t-man

Has anyone had any problems with castle external becs? I have had 3 go bad recently... The first two just popped when I plugged in the battery and fried two rx8 speed controls and two receivers... The other failed and sent full 16.8 volts through the receiver frying two $150 servos the receiver, and another rx8 in the process.... Castle wont help any. Any suggestions as to why this might be happening would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

zjguy721

iTrader: (4)

Which BEC are you running?
What do you have it set for? If it's the 10A one, it comes set at 5.1V from the factory.

Maybe a pic of the wiring? Any possibility of it shorting out? Did you remove the power (red) wire from the wiring harness from the ESC going into the RX? Would help to see how you have it wired.

slasn_48

If it is wired properly it should not take out the esc.

jsinclair

iTrader: (3)

Do you have the red wire disconnected from the esc to the receiver.

t-man

One of the speed controls, still had the red wire attached... This is because the bec in the speed control went so bad that it would not even power itself. Though I went almost a year with it like that and it worked fine. My wiring is correct. All three times I have had the bec's fail, it was when I went to plug it in for a run, and it would pop real loud when I plug in the battery, then things start smoking. They were all the 10 amp becs. I cant believe that they would make a product that when it fails sends full voltage through it... I would rather it just smoke and lose connection. The time that I fried that servos, I thought the first one just died of natural causes cause it worked for a little while then slowed down then smoked... So I put another servo in and it went up in smoke right away. I guess I am going to go chinese for my becs in the future.

And for the record, after more research, apparently these are known as pieces of crap in the heli world. Many people have lost entire helicopters because of these 15 dollar pieces of crap. Just wish I had done more research before I bought them.

t-man

Just wanted to bump it up so everyone sees. Castle Creations external BECs are JUNK... If you are using one, take it out right now... It will fail, and you will fry other things, and castle wont do anything about it. Just trying to warn everyone.

wyd

iTrader: (51)

If you fried 3 that tells me what ever your doing is wrong and not the BEC's problem. The chances of having 3 bad units in a row from any company are about slim to none. I rigged up a lot of them at our shop and only had one problem caused by a bad servo but still didn't wipe out all the stuff you are. Its easy to call something junk when your having problems but something just don't add up.

Not sure what is wrong but it is highly unlikely that its the BEC. Something else is causing this to happen. Castle does make a external cap system you solder between the speedo and the plug to the battery that eliminates that initial crack when you plug your battery in for the first time. We have them at our shop.

The other problem is I don't any racer that has the Tekin RX8 speedo using the Castle External BEC. We have plenty of guys using that speedo and 2 sponsored guys with rides from Tekin and non are using an external BEC.

blade329

iTrader: (114)

This just doesn't sound right to me. I think there is more going on here than meets the eye. Are you wiring it up properly? Are you sure you even need an external BEC? I've never needed one before with a MMM.

SCTDan

iTrader: (9)

is it wired according to the this?

t-man

everything has been wired correctly. They were all different ages of becs... One was almost a year old, the other two were fairly new. I dont know what else to say, other than I dont trust castle at all anymore. If you look at helicopter threads, you will find out that castle becs are prone to failing, and people have lost 2000 dollar helicopters. Regardless, I just should have researched it better.

Also, I got one of my rx8s working... I am running it in my durango 4x4 sct on two cell, so I just ran wires from the battery posts on the speedo directly into my receiver since I am running a high voltage servo... It still didnt work until I hooked the red wire back up, then it started working. It seems the stock bec in my rx8 went so bad that it couldnt even power itself. I have since run 6 or so packs through it with nothing but perfect results. Just going to stay away from 1/8th scale for a little while.

brsilva

Sorry about that loss. That instant pop you get is the polarized capacitors exploding. Unless the wrong caps were in there I would again be sceptical about so many failing in a row. Thoes caps really only go out with power draws massivley exceeding input current, Wrong polarity or old age. You either got a batch of wrong caps or wired wrong some how.

What exactly do you mean " Castle won't do anything"? They won't honor warranty, give an explanation, replace destroyed parts?

J_Fitz

iTrader: (16)

I run the Castle BEC Pro in my VE8 powered by 4s with Tekin RX8, and have not had a single issue with it. It is rated at 20 amps I believe and has a programmable output. It is a little large, but it works great for me.

I'd like to see a picture of your wiring setup please.

Devigili22

iTrader: (29)

We have all wired something wrong in our time in R/C. Just admit it and move on, don't bash one of the biggest names in the business, that's just silly.

t-man

All they will do is replace the becs. That doesnt help me any because I dont trust them anymore.

I have not wired anything wrong... They all worked for multiple races before failing... I just think they cant handle the power, and they werent designed to fail in a safe manner.

t-man

i dont have a working camera right now, but all I do is solder the input wires to the pos and neg posts on the speed control. And I disconnect the red wire on the speed control. I dont see how it can be screwed up. I use gens ace 4 cells with deans connectors, so no bullets to hook up backwards.