Originally Posted by faqcya

Have you ever had a high power car stereo? It's easy to see at night when stereo is cranked up and the bass booms, the car headlights will dim. That's because the amplifier is pulling more amps then the battery can deliver. One solution is to add a capacitor inline to the amp. That's the same thing these capacitors are doing. When you pull full throttle from a dead stop the motor will pull a lot of current causing ripples in the battery voltage which can cause problems for the esc's fets.
You can still test the esc though to see if it's fried simply by disconnecting the pinion connecting the battery and squeezing the trigger once. If it turns the esc is good if not it's fried. CAUTION you don't want to do a lot of free spinning of the motor it's not good for it, but one quick test won't hurt anything.

Originally Posted by faqcya

If you fried it a manufacturer won't cover it. They don't cover esc's that were hooked up reverse polarity. And it's possible that it's not fried I accidentally hooked one up backwards once and got lucky.

Originally Posted by stuffandthat

Got some interesting results! I cut the capacitor module off, plugged in a battery and turned the ESC on. It boots up as normal, the steering works, the lights show throttle and brake movement, but the motor doesn't turn. Will the motor turn without capacitors installed, or is the ESC stuffed?

Originally Posted by faqcya

You don't need the caps to turn the motor. The esc is a goner.

Originally Posted by stuffandthat

Yep, I am an idiot!