Just installed my new Holmes Hobbies SHV500 servo and Hitec Proton rx in my Rival. Connected the servo's power lead to the balance port of my 3s lipo and instantly cooked everything. Servo wiring melted, rx fried, ESC dead.

Verified polarity with a multimeter before I connected the servo power, and have no idea what happened.

So frigging upset right now.

Why did you connect the servo to the balance port on the lipo? And how did you do that anyways?...

Because it's a 12v servo which has a maximum input of 16v. It's specifically made to be connected direct to a 3s lipo.

The plug on the servo isn't compatible with the balance plug, what kind of adapter did you use?

Never saw any application where the servo plugs directly into a battery of any sort, especially a 3S. Servos plug into the receiver slot. Lesson learned!!!

LHS used the pigtail provided with the servo and soldered it to a balance connector. Again, I verified the polarity was correct with a meter before connecting anything, so unsure of why things went poof.

This servo is a different animal than you're used to. It was made to be connected direct to battery. The power caps in the next release will handle direct 4s voltage, in fact.

http://holmeshobbies.com/electronics...500-servo.html

How did you cook the ESC/RX if you connected the servo to the battery power?
If you hooked up the battery/servo and RX in parallel, you'd be sending 3S voltage to your RX and also your ESC.
I.e. when connecting servo to the battery directly, the only wire you send back to the RX from the servo is the signal wire.

The servo wire doesn't have the middle wire connecting to the positive terminal on the receiver. Just ground and signal.

I can only assume that the servo shorted internally and sent 3s power through all of the grounds.

The black wire insulation on the servo's negative battery lead melted, the brown wire that goes from servo to rx melted as well, and the negative pin on the 3s balance port is all scorched and melted now.

As of now, esc wont power up at all, esc fan dead, rx won't power up, and servo is presumed dead too.

My rx is rated for up to 35v input, and had full 5s voltage going to the SPC port for voltage telemetry. The esc fan was plugged into the rx batt port. Steering servo signal wire to CH1, ESC signal to CH2. Servo power direct to 3s lipo balance lead, red to positive black to negative, polarity confirmed on a meter.

The power coming out of the esc signal connectors center pin provides voltage to the batt and ch1-4 ports on rx. 5s voltage going to spc port powers rx and provides voltage for telemetry.

It was hooked up properly, as best as I can tell.

Sounds like pig tail problem , looking at the servo in link it shows only 2 wire for power
So you really should have went from the main leads off battery{2} to the plug and not from the balance port{4} as your not getting a full 12 volts from there , you get 4 volts per leg {basically} and tying the balance leads together is not a good idea .

Nah. The balance lead has one positive pin. The next pin over is the negative for the first cell (1s) Next pin after that is the negative for the second cell (2s) and the last pin on this connector is the negative for all 3 cells. If you wire your positive and negative to the farthest pins on the connector, you get full pack voltage. My servo connector gets full 3s voltage, red wire positive, black wire negative.

Wait, you had a 3S and a 5S battery connected simultaneously?

learn something new every day always thought it was other way around ,
hopefully , if servo was the culprit they will stand by their stuff and make good on everything it took out along with it
good luck

No, a 3s and a 2s. 5s total to the esc (and SPC port on the rx.)

3s total to the servo.