Go home Turnigy!!!

[Boaterguy]

I'm not turning it down, I can't contact him at the moment so I will when I get home from toronto.

[tiqueman]

No worries. It will be here whenever your ready

[wparsons]

so, my second t120 decided to blow on me today, I was running 3S and drawing way under 120A, it just died. brought it in and changed the caps since they looked puffed.
plugged it in and got nothing, so I plugged in a batt to the RX and the magic smoke came out. I can't complain, the turnigy smoke smells relatively good, or maybe u'm just getting used to it...

Couple questions... How do you know you were pulling under 120a? What boat, motor, prop, etc is this in? What pack were you running, were the capable of supplying enough current for the motor?

When you plugged in the RX battery, did you pull the red wire from the ESC plug so you weren't feeding power back into the BEC side of the ESC?

These ESC's come highly reviewed and seem to take a lot of abuse, I find it very strange that you've blown two in such a short time period.

[Boaterguy]

Couple questions... How do you know you were pulling under 120a? What boat, motor, prop, etc is this in? What pack were you running, were the capable of supplying enough current for the motor?

When you plugged in the RX battery, did you pull the red wire from the ESC plug so you weren't feeding power back into the BEC side of the ESC?

These ESC's come highly reviewed and seem to take a lot of abuse, I find it very strange that you've blown two in such a short time period.

This I did not do, but there was no spark. when the battery was plugged in
I was running a turnigy 3S 4000mah 40C battery on a 3600KV supervee prop.
the battery radio and motor I know all were functioning properly.
the ESC did not heat up too much, that wasn't the problem.

[tiqueman]

Probably why your blowing escs. If run an rx pack, you have to dissable the bec by removing the red wire out of the plastic plug. Id say by feeding it two ways you blew them.

[Boaterguy]

I wasn't running an RX pack, that was just to test if a specific part of the ESC was broken, it was the first time it was run that way.

[wparsons]

You just said that it let out the magic smoke when you plugged in the RX pack... If you're running a receiver pack you have to pull the red wire out of the ESC plug to the receiver, it wouldn't spark if you left it in, but it would harm the ESC since you're feeding power the wrong way through the BEC circuit.

What happened before you plugged in the RX pack?

I'd say the 3600kv motor on 3s with a 40mm 3 blade prop is also a potential issue, that's a lot of RPM (45k unloaded) and a pretty big prop. If you pull enough current to blow it quickly it won't necessarily be warm or hot.

[Boaterguy]

It worked fine before, I ran the BEC on 3S with no RX pack, and one day it decided to die in the middle of the lake, the caps were puffed, they got replaced with bigger ones (35v 1000uf). even after that, there was not a spark when the batts got plugged in. so that's when I tried to put in an RX pack just to see what was going on, as soon as the smoke came the battery and ESC were unplugged from the RX

[wparsons]

Typically caps only die or puff if the packs aren't supply enough constant current, resulting in ripple currents and spikes. So either you were drawing more than 160a, or the batteries weren't happy supplying whatever the motor was drawing. I would bet you were pulling a lot more current than you thought with a 3600kv motor on 3s with the 40mm 3 blade prop.

Even if the ESC is dead, if the caps are soldered correctly it will still spark. The spark is from the caps charging up, not the ESC taking power.

[Boaterguy]

okay, well it didn't even with the new caps, they were soldered directly onto the battery wires and not the ports since I could not solder in that small area safely

[wparsons]

How were they soldered, correct polarity, in parallel or series?

[Boaterguy]

Parallel, proper polarity.

[TheShaughnessy]

I'd say the 3600kv motor on 3s with a 40mm 3 blade prop is also a potential issue, that's a lot of RPM (45k unloaded) and a pretty big prop. If you pull enough current to blow it quickly it won't necessarily be warm or hot.

i agree with that. less voltage to achieve more rpm is always gonna make the amps go up. I have 2 120s that see 100 amp peaks regularly and never come in warmer then 140 ish, generally much cooler then that. I think you might blame the motor and prop before the esc. Have you tried adding caps before the esc goes? I have added 2 extra to each of mine, no problems to date.

[Boaterguy]

It's okay, I'm done with turnigy, I'll try the SS series for a bit, but the hydro will share an ESC with my rigger for now.

[wparsons]

IMO, stay away from the SS series... They're a low budget lower quality ESC than the Turnigy line. If you're popping T120's, you'll blow the SS125a way faster.