Michael Barch

Well I raced in the A Main, everything was fine all night. I took 2nd in the main and went to my pit, put my car down, went to marshall for the next race. I marshall, come back to my pit, smell something, smell around, seems its coming from somewhere in my pit. Not my chargers or anything, then I see it.

Some smoke was coming from my car, near the battery/motor area (XRAY T2). It was not alot of smoke, just a little bit, but you could smell it bad and so I found sissors very fast and cut my ESC wires off the battery and undid my strap, got the pack out of the car ASAP. Put the pack on the fan to let it cool. It was very hot.

The thing is, I cannot find one mark on the cells (3300's) or anywhere on my chassis where they would short out. My cells are shrink wraped and I been running good all night, although this is the first time I used this pack. These are not race batteries, there oversized ones, not sure what kind, but they were good cells. I just re-shrinked them too. There were two small "scraps or spark" marks, very small on the end edge of one cell, it may have shorted out with some spot in the battery slot area.

Now I think it may have been my motor that fried out, but it is a BRAND new (just bought yesterday and ran only a handful of times) Team Orion V2 19T Mod. I was running a 25 Pinon w/ 84-48 Spur. It seemed great all night, and the temp was like 122. People say for a 19T my car was SLOW on the stright away, well, fast, but slow for the motor it is. So I take it the gearing is more than fine for it, even under-geared. My ratio is 5.75 right now and people on this forum told me to be under 6 with my motor.

So I think it might be my battery slots. I don't think I sanded/filed them down enough. I just don't know how much to file them down without going too far.

Anyways, any ideas what may have sparked this? You think I ruined my motor, pack, and possibly melted the chassis (even though it don't look like it)? It looks fine, Im throwing that pack out though, I did't like it anyways and I don't know why I even ran it for the Main. Anymore ideas on the gearing for this motor, anyone want to share some helpful infomation to me to prevent anything like this from happening agian?

This is my first car where I had to file the chassis down, glue it, etc...I used to have a FT TC4 which came pre-sanded down from factory. Anyway of telling if it was the pack that is shot without putting it on my car agian or charger and it starting on fire! ?

Thanks for any of the help you can give me.


On a positive note, my car is dialed

XingXing

one thing that always makes me shake my head is when people unhook their ESC corally wires to the batteries and let them dangle freely next to the battery.

if the wires touch the battery terminals, then you are more than likely going to short it. all it takes is a quick short, you may not even notice it, but your esc will start to play up.

never leave the battery pack in the car if not being used.

99% of esc damage is caused by misuse of some sorts.

Michael Barch

No, they were not dangling freely. I never do that. I un-solder the wires off the battery and take the battery out after that. Then I would let my ESC wires hang there when theres no battery in the car though. I always have them connected to the pack when a pack is in the car.

Superkarter

iTrader: (2)

These motors need to be geared silly tall. People with Chamelons run around 32mm of rollout theses motors need 39mm to go quick on our track. These motors make goob fulls of torque

429racer

iTrader: (19)

A friend of mine ran into a problem similar to this and what we found was the negative side of the battery was touching the chassis and the positive motor brush was touching the chassis and shorting it out. Just go through make sure no wires or brushes are touching the chassis to conduct. If you run a capacitor on the motor check to make sure the wires are not touching the side of can or other wires.

R.Ellis

also maybe check your drive train, maybe something is binding causing excessive strain on your motor and batteries(trying to work to hard due to excessive binding,) and if you motor was toasted, it will permanently have a smell!

but thats where i would start then go from there!

Michael Barch

I took off my Bulkheads and down to the basic chassis, I think I found where it sparked it. In-between the battery slot and motor area there was a black/melting dot. That is where the smoke was coming from, and that is where the "spark" on the cell is. So that is the cause. Right now Im going through and sanding the chassis down, then clear nail polishing it.

RcCzarOfOld

Just CA the edges of your battery slots. Graphite is a conductor and you had a couple cells shorted to the chassis. There's a great deal of resistance in the graphite so it wasn't a dead short, but it was a short none the less. If you CA the edges of the battery slots where they touch the batteries, it will act as an insulator and prevent it from happening again. Also, it will help to prevent stress cracks on the edges of the chassis.

Tony

Michael Barch

Yeah, I used Clear Nail polish on all my edges, the CA glue leaves a white residue. I know a few people that use the nail polish as a protection too. Plus it gives it a nice glossy finish.

The only problem now is that my ESC is all messed up and I cannot seem to get it programed... (Novak GTS). My wheels turn a little bit, by themselfs and just keep doing it, when I hit the button on my ESC sometimes it will blink and I try to program it, then sometimes it will shut itself off...

Think something may caused it to shut out or something? Gas does nothing, every once and awhile the wheels will go for a split second.

-Mike

Revs

Have you checked the trims on your tranny,the throttle trim might be a touch high.