Castle sidewinder sct combo HELP PLEASE
 

Hello, I have the castle creations sidewinder sct combo in my hpi blitz. I loved it at first, but realized that compared to most other people running this motor (dont care much about esc) I am getting very low performance. Yes I have checked on gearing, settings, and of course the voltage. (most were running 2s lipo). When I am at the local indoor offroad track, I cant even clear the triple at the end that even brushed slashes are clearing. I have never over heated the motor and the esc has never actually gone into thermal shutdown to my knowledge but I have had nothing but problems from this esc. It randomly shuts down and turns back on, it stopped making the noises at the beginning (when you turn it on and stuff). And so on. I did manage to kill the origional motor that came with the set. I sent it in to castle and they said that it would cost more for them to repair it than it would to just send me a factory refurbished one. So that is exactly what they did. A few days later I got it in the mail in a retail box. Plugged in fine but didnt make the noises. I know that it is possible for a bad esc to kill a good motor. Should I just send in the esc and motor?

I run on 2s lipo and 7 cell nimh. gearing for the track is 19/88 I think. I may sound stupid and my spur is just big. Should I change my spur before sending it in? I would guestimate the speed with that gearing to be about 20-25mph if that. I have seen this combo do wheelies with this truck out in the street when I first got it. Now, it just kind of stutters a bit then kind of ramps up to speed. It doesnt have that low end torque that I was hoping for and have seen when I first got the combo. But I think I had an 83 spur when I first got it. So maybe that is my problem.

Any suggestions?

Take it to your LHS and ask them to help you cal the radio to esc and check it out on castle link, esp check for torque control, throttle curve, and epa.

I have already calibrated it both by following the manual and the instructions given by tech support when I had the motor issue a few months ago. From this thread I may sound like a newb but I am actually not in most cases, it just happens that I dont know much about the motors and all the settings I have available through castle link. What should I have those settings set at? Right now I have them all at default. I have the field programmer that also acts as a link to the computer through usb. (man, glad I looked into that before I bought the card and the link)

check radio epa is at 100-120,punch control is off, and torque control is off/10.

Ok, I will do that and post. Thanks!

Cogging off the line is typical of a sensorless system, but if the motor isn't running hot I would consider gearing up with a 2s lipo. You should be safe with an 83 spur and may be going up a tooth or two on the pinion. I hope that helps.

4 pole should barely cog at all.

The reason I bought this was because it was 4 pole and should have a lot of torque. It was really dissapointing to see it just sit there and look like it is shivering until it either decided to go or I gave it a little kick to get it going. I dont remember having this problem with the 83t spur, just when that stripped and the only other one I had was 88. I will pick up an 83 next time I am over near the hobby shop. Might get a few various pinions as well.

The fact that you stripped the spur may have been helpful at first post. How did it happen? You may have damaged the motor or esc when it happened. The motor may have one bad phase. Take ohm readings from a to b from b to c and a to c. All three readings should be very close if not one phase may be bad and that will make it run slow and cause most of what your describing.

Hmm, I stripped the spur gear from doing a fast pinion change. I had the pinion that I run on the track on and I was somewhere I wanted a little more speed. I set the mesh too loose and it stripped. That was my fault, I dont see how it could have damaged it. I will check the ohm ratings. I believe the esc is bad also. I know a bad esc can kill a motor too. I will get various new gears and try it out over thanksgiving break. If the problem continues where I just dont get the power I am expecting, I will consult castle. I think someone I called after I got the motor back thought my esc had something wrong with it. When in brushed mode, it would randomly shut off and turn back on again. Then when I got the bl motor back it wouldnt switch back over to brushless mode using castle link without downloading an OLDER firmware. Now it doesnt make the start up noise when I turn it on (I have tried other motors to confirm that it wasnt the motor not making the noise). The lights still do the normal thing and stuff. Really, I kind of just want to send it in, get a refurb back and sell it on ebay (keeping the motor) then putting the money to a hobbywing 120a esc instead.

Stripping it that way would'nt do anything I thought maybe it had jammed the gears wich could. I should have worded it different to be more clear. What did you find out about the ohm readings ? i have had the esc's struggle to change from brush to brushless before. Best way i found is usually the castle link. There always has to be at least one fun one in the bunch lol.

Maybe you all could help with this one. I just finished building my SC10 4x4 and installed the Sidewinder SCT combo. Now, I use a mamba max pro in my kyosho rt5 and am familiar with castle link. Soldered my dean's connector to the battery leads and hooked up motor wires.
I go to plug in the battery and i get a ''poof'' and smoke from the ESC. Unplugged it, checked settings with the link and it looks fine.
Tried it again. Now, no sound for arming, no motor, but led's still respond to transmitter throttle input. So, bad motor or bad esc?

My SW in my 10tt did a similar thing but no smoke came out of it. I ran it in practice pulled it to run another kit and when it was time to race,DOA. Led's responded but motor did'nt arm. Put my backup MMP in and back in buisness. Send it to Castle.