Bad News Comes in Trees

[bdebde]

So, not dissin Castle here, just thought I would share my bad luck story..

Two weeks ago at the races, after I had just left the pit area in the second qualifier, I get about half a lap and the MMM In my 1/8th buggy starts stuttering and lets out the magic smoke. I figure I can get back out for the main if I steal the MMM from the truggy (not racing it that day). I get it out, and it sounds like gravel rattling around in it. Open it up, and the TVS (? big square coponent on bottom of board) is busted up. I may have done this myself... usually, I am verry careful to not pry on the bottom when removing these, but being in a hurry between rounds may have caused me to forget my normal caution. So, that is number 2, and I did not race the main that day, in the 1/8th buggy class anyway.
So, the day before this weekends race, I decided to go back to the old standby: MM w/bec. This meant a complete connector swap on the old MM and a trip to LHS to get cc bec. I got everything in and hooked up, checked rotation (had to swap 2 wires). Took it outside and ran for a minute or two to see if all was good... yep, all good. When I picked it up, i revved the motor a couple times to throw some of the dirt off the tires. I had the body off, and noticed about the second rev that there were sparks coming out of the MM. There was number three down and I was just going to give up racing 1/8th scale the next day (still running 4wd SC though). Bummer though, as it would probably knock me out of a trophy spot for the points series.
Get to the races (last outdoor race for the season), and they decided to start a bit later than usual so we can run under the lights. I had one worthy esc left, a MMP (and now enough time to swap it and a motor). I installed it, leaving the bec in, and all was well. Quite well in fact, I only finished 5th (got 3rd in points series), but had several other racers come and say how my buggy was looking better than ever, or wondering if I had a different car now. The motor swap or the MMP could have been it... the car just felt great! Perhaps the MMP (being newer than the 2+ year old MMM) was just that much smoother, or switching from the Castle 1512 1800kv to Teckno Neu 1512 1700kv did it. Only reason I swapped the motor is because the connectors matched the MMP, so less connector soldering at the track (left soldering vise at home, oops). Looks like I may keep that set up in there a while... plus I have 3 ESCs to send to Castle.
Looks like I will end up paying for all of them, I have too much hard use out of them (beyond warranty period). The newest MMM from the truggy was about 1.25 years old, the buggy one well over 2 years. I think the old MM was at least 4 years old and saw more than it's share of high voltage (4s in 1/8th scale), and high current (2s in 4wd SC) use. Look forward to getting them all back for more years of abuse, I mean use.