Out of curiosity, put a multimeter across the battery and check it's voltage. I know it's a long shot......

That could very well be true, but I am not quite sure if this phenomenon is restricted to a particular vehicle or to a particular user.
Not to go too O/T here, but I have been troubleshooting a losi mini-t for awhile now.
Swapped out every component individually and it still does this weird thing(steering servo doesn't return to center and instead, continues another MM or 2). I mean, I went to an HTU, they had another working mini-T and we swapped every single component out individually and whenever I touch the controller, the mini-T develops this steering fault.
I dunno if it's some kinda sign, but I'm so getting rid of that thing.

Very sorry to read about your third one dying on you and especially considering the conditions under which it happened.
I would see if you could at least ship castle your electronics if they'd be willing to troubleshoot it for you.

I am not certain about this, but if the screws were touching the coils, I don't think it would necessarily be detectable by feeling an actual bind because the coils are stationary relative to the housing...it is the rotor that spins and that is usually inside of the diameter of the mounting hole pattern.

Hey man, I am sorry to hear the pain in your voice, this sort of thing happens to me all too often (except no one overnights anything back to me:mdr:).

The only thing I can think of to check right now is, if you have a meter of course, is to check the resistance between a screw/casing and a bullet connector.

Obviously this is only useful if you haven't touched or removed the screws yet to inspect your motor. You want to see no contact between the screws and any motor phase. Either way the windings are setup they should be elec. continuous with each other but nothing else like screws or casing (and the screws would conduct to the casing anyway).

Thats probably not it but worth checking none the less.

That's the only think I can think of as well. If the motor screws are shorting to the windings it could cause this sort of issue.

At this point you need to take all the electronics out and overnight it to Castle. I'd send in the motor, servo, and ESC. If it is a bad motor, they now distribute Neu motors, and can handle the repairs. It could very well be the servo having some sort of internal short too. I'd almost bet Castle will want to see all your hardware anyway since this is #3.

I'd send the motor off to castle at the bare minimum to have them check it. If you have a reasonably accurate voltmeter, you can check the resistances of the coils of the motor, they should all be equal. A better way to check the motor (if you have access to a lab-grade power supply) is to hook up each coil set to the power supply and run 8A through it, the voltage should all match within 10% or so, if not, you've got a problem. I'd say tho the motor would be the logical thing to look at next.

It sounds far-fetched but true. I once worked for a company repairing Lottery machines. Out of a base of around 2500 units, there were two or three that were plagued by this type of thing. No sooner would they be repaired and sent out into the field and they would come back. On slow days, one of us techs would sigh and go get one of these "machines of death" to work on. Usually it turned out to be something totally off the wall, and sometimes the problem didn't appear to have anything to do with the symptoms.

Yep time to let go of the grip and send it in to get looked at. I realize it is more down time for you but at this point it is the best option. Something is shorting somewhere and castle can find it weather they fry another MMM doing it or not at least you wont have to fry another and you will get a working setup back.

Revenge of the nitro conversion; the Muggy is resentfull at being stripped of its nitro-hood, so will kill any esc that is mounted onto its chassis....

Where exactly in NJ are you? There are tons of guys in the area and maybe someone can help/look in person.

Lutach is in NJ, I am sure he would be glad to help.

you havent shortened the motor wires at all have you ?

this is a naughty thing , just thought id rule out that theory too

Stay away from any open areas during lightning storms is my suggestion. I hate to say but its possible you got a 3rd bad controller. That means the rest of ours should work. Seriously though, sorry to hear about your loss. Troubleshooting sucks sometimes. I hope you can figure out what it is. If you get a new controller, I would try with a different radio just to be safe.

I would send in the motor for them to check... Otherwise you might be at no 4.

the servo and other stuff is easy to check...

I run mine with a Futaba 3PM 2.4GHz in HRS mode. I tried it in PPM mode to and no problems whatsoever.