battery dead or not?
 

So, I was at the track the other day chatting away, and I managed to plug one of my lipos in backwards, small puff of smoke and dead a dead sensor on my esc.

The question I have is; if I test my lipo with my mulit-meter the voltage looks good and the cells appear to be perfectly balanced. But once I plug it in to an esc its like there is no power. So, do you think the battery is toast? Is it salvageable?

Yes, I know I'm an idiot and I messed up.

also, the battery is a reedy wolfpack 3800mah 2s shorty

Toasted ESC ??

The esc (lrp spx zero) will power on with a different battery, but won't push the motor without giving the motor a spin by hand first. I checked the motor with a different esc, works fine. Tried the wolfpack on a different vehicle acts like no power.

Puff of smoke from what ? :D

I think it was the battery. Not 100% on that though

If it shows voltage, can't be dead. Should be at least 3.7 per cell and 7.4 as a pack.

Your battery has an open connection and will need to be repaired before you can use it again. The individual cells are likely fine but the inter-connection of one cell to another has a break somewhere.

Your ESC is likely running with a dead FET. If the motor runs only when push started, it's missing one of the 'waves'. I seriously doubt you hurt your motor. But your ESC and battery will need repair.

Do yourself a favor and use a connector that is reverse proof or put a large, high current diode on your ESC input lead. If you're using bullet connectors and that's what you got backwards put a big dob of hot glue on the battery near the + side hole, and another big dob on the red power wire. The idea being tactile reminder of glob with glob so you never install the power bullet connectors backwards.

And if by dead sensor you mean you're running a sensored setup, then you may have lucked out and it's just the sensor meaning you can use a sensor less motor with that ESC at least.

I started cutting the battery case open to check the cell connections, but I don't feel safe doing it with an x-acto like I've seen done other places. It would seem the wolfpack case is sealed up better than some others. Does anyone know of an alternative method?

The Reedy batteries do have a fused link inside them. You most likely popped the link. either send it in or just buy a new one.

its outside of warranty, I did get it open safely, here is the result. a totally fried connection coming out of one of the cells. I don't think I'll be repairing this. now to safely dispose of it.

Go to radioshack and buy "desoldering wire" it looks like a fine braided copper cable with no insulation. You usually use it to 'wick' hot solder away. It's very flexible, very flat, and is a good conductor. You can cut at least 2 pieces and just solder them across that gap for a flat repair. Or if you can find it use flat conductor cable.

The tabs that come out of those cells are usually thick foil for flexibility and flatness to fit inside a small form factor.