Meltdown!!!

[Gottagobig1198]

I recently lost power in my Zonda 41 only to find pretty much my entire system with charred wires. Upon further investigation it looks like steering servo had the heaviest burnt wires and was very very stiff mechanically. Is it possible to melt down a receiver because of some problem with a steering servo? I mean I know anything is possible but we're talking Almost everything destroyed as far as electronics. 1 of the 2 spektrum ESC's just has an illumination on the power button, my receiver has taken a different shape with holes through the plastic and I'm afraid to check the other ESC and motors.
I will try to get pics up

Thanks for input

[fweasel]

Pictures might help. I suppose the servo could be the culprit, but charred wires usually indicates more current that what's associated with just the receiver voltage power, and likely has more to do with something like one of the ESC's back feeding too much power to the receiver, and subsequently into the servo.

[Gottagobig1198]

I can tell you that before I had taken to the water I did go to local hobby shop where I had purchased ESC?s and watched them disconnect the grey wire on the slave esc then I went home and finished build. I then went to lake and tried to run it but a very glitch steering servo made that run very short due to water entering the servo. I replaced it after getting home and tried everything again. Well then while bench testing the boat one of the caps on slave servo blew so I then went back to shop and they started looking and the same guy took it to the back then came back with a different wire being disconnected on that same esc and repaired the one he previously cut raising a red flag with me and when I asked WTF he said it?s no big deal I didn?t need it and just get some inline cap packs. I did order some but it took awhile to get here so back to the water I went and that?s when the melt down occurred within 10 minutes and not run hard at all.

[Gottagobig1198]

IMG_3499.jpgIMG_3455.jpgIMG_3498.jpg

[fweasel]

What ESC's are installed in the boat? If they have BEC's built-in, (battery elimination circuit) meaning they take battery power, convert it down to something like 6V, and power the receiver through the ESC's receiver wire, then you must disable one of the ESC's BEC in a twin setup like yours. When you have two ESC's connected to a single throttle channel on the receiver, you use a Y harness to connect the ESC receiver wires together. The red wire on one of the ESC's must be disconnected so that only 1 ESC powers the receiver. I usually clip a red wire on one side of the Y harness and leave the ESC receiver wires alone. I do it that way, so that I can plug the ESC's into the receiver throttle channel one at a time and setup them up individually, as if the boat had only 1 ESC. By setup, I mean setings like timing, low voltage cutoff, braking, etc...

I'm not sure what the hobby shop guy did originally, or the second time, but this was likely the intended purpose. It's hard to say what caused the problem without all the facts, but regardless, you're starting over with a new receiver, servo, and possibly an ESC.

[photohoward1]

Meltdown!!!

You can ruin a receiver and servo with too much voltage but if you use a y cable to connect the ESCs then shouldn?t they be in parralell? Looks and sounds like the were in series and that doubled the voltage. POOF. I would say the hobby shop guy is to blame.


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[jkflow]

Yes it's possible.
Most likely scenario, the servo was either overloaded and/or freezing up. That will draw high amount of current (up to short circuit) and from there it's just downhill.

Wires will burn up and traces on the receiver will vaporize. Of course there is no longer control on the ESC when it happens. If your ESC is the 'BEC' it will also be overloaded and that could cause problems.
2nd scenario, you had some wires shorting together maybe due to rubbing, same results.
Hard to tell after the fact but a short circuit will do exactly what you have experienced.

It was a common occurrence with Spektrum servos ~ 2 years ago, had one burn up mid run on a car going straight. Luckily it only caused damage to servo and harness. Several people reported similar problems, it was a bad batch in the car world.