Help! I have destroyed one, maybe two ESCs.

[FE Wannabe]

I have smoked a Turnigy 80amp Brushless ESC and now I think I just damaged my other Hex 120amp ESC testing on the bench.
They were both attached to the same Feigao 10L motor when the problems happened. Is there anyway to determine if the motor is bad and damaging the ESCs?
I had first thought that the Turnigy was damaged because it had gotten wet. But it smoked when I was testing it on the bench. It would run the motor for a few seconds at low rpm and then just stop.

One time I noticed if I held the throttle down it would start glitching again, but I held it down a little too long and !
So thinking that the Turnigy ESC was damaged by water first, I decided to connect my Hex 120 to it to see if it would work and IT DID . So the next day, I was in the process of mounting the Hex 120 to the boat with the Feigao 10L in it and I connected the ESC to the motor and the 3S lipo battery to the ESC and I noticed that the motor started glitching and the battery leads got very hot immediately.
So I disconnected it right away. I then just connected the battery to the ESC without a motor attached and no heat. I then connected to my other known good KB45 motor and it would glitch similarly and the battery leads got very hot again.
Neither ESC got noticably hot when testing, before the were damaged. The Hex 120 still is not getting hot, even now.

I would appreciated any help anyone can provide.
Thanks,
Brad

[ReddyWatts]

When water got in the esc, could it have gotten into the motor too?

[Eyekandyboats]

first off i see a couple reason. very cheap esc's.... also why are you running your brushless motor unloaded? that is also a good way to ruin a esc, and the cheapness of the esc you had would probably make it even more prone to smoking it as well.

[ReddyWatts]

I have found that some of the "cheap" esc's are more durable than the expensive ones.

[FE Wannabe]

Some small amount of water may have made it in to the motor. But there wasn't more than a couple tablespoons of water inside the hull and the "waterproofed" ESC was only splashed.

So you are telling me that you cannot run a brushless motor and ESC for 2 seconds unloaded without destroying them?
I know I am running cheap chinese, but I have been running that Hex 120 on 6S with a KB 8XL in a heavy mono without even getting it warm, I am shocked that a momentary half throttle bench test on a 10L would have smoked it.

[hebner]

Solder joints

Have you checked your solder joints, I had a similar problem with a Hacker 77 esc that I sent back for repair, the only thing wrong was a bad solder connection at one of the bullet connectors.
Hugh

[FE Wannabe]

Thanks Hugh,
I will check the bullet connectors on both the esc and motor to make sure they have good connections. Did your Hacker's battery leads get hot when you had this problem?

[hebner]

Esc

Not sure boat quit in middle of run and by time I retrieved boat everything was cold. I applied power to the motor to see what happened and motor only studdered like it was trying to spin but couldn't.
Hugh

[FE Wannabe]

Hugh,
Thanks for the info.
Brad

[FE Wannabe]

The Hex 120 is definatley bad. I just connected the battery and the ESC's battery leads got hot instantly, even without the motor attached.

Anyone have a way to test a brushless motor for damage?

[FE Wannabe]

Testing brushless motors

I found some interesting information regarding testing of brushless motors at the below website. Some of the tests are beyond my capabilities, but the tests listed appear to be fairly extensive. I will try some of them tonight and see if I can find any anomalies with my motor.

http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35216