This is not Good
 

Well, I'm trying to install the MMM on my revo today. But before doing so, I installed some heat shrinks on the bullet connectors just to be safe. Everything went fine except when I got to the positive power wire. I can't slide the heat shrink on. It seems that the bullet is either too close or already touching the heat sink. The male connector was also hard to insert because it was rubbing against the case.

Here are some pics:

Motor to ESC bullet:
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/h...Picture061.jpg

Positive power wire bullet:
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/h...Picture060.jpg

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/h...Picture063.jpg

No problem putting a heat shrink on the neagtive terminal:
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/h...Picture062.jpg

I did not open the case to fix the problem. It seems that the bullet was not vertical when it was soldered to the board. I know that it will rub due to vibration and impact later on but we'll see how long it will last. The only modification I did was to lengthen the wire for the switch.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/h...Picture058.jpg

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/h...Picture065.jpg

No offence or anything, but is there anyone here (except myself) who believes Patrick when he said they tried shorting the connectors on the heatsink and it didn't harm anything???

If the "issue" has been brought to castle's attention, and they claim they have considered it and torture tested this units, with this particular possible point of failure in mind, and it survived with no harm, why question them?

That said, I have 3 V2's box stock that haven't missed a beat, so maybe I have undue faith (I seem to be having better luck than anyone else out there)...but I don't reckon you should worry about it :wink: :smile:

I am not questioning them. I'm just saying that the bullet was not true vertically when it was soldered to the board. The negative terminal is fine and has about 2mm of clearance. Since it is leaning towards the case, it is being push away from the case when I inserted the male connector. This could mean undue stress on the board to bullet connection.

Now this is questioning. Aren't you an engineer? If you are, then you should know what happens when there is stress being added into a connection or joint, be it mechanical or electrical :diablo:::diablo:.

Ahh I see what you're saying. Point taken :smile:

Everything is subject to some amount of loading (the proper term here, since we don't know the exact nature of this loading). Its not until that load is too large for the parts to react that your devils will come out.

That is exactly how I feel about the tight connections as well. Went through the exact same song and dance minus putting the shrink tubing on the connectors. Not too keen on the idea of mechanical stress on a solder joint, myself.

I almost feel like I'm being whiney or something after all the flak castle's taken for the failed units and I should just shut up and be happy it works.

At any rate, I will remain unhappy about that little detail and only hope that if it is going to result in a failure that it happens within the warrenty period.
Once the warranty is up, I'm crackin the case and "fixing" anything I think needs fixing.

I am sure that as far as castle is concerned, there's nothing wrong with these points.

I too did the heat shrink thing today, but only to the battery terminals. I shrunk the bits halfway so that they slid all they way down the connector, because if you take a good look you'll see they're recessed quite a bit inside, and the space around it is extremely tight.

Well castle have dropped the ball on the mamba monster, in all honesty. Considering how well engineered the mamba max is, it's no surprise people were/are expecting the same level of quality with the monster. You can almost say they brought it on themselves, considering how long ago this was announced to the public, and the anticipation involved. I myself received one of the few V2s with the 1.18 FW but thankfully nothing has gone wrong yet, even after the 1.20 upgrade.

George16 - You lengthened the wires on the switch? why? Your best bet would have been to cut the switch off, twist the wires together and solder them! I used the switch at first, then it cost me a chance at being a contender at the RC-M Bash! The switch was turned off twice in the main, I had to run out on the track flip it on and run back to the drivers stand.

If you have a V2 Monster I'd really suggest that you DON'T lengthen the wires on the switch. This may cause some serious damage to the BEC chip.

Have you just checked to see if indeed there is a short between the barrel and the heatsink? Very easy to do with a voltmeter, a battery, basic stuff that you should have laying around. Much easier to check than to speculate on a forum like this....

Lee

Lee,
I have a V3. I lengthened the switch wire so I can install the switch inside my rx box. Since you mentioned V2, is it okay to lengthen the switch wire on the V3?

And for the second time, I'm not worried about a short :diablo::diablo:. I'm going to say again that my concern is the fact that when the male connector is inserted into the ESC connector, it is pushing the connector away from the heat sink which puts undue load to the soldered point. Do you understand that? As you can see, there is no gap between the positive connector and heat sink while the negative connecto has about 2mm. I also checked the 2nd V3 I received and it was soldered better. There is at least a 2mm gap between the positive/negative terminals and heat sink.

By the way, I'm not speculating anything. If you can't help any, then I think it would be better if you just do your work at Castle to make the MMM better :whip::whip::diablo::diablo:.

You can read this thread so you can give your input too:
http://www.rc-monster.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16497

Tell us how you really feel George..

As far as removing the switch....iv'e been thinking of removing mine but not sure of any consequeces....is there any reasons why i shouldn't remove the switch ??...thanks guys for the help

I haven't removed mine. I've kept the power switches on both my MMM and MM. I don't want to bother with taking the lid off and unplugging the battery each time I want to take a 10 minute break from playing with my cars.

Whoa, Lito buddy.. it's not that serious! I have the same issue with my MMM and just leave the positive lead as it is. I agree that the female bullets soldered onto the circuit board leave a little to be desired, hopefully Castle will insure that this isn't a problem for future production runs. On another note, I wonder why adding resistance on the switch (extended wires) causes damage to the BEC on V2 MMMs.. Interesting..

Just turning the switch off doesn't cut all power. There is still a slight parasitic draw with the switch off, all the switch kills is the BEC. Leaving your batteries plugged in isn't a good idea, especially with Lipos. If you happen to forget to unplug them you can kiss them good bye! Depending on your setup, usually you can reach under the body enough to unplug the battery. On my E-Revo I can unplug and plug the battery in with the body on, if I had to I can swap a battery with the body on. My mini late-model that I race on carpet has been getting battery swaps with the body on too.