Castle Creation Woes

[DesignerDan]

As of right now I don’t own a single castle product that hasn’t died on me. My phoenix hv 80 was sent in about a month ago due to strange problems. First off, they had my controller for over a week and didn’t even know it. I had to call and ask what was going on and they said they just found it and will start the repair. (No big deal, everyone makes mistakes) I just got a refurbished controller from them in the mail today. So after I solder connectors on it I plug it into castle link, change the timing and start up power, and put it in my boat. I plugged it in and heard the start up beeps and tested the motor. All is good. I walk to the pond plug it in and nothing. IT’S DEAD. No lights no beeps and it won’t connect to castle link. I’m furious right now. My boat has been sitting on the shelf for over a month now. I’ve invested hundreds of dollars in Castle’s “so called quality products” and they all seem like crap. I have china ESCs that are more reliable. Either way you look at it I’m stuck waiting even longer to get my boat running. We're looking at about two weeks if castle doesn't lose my esc again. You guys know how much it sucks not being able to run your boat. This is my only boat that I have and I just want to have some fun! I’m considering calling castle creations and telling them I’d rather not do business with them anymore and just buy a turnigy ESC. Please help me calm down.

[scoota]

I feel for you , i have not had a good run with them either , had a 120 that had the wires ass about from new , just smoked my 240 & i was only drawing 200 amps , well thats what the data logger recorded . i will not buy any more of there ESCs till they get there act together , i have read they are testing a new ESC , lets hope the new model is better !!!!! till then i will stick with swordfish & seaking ESCs

[Diesel6401]

As of right now I don’t own a single castle product that hasn’t died on me. My phoenix hv 80 was sent in about a month ago due to strange problems. First off, they had my controller for over a week and didn’t even know it. I had to call and ask what was going on and they said they just found it and will start the repair. (No big deal, everyone makes mistakes) I just got a refurbished controller from them in the mail today. So after I solder connectors on it I plug it into castle link, change the timing and start up power, and put it in my boat. I plugged it in and heard the start up beeps and tested the motor. All is good. I walk to the pond plug it in and nothing. IT’S DEAD. No lights no beeps and it won’t connect to castle link. I’m furious right now. My boat has been sitting on the shelf for over a month now. I’ve invested hundreds of dollars in Castle’s “so called quality products” and they all seem like crap. I have china ESCs that are more reliable. Either way you look at it I’m stuck waiting even longer to get my boat running. We're looking at about two weeks if castle doesn't lose my esc again. You guys know how much it sucks not being able to run your boat. This is my only boat that I have and I just want to have some fun! I’m considering calling castle creations and telling them I’d rather not do business with them anymore and just buy a turnigy ESC. Please help me calm down.

I have a brand new Turnigy(Seaking/Hobbywing) 80amp HV esc in the swap shop right now https://forums.offshoreelectrics.com/...ad.php?t=16515 I can get it shipped out to you really quick and your boat can be in the water faster, then you can sell your refurbed esc when you get it back and not have to deal with castle esc's.

[Jeepers]

I can say the same about the China escs, I bought 6 120 amp China esc back in April, 3 of them fried on 60 amp setups with 80 amp peaks, 1 died for no reason no smoke or nothing, the other died on plug in, and the last one.... well its sitting some were in box in my garage I refuse to run it, it may see life in a 1/10 offroad car.
I have a few Castle esc that are over 2 years old still running.

So far the swordfish seems ok I have 2 running in P Spec set ups but they have only ran a couple of times.

