell phone cameras? New fangled stuff!


.

[RandyatBBY]

Yes I have a pile of molds and bucks, not sure what I am going to do with them. In the attempt to build a better boat I have a few more in the wings.
Brian thanks

[Steven Vaccaro]

Andy Kunz told me when I first started "amps kill". So maybe its not a coincidence that my esc failures have come from my n & p setups. My 6s setups run cool and fast without many issue.