We have a Traxxas 2218x receiver (2.4 GHz) and Hobbyking 80A ESC. My understanding was that the signal lead (I don't know the actual name - it's 3 wires: +6V,-,signal) from the ESC was also supposed to supply power to the receiver (and therefore the servo), but this is not exactly happening. There are 5 channels, ch2 is throttle, 1 is steering and 5 is battery. The receiver only turns on when power is delivered into "channel 5/batt" - that does make sense, but it seems odd since everything I've read indicates that it shouldn't matter where power comes in.

I have just been powering it with the fan lead from the ESC (6V, which is appropriate) in ch5, but that can't be the way it was intended. I tried running the +/- wires from the ESC signal lead into ch5 and the signal wire itself to ch2, which did power the receiver and allow the throttle to work, and freed up the fan lead for an actual fan (which we don't have/need, but still). However, the servo only works when the fan lead is in ch5 and all 3 signal lead wires are in ch2 - so there are 2 6V sources hooked to the receiver.

I must be missing something here... Or could something be faulty? Will connecting both the fan and signal leads to the receiver cause problems, like decreasing battery life or anything? We don't actually have the car assembled at this point, so comprehensive testing is difficult. Thanks for any help.