an unlucky day
 

I had a very unlucky January 7th...I fried two of my Mamba Max Pros that were previously working perfectly. Here's some photos for those who are interested:

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/2681/castlerma04.jpg
completely normal looking...except that this ESC has suffered from reverse polarity. huge cloud of smoke and melted bullets. the ESC still 'works', but the startup beeping causes 60A+ surges with my 1717. Normally it's under 2A, so I think most of the mosfets are blown.

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/4171/frymmp14.jpg
lipo connectors melted the hard case, and the wire desoldered itself. The 4mm bullets themselves are scorched and deformed too. The heat in the wire was so intense that the heatshrink split off the Deans connector, as there was a nick in it from rubbing against something. This was all caused by five seconds of reverse polarity. It's not the best idea to do testing on a build at 2am :oh:

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/3050/castlerma01.jpg
the second MMP was killed later in the same day, around 10pm or so. This one was in an E-Revo, and was previously running perfectly fine...geared 18/54 with the two-speed kit, using a Novak HV 6.5 motor on 4s lipo. (I guess I should've known that something bad would happen, the MMP is not rated for 400A like the Novak HV Pro, har har.) We added an external BEC to see if it would stop the Spektrum receiver from rebooting. It appeared to work, that is, until something shorted and another huge cloud of smoke came out.

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/3270/castlerma02.jpg
seems like a copper bus exploded, and solder sprayed everywhere.

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/9528/castlerma03.jpg
Fortunately, the + lead desoldered itself and disconnected before it completely caught fire...

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/6475/castlerma06.jpg
I also noticed a change of the heatsinks. The one on the left was purchased on March 08 2010 and the one on the right was purchased on October 14 2009. The older heatsink had a glossy finish, while the newer heatsink is more matte, like the other Castle ESC's I have (Micro Pro, Monster).

http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/7380/castlerma05.jpg
internal comparison. left side is the newer one.

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/7474/castlerma07.jpg
I sent the two MMP's out today for out-of-warranty repair, along with a Phoenix ICE 100 I have that was affected by a service advisory. The customer service rep (Jenny Wendel) was very helpful in answering questions over the past couple of days. :yes:

Quite a depressing day...but fortunately the MMP ESC's were the only things damaged. I'm looking forward to getting them back, but until then one of my E-Revos and a 3.3 conversion are out of commission...

ouch, and yikes! glad you didn't get hurt!

thanks brainanator, I'm glad too. :yes:

I got a box back from Castle earlier this week...much much faster than their official 3 week waiting period, but...

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/3518/castlewut3.jpg
the box had two CC BEC Pro's instead. :oh: I emailed them about it, I hope to get some MMP's back soon. :love:

ps. thanks to the repair department for sending my connectors back! :mdr:

2 BECs instead of MMPs? lol. I guess they look similar...hook em up to a motor and see if it spins! :lol:

haha! brushed drag race.

but on a more serious note, I haven't heard back since Jan 26th. I got the autoreply for my query but no human answer. Is everything okay over there?

I sent my MMP in for out of warranty repair...they got it on feb 1st and I got an email saying that they would ship a new or refurbished one once they are in stock....hope this helps :) BC apparently they are out of stock at the moment......so I went ahead and bought the 2400kv combo!! :)

Who did you e-mail, repairs or tech support? I would highly recommend sending another e-mail if you haven't heard anything back by now.

Thomas Porfert
Tech Support
Castle Creations

thanks for the info! I just wanted to know what was going on, I suppose this is an explanation. (:

:oops: it appears I used the support email in my address book...

thanks for the reply Thomas!

[QUOTE=Shonen;397:oops: it appears I used the support email in my address book...

thanks for the reply Thomas![/QUOTE]

Strangely enough I actually saw the e-mail on the 26th and forwarded to the repair department. I'm not sure if it went through, but I did find the original e-mail. I went ahead and forwarded it again.

Thomas Porfert
Tech Support
Castle Creations

Thank you Thomas! Jenny got back to me this morning and Adam shipped out a package about an hour later. :yipi:

That's great news! Hopefully my replacement will be on it's way...

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/3935/damncastle1.jpg
well...how the hell did you guys manage that? almost exactly 47 hours from generating the confirmation number til I got it at my house. The CC BECs will be sent out on Tuesday.

I spent my Saturday night extremely happy. my E-Revo 3.3 is back up and running! Photos in my brushless thread when I take them :mdr:

Thank you Castle! :yipi: