lots of smoke

[toolcity-racer]

I built 2 systems
1.b44 with10.5 and gtb spectrum,with lipo saddle packs
2.t-4 with 13.5 and gtb spectrum,with 4200's

the b44 ran great with 21 tooth pinion and saddle lipo packs
the t-4 didn't, put it down and heard a funny noise and then that familiar sound of plastic melting. Lots of smoke (looked pink at first). tore body off fast as possible and started pulling wires.smoked the lead and ground to batt. and melted the solder on the battery tabs and motor tabs on the GTB leaving balls of solder from the speedcontrol in the chassis.I had tested both vehicles night prior with no problems and still don't know what went wrong. am sending back system to novac and ordered replacements ,anybody delt with novac on brushless system repair,replacement as i have only replaced a charger with novac.

[Craps]

I built 2 systems
1.b44 with10.5 and gtb spectrum,with lipo saddle packs
2.t-4 with 13.5 and gtb spectrum,with 4200's

the b44 ran great with 21 tooth pinion and saddle lipo packs
the t-4 didn't, put it down and heard a funny noise and then that familiar sound of plastic melting. Lots of smoke (looked pink at first). tore body off fast as possible and started pulling wires.smoked the lead and ground to batt. and melted the solder on the battery tabs and motor tabs on the GTB leaving balls of solder from the speedcontrol in the chassis.I had tested both vehicles night prior with no problems and still don't know what went wrong. am sending back system to novac and ordered replacements ,anybody delt with novac on brushless system repair,replacement as i have only replaced a charger with novac.

Novak should replace it with no problems if it is less than 120 days old.

[GSMnow]

That kind of melt down sounds like reverse battery polarity. I am guessing you direct solder your battery wires?? I wish you good luck with Novak service, they do stand behind their products well.

[toolcity-racer]

I use deans plugs and it is right. the battery wires were hot but what bothered me was the blue wire to motor contact on esc was so hot the solder was gone off the post and balls of solder left in chassis. I had the system on for several minutes the night prior to racing and watched the esc fan spool up to speed which takes quite some time and had no problems. The only thing i had not done was change set-up profile as i don't think i would of changed it from defaut setting anyway. What is so bad is the previous weekend I hit a deer on route to track and broke the novac gtx from the hit all my equipment took in the accident at 65 mph. that esc would not shut off! Then this happens one week later but like i said the b44 runs great and am looking forward to changing to brushless and lipo on all my electric. Can always fall back on gas truck and 8scale for track time this winter.

[GSMnow]

You had it wired for brushless? Only one of the three motor wires fried?

That certainly seems very odd. Did it go up after you applied throttle? or just sitting with the switch on? If the sensor cable was screwed up to where it always saw the motor in the same place, and you applied big throttle, I could possibly see the ESC putting full power on one phase, but even that is very unlikely and the ESC should go into thermal limiting. I also assume you checked that the motor turned free and was not locked up.

It also sounds odd to me that you said the fan takes time to spool up. I added a fan to my Mamba Max powered off of the RX power and as soon as I flip the switch it spools to full speed in a second or so. So it sounds to me like something was going wrong right from there.

[toolcity-racer]

it happened right after i turned it on to go on the stand,never had time to give throttle. and the b44 system fan spools up the same ,turns on instantly then several seconds later it speeds up to full speed,as for the motor it was new and spun free. Don't know if the motor is damaged or my spectrum receiver for that matter.will be checking complete system as replacement parts come in that i have ordered

[kufman]

One smoked wire sounds like a "ground" fault in the motor. In the Wye connected motors there is a piece of metal that all 3 coils connect to. If this was shorted to the can and the can of the motor was somehow in contact with one of the battery terminals (graphite chassis, motor mount, etc.), you could get one melted motor wire. This would also require a failed FET in the controller. The one connecting the blue wire to either POS+ battery or Neg- battery. Very strange failure.

[CharlieS]

www.teamnovak.com
charlie@teamnovak.com
tech@teamnovak.com
cs@teamnovak.com

Thanks
Charlie@teamnovak.com

[toolcity-racer]

Let me clarify (the contact post for the blue wire -not the wire it self )the wires to the motor are fine , the heat damage is across the solder posts on the esc. I mailed off the esc and motor today and always feel like maybe i missed something which is the reason for this post. Wish i had some of you guys in my pit area before hand ,a good once over and advice for wire routing, gearing, even constructive criticizim is always welcome in my pit

[leomax001]

it happened right after i turned it on to go on the stand,never had time to give throttle. and the b44 system fan spools up the same ,turns on instantly then several seconds later it speeds up to full speed,as for the motor it was new and spun free. Don't know if the motor is damaged or my spectrum receiver for that matter.will be checking complete system as replacement parts come in that i have ordered

........you're not alone............ :(
mine gtb spectrum did THE SAME THING on my TC5 touring........

- first run ok
- 2nd run, switch on the esc and immediately SMOKE OUT........... :eek: (the esc polarity to battery were RIGHT connected)

I quickly get off the (lipo orion 4800) battery from the car BUT everything around the esc (including itself) got melted............. :mad:

really sad situation, and (the worst) the same thing happened to several guys at my local track using the gtb spectrum version .

I'm really disappointed about this lack of quality control regarding this product

[toolcity-racer]

I am sorry to hear that and hope it's not a production problem. I have used novac for brushed motors and love the product. I chose the gtb system because the track i race at is a high traction track and a lot of guys using brushless systems are having system shut downs , having been told they heated up due to high traction.those systems being mostly lrp .Don't know if i buy that as from what littile i know gearing is a hugh problem for too much heat in any motor.Maybe they are over or undergeared ,All i know is the guys that i have talked to that are running gtb's are not having these shut-down problems, My motor for the b44 came off the track hardly warm at all and i was told to gear up. some where i read undergear is just as hard on system as overgear. granted it is very cold in the building this time of year and the temps should be down but i am in my rookie year for brushless and lots to learn. Hope you get your issues resolved leomax001.
And by the way thanks Charlie for the links

[toolcity-racer]

received a new speeder with some suggestions and listing of damage to old speeder .this arrived at my door 30 minutes after i had a lipo battery failure on my work bench that fried the new speeder i just ordered .I have replaced the new speeder with the repaired speeder and all is good. the lipos are another story.I thank novac for their quick response and am double checking my wiring before turning on anything.these items are expensive and novac tells you the consequences of making a mistake with this high end product can lead to some of my problems that i have exprienced and as i told guys at the track i would have paid 150.00 at the track to a novac tech to fix it as these are problems that only they know what went wrong after looking at the damage. Just as working on your car without the right tools and knowledge you can not fix it your self. I would like to see a repair shop that diagnosed and remedied the problems with approval of all manufactures to do repairs just like auto's as this work would be local and also take some of the workload off of the manufactures for repair, if only a dream but sure would be nice.

[toolcity-racer]

with everthing that has happened i have been cautious and noticed that when i plug in the power ( battery source) i get a small spark. Talked to the track owner about this and he told me his brushless system does the same thing, this is with the gtb switch in the off position. why would there be any power draw if the speeder switch in the off position?????! This does not make any sence to me.

[GSMnow]

The spark you are seeing is the spike of current to charge up the big power capacitor for the ESC. If you have the switch off, you can probably unplug one pack and plug in another after a short time without a spark. If no pack is connected for a longer period of time, or if you turn the switch on without a pack connected, it will drain down the capacitor and make the spark again when connected to a battery. That is normal on any system using a power capacitor.

[zepplin]

meadville eh, im in mercer.

[toolcity-racer]

thanks for the info on the capacitor ,hadn't thought of that.good to know and i will let the guys know at track.and zepplin head over to McCullough's off road just off 228 in sarver ,great group of guys and we race year round

[TeQ]

Wanted to chime in on my experience with the GTB SS edition. At the end of my very first run with my B44 and new setup, my gtb decided to explode.

Setup:
B44
Spektrum SR300 rx
MaxAmps 5500 2S Lipo Saddle Pack
DS1015 Steering Servo
Novak GTB Spread Spectrum
Novak Velociti 4.5 "L"

Scenario:
After my maiden voyage of about 5 minutes of running the car up and down my street (ran great!), I decided to pack it in. I flipped off the ESC power switch and came inside. Set the car on my desk and straightened the steering servo (manually) because the wheels were a bit crooked. While simultaneously moving the steering, the GTB began popping and then a significantly large pink cloud came from the ESC unit itself. (Again, power switch was off).

I then unplugged the battery and observed the damage.

Only visible signs of damage were the outter gasket on the GTB had melted/broken and the mini-wire harness for the brushless motor had a pretty large burn mark on the left most (facing the ESC) area of the plug and connector.

Plugging battery in creates more sparks and smoke.

Any ideas? Is there something I did wrong? Nothing appears to have shorted externally, and I can't understand why the unit would fry with the power switch off. I'm convinced that if my shell was on and this occurred, I would have a complete meltdown. Is it a problem with the RX and the Digital Servo? I was not running that Power Protection Cap that is available for the Spektrum RX. (Not to be confused with the Power Cap for the GTB, which was in tact).

I've got it into Novak for warranty, but I'm not 100% sure they will cover it. There seems to be a lot of vagueness in the wiring/warranty and it seems they could argue against me pretty easily.

Any opinions on what went wrong and experience with Novak replacement in similar situations? It won't ruin my life if they don't warranty it, but I'd have to loudly express my displeasure.

Here is the last known picture of my setup before the melt down: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2117/2108457029_3a1202e0b1.jpg

Thanks!

[toolcity-racer]

received everything back ,motor is fine ,new esc.No questions asked (thank you novak)

Just an observation
I weighed My t4 brushless with lipo and 2nd t4 with stock motor and 3800's and the weight is off,lighter on the brushless with lipo yet the brushless motor is heavier than a stock motor by about an oz. here is an interesting observation, a mod motor is heavier than a stock motor yet a stock brushless weigh's more than a 10.5 (19 turn equivalant) so if you are chasing the set-up changes between both systems watch your weight distribution across the chassis.I had to add a lot of weight to the brushless to get the weight distribution the same but yet to see the real effects at the race track.Hoping for better results than the first times with a brushless.on further note the lipo is a 8000 max amp. which is a little lighter than 4200 nimb, lipo is 13.38 oz. and the 4200 nimb is 15.68 and the 3800 is 15.08 oz. and the 13.5 brushless is 6.54 and the 10.5 is 6.46 oz.