Modena AL

So I'm at the race track today, and my prostock car was running great. I put it down in the pits and wait for the first heat. When lining up for the first heat, the car goes nuts and just full throttles. No one on my freq. or anything. I'm forced to go back to the pits and fix it. Eventually, after many tries, I get the speed control to reset itself, and I set the full throttle, brake and neutral. It's seems to be working normally, so I give it a bit of gas to make sure its working so I can go race.................then smoke starts pouring out of the damn thing! I have no idea what happened. It's been running fine for 10 months now, I had the diode and caps on the motor, cap on the ESC has never been touched, and I had the motor wired right and had the timing set right. The thing just went up in smoke. Anyone got any ideas?

BTW, can't I just send it back to Novak with $40 bucks and get a brand new one?

Today was a sad race day.

Im2lazy

Oh my.

I don't run much electric, but can safely say, if you want to keep that esc, send it in. If your electronics are smoking, its not going to be saved. If you did something to void the warranty and you send it in, their gonna give you a bill for a new esc. If it is still under warranty, then you should have no problems.

I have those kind of days too . Mine's usually end up with a pair of fried servos and a shredded reciever wire and a hefty repair bill, b/c nitro cars seem to go much faster with no control .

Im2lazy

Oh. yeah, I have no idea what might have happened whatsoever (I know I spelled that wrong)

rcdougie

iTrader: (4)

Yes, you can send it back to novak for repair/replacement. I know its around 30 or 40 bucks, but that is sure better than spending 140. That is the great thing about novak, great customer support.

patcollins

Sometimes electronics just do stuff like that expecially mineature high powered electronics like we use in our RC Cars.

007yoshi

My LRP V6 did the saaaaaaaame thing... BUT I was in the middle of racing and my car stopped and smoke filled the car well it was another one of those freaky things THEN I switched to novak

rcruv

I think the water or moisture somehow got inside the ESC.

MarkA

iTrader: (21)

They’ll actually give you a “remanufactured” one for your $40.

reflekt

the same thing happened to me with my Quantum pro reverse. My car went out of control, full throttled, and stopped, then flames/sparks/smoke came out of the car. i took the esc to associated, got it replaced free of charge for a brand new one. a guy came up to me from behind the counter, he looked and talked as if he owned associated (i think he does, not sure tho), and he asked me what motor i'm running, i said p94 11x2. he took a look at my motor and said he sees some solder on the endbell. he explained to me in full detail about the whole deal. but basically, dont allow any solder on ur endbell. he said that can cause a short and shoot something liek 50 amps into ur esc, making it "explode". so be careful with that, usually when ur soldering ur brushes on ur endbell. that can happen. anyway, peaches.

-reflekt

futureal

I have been having terrible luck with Novak stuff lately. In the past few months I've had two Cyclones and an XXL all just crap out for no reason, in different vehicles. I run pretty much nothing but Novak stuff in my cars and have been since the early nineties -- I have a box with some old Novak M5s, haha -- and never had a streak like that until this year.

Maybe if I send all my stuff in at once, they'll have pity on me and send me something better like a (T)C2. I just hate looking at this pile of fried stuff that I paid around $300 for!

Manticore

any kind of ESC will go into this problem when the battery short circuit. This happens when the graphite chassis shorts the pack.

ijnek

futureal:
try sending them in,mayb they tell u "sorry,we have no parts to service ur escs,but we will throw in a tc2 for ur continuous support!!!"...

hmmm,...
graphite chassis will conduct electric,i heard tat can use glass tape to cover up the area when the batt pack might come in contact with the chassis,...any1 has any ideas?...

dtm

Yes..I've seen a nice "RED HOT" glowing chassis before from the battery shorting on the chassis (not my car ). Biggest danger is from using Corally style banana plugs. The plugs can touch the graphite if it is too low. I prefer AE chassis protector tape on the graphite. It is thicker and sticks better!

Action-RC.com

I had a C2 that I ran in my FTT3. and one day the whole input harness went up in smoke. I made another one with some servo leads, and finished the day. It was weird though. Nothing left of it to see what happened.