new set up with battery smoke

[Hayden]

how hot? if they smoked as you stated then you’ve certainly drawn massive amount of current so there’s probably a direct short there somewhere
Especially after 2 seconds I can nearly bet a direct short.

1: Check for continuity across + and - on the battery terminals and the esc there should not be linked.
2: check to see if the polarity is correct.
3: are you running the batteries in series or parallel?
4: it doesn’t matter what connection or batteries your using it basically uses no energy just connecting the batteries and sitting there without running it.

I’ll have to see a diagram of the setup the connectors look ok.
I see a bank of caps what are they for? suppression?