[andym]

I feel your pain there mate, try living on this side of the world- up to 3 months to get a esc back from Castle!! I have fried 240hv, 120LV but I must say my 3x 240 LV are great. They are all over two years old and get ABUSED regulary, have seen spikes over 300 on one of them. I love my 240lv controllers it is the rest I hate. Am seriously thinking of water cooling a 200 ICE but it looks like Castle are just about to release a Hydra version

[scoota]

I feel your pain there mate, try living on this side of the world- up to 3 months to get a esc back from Castle!! I have fried 240hv, 120LV but I must say my 3x 240 LV are great. They are all over two years old and get ABUSED regulary, have seen spikes over 300 on one of them. I love my 240lv controllers it is the rest I hate. Am seriously thinking of water cooling a 200 ICE but it looks like Castle are just about to release a Hydra version

Im stating think they send all the duds to Australia

[andym]

Hah, from what I am reading they seemed to of spread them far and wide !!!

[johnnyhpr06]

im hopeing the two 240's i just bought run well i just dumped thousands in my build a thousand just on the hpr,running 2xneu1527.5y ,2x 240 castle, and 2x 4cell lipo 2p titanium servo the whole bit heres the link to the build .so sorry for all the bad luck with castle , https://forums.offshoreelectrics.com/...121#post210121

[Gary]

I always have two or three 240hv hydras that i rotate as they crap out. This way during repair im not down.

[johnnyhpr06]

makes sense i'll see they work out burne dup a couple of the small esc ,on a couple of mamba motors unsure which ones they were 5700& my 7700 these motors were in rc cars ,hopeing for no problems with the big stuff ,with the price being what they are

[RIPFENCE]

i will buy castle motors all day long but the esc's are way over priced and overated too in my opinion..seakings and swordfishes although not bulletproof they have worked well for me..just gotta keep them dry and do not push them to their upper limits all the time..i will give castle another chance when the new boat esc's come out if the price is right..hopefully they will respond to the frustration of customers and put out a stellar esc..i feel the competition is good as far as producing better products is concerned..the escs that are reliable are going to sell..the swordfishes are going like crazy off of ose..hopefully they will be a reliable choice for all

[H2OCamel]

I have used Castle creation esc's in all of my airplanes with never a problem. I havn't tried any others since they stoped letting you change settings on their esc's through castle link with out being connected to them via internet. I like to change things in the field and don't have an internet conection with me when i'm flying.

[Hydromaniac]

All I run are Castle ESC's, I have had 2 go bad in over 4 years they were both replaced and back in my hands in less then 10 days. Every Turnigy I have tried has went up in smoke in less then 1 minute with 2 smoking on 1st plug in, still waiting on repaired or replaced units as they were brand new, been waiting nearly a year now. I think I'll stick with Castle.

[sjslhill]

WOW, are we having fun yet? ChaChing

[scoota]

Yep im having fun ! its good to see im not the only one having problems with castle escs . 5 bad reports - 2 good reports ... its ok for you guys in the US to get warranty , try living on the other side of the world , i have waited months to get a warranty claim back , it takes them weeks to respond to an email , i guess due to the back log of warranty claims !!!!!!

Dont get me wrong i LOVE the Castle / Neu motors so its not all bad ..But they need to do some thing about there PRICES of there ESCs way over priced !!!!

Some food for thought - i started this hobby 5 years ago & still to this day the ONLY ESC i have not killed is the BJ26 ESC & i run a Prather 225 & 230 props on that boat & give it hell !!!

Well i guess the guy that works in there warranty dept will never be out of a job, lol

[sjslhill]

Spec Hydro for NAMBA

Hull $235 + $10 for color
Hardware $95.00
Flex cable assembly $24.99
Motor mount $19.99
Motor to flex coupler $9.99
Steering linkage/water boot/various connectors/cooling hose $15.99
Recommended abc prop $21.99
Aquacraft power package $159.99
Hyperion G3 5000 2s packs ($76.95 x2) $153.90
Radio/Reciever/Servo ??

$746.85 + shipping from 3 different vendors.

[Raydee]

I have owned over 24 CC ESC's in the last couple years in all my RC toys and have had a total of three failures and all in boats. none in my cars, heli's or planes. Boats are just hard on ESC's.....all of them!

[johnnyhpr06]

Awsome thread

[scoota]

I have owned over 24 CC ESC's in the last couple years in all my RC toys and have had a total of three failures and all in boats. none in my cars, heli's or planes. Boats are just hard on ESC's.....all of them!

its the same in Australia the car & plane guys swear by them , but i can tell you there are more unhappy Hydra owners on this forum than happy ones , its taken castle this long to start testing a new Hydra line , fingers crossed its BETTER then the current Hydra ....

Enough about Hydras there are better things to do in life , like run my UL1 ,OH i cant cause my CC 240 exploded & made a nice mess of the inside of my boat last weekend & by the time i could get out to my boat the hatch was half melted cause its made of plastic as you all know.........

[DesignerDan]

Just a quick update: I called Castle about the problem and they had another ESC sent out to me that day. It was sent usps priority mail and in a box. In the box was a refurbished esc and a bubble mailer with paid postage to return the other one. I soldered the connectors on and tested it out and it’s working perfectly! I’m no longer mad a Castle, they went above and beyond to get me up and running again. Every company will have some mishap with their products but it’s what they do about it that counts. I highly doubt HK would be this helpful if one of their ESCs went bad. As of right now I’m sticking with Castle.

[Hydromaniac]

Just a quick update: I called Castle about the problem and they had another ESC sent out to me that day. It was sent usps priority mail and in a box. In the box was a refurbished esc and a bubble mailer with paid postage to return the other one. I soldered the connectors on and tested it out and it’s working perfectly! I’m no longer mad a Castle, they went above and beyond to get me up and running again. Every company will have some mishap with their products but it’s what they do about it that counts. I highly doubt HK would be this helpful if one of their ESCs went bad. As of right now I’m sticking with Castle.

Thats why I run Castle , lets see HK do the same

[tsenecal]

I own a total of 18 castle products

13 mamba 25s
2 mamba micro pros
1 thunderbird 18
1 thunderbird 54
1 hydra 120

the current hydra 120 replaced a hydra 120 that melted when the datalogger said it was pullng 70 amps. it took Castle 13 weeks to replace the part that i sent in under warranty.
the hydra 120 replaced a barracuda 85 that melted when i tried to suck 110 amps through it.

the current hydra is not using the internal BEC. it is using a CC BEC. since changing over to an external BEC i have had no more issues with the hydra.

all the other CC products (mambas and thunderbirds) have worked flawlessly. to the point of spending time submerged, and working fine after allowing them to dry out.

only one mamba 25 has died, and that was because it had 65 amps running through it for about 3 minutes before it cooked.

I think CC has issues with high amp designs not working as advertised, because they use linear BECs on devices that should have either no internal BEC, or a switching BEC.

[johnnyhpr06]

Thats why I run Castle , lets see HK do the same

i feel better already thanks

[RCKong]

I talked to the Castle Tech Dept. the end of last week, and I was told they are working with a "design similar to the Ice controller", but had a "couple things they where looking at" that will improve the marine controller line. He also told me they check every controller before it leaves,
( i find that hard to believe) and would personally check my 2nd replacement ESC. Both ESC's failed with fire, after arming and throttle was applied, just testing the setup on the bench. I now have T180's running the same setups flawlessly... I told him that too.

[Fluid]

Hopefully when "testing the setup on the bench" you only blipped the throttle and didn't run it at WOT......

Not everyone has had your luck with the Turnigy180 controllers - in fact there are a lot of complaints with that controller failing just like your Castles did. I'm not taking sides here, I am as frustrated as everyone else with the spotty reliability of so many ESCs.....

.

[Rumdog]

I've had Excellent luck with my Castles and my Turnigy/Seakings. Never fried an esc on plug-in. Never used an onboard bec either. Haven't ran a HV Castle controller.

[RCKong]

Nope, know better than that. No "wide open throttle" on the bench, actually it startled the crap out of me because i barely blipped the throttle, next I'm reaching into fire to unplug it.