ESC Ocday 60a, 540 Brushless, 5 Minutes And Nothing

[Tommy]

Greetings.
This afternoon I bought a 1/10 4WD Redcatt Caldera. Totally cool. 25C LiPO 11.1V. I'm new to this so bare with me. I ran it around and then bought it. 5 minutes later I was tearing down the parking lot... hit the brake and it didn't stop. Now I have a red light on the receiver, steering works fine but the fan has stopped on the ESC and I have no motion from the drive motor... no beeps.... nothing.
Tried another battery... same. Swapped out the receiver... same. Tried the programming mode (Full throttle, turn on ESC) nothing. There's no binding... and just no power to the motor at all, no beeps at power up.. nothing, but again steering works fine.
I ordered another Ocday ESC as I feel this is the issue, but as a newbie who knows? Maybe something simple.
Any ideas?

 

[Tony]

You can test the ESC by plugging the steering servo into the ESC port. If the servo moves, then you know it is either the ESC or the motor. But with this little play on it, if you purchased it from a store, I would take it back and make them repair it or replace it.

 

[Tommy]

Thanks, but it looks like to wires from the ESC to the receiver are soldered at the ESC. I bought it used. I was told the electronics were replaced and it sat on a shelf but I can tell the ESC isn't new. Was going full speed and hit the brakes. That's when it slowed but then just coasted and never drove agWAX.
Thanks again.

 

[Tony]

You can't unplug the ESC from the receiver?

 

[Tommy]

Oh yes, I can unplug it from the receiver. Now again please bare with me I'm really new at this. But on the receiver I have Channel A channel B Channel C something of that nature. I have tried my other receiver and transmitter but got the exact same thing. It just seems like there's nothing going to that motor. It doesn't seem to matter which channel I plug the steering or the ESC into all I get is steering. The motor is free turning with power and again, when it was running the fan on the ESC was working. The fan is wired direct to the ESC. That fan no longer works either and it is free turning.

 

[Tony]

No worries about being new, we are always here to help.

What I was wanting to do is connect the steering servo to the throttle port and use the trigger on the controller to actuate the steering servo. This would verify the throttle port in the receiver is working properly and narrow it down to either the ESC or the motor.

 

[Tommy]

Okay Tony, I'll try that again when I get home. But if you're talking about on the receiver where it has multiple plugs that go in, I did put another receiver in it. And still got the same thing. I have another RC that I pulled the receiver out and put it in this one and used that transmitter and receiver to actuate the steering but the drive motor still didn't run

 

[Tony]

It's most likely either the ESC or the motor then. My guess would be the esc.

 

[Tommy]

Yeah, mine too. I'm an electrical engineer and I kind of have a general idea of what goes on there but of course this is a unique situation and without seeing the electrical design schematics it's just a guess but semi educated. I do thank you for all your help I certainly appreciate it I did order a replacement ESC along with the programming card and I think I'm just going to order another one to keep on the Shelf. After viewing things about this particular ESC it doesn't seem to be the Cadillac which I would prefer to have, but I don't know enough about them really to make an educated decision on a replacement. You on the other hand do appear to have that knowledge. So this is a 1/10 scale it has a 540 brushless motor and runs off of a 11.1 volt 25c lithium ion polymer RC battery pack. So I'd really like to replace the ESC with one that has a safe mode switch and all that good stuff, basically a very reliable model tried and true. Heck I don't even know if maybe this 60 amp ESC might be small for the motor. I but I don't know the ramifications of jumping up to an 80 amp with what I have that's why I just went with the direct replacement. Would you have a recommendation?

 

[Tony]

Since you are an electrical engineer then I can talk in a way that you might understand lol. The rednek may come out a little. But, the brushless motors in this hobby are just 3 phase motors, that's it. More than likely you killed one of the FET's in the ESC and if you take it apart, you should be able to see either the crack or the wet look on it. It is also possible that you popped the caps that should have the top side facing outwards of the ESC.

To test brushless motors without a volt meter (I do hope you have one though) you just hold two of the 3 wires together and spin the motor. You should feel a little drag brake. If you hold all 3 of them together, you should feel even more brake effect. Basically just shorting them out is the brake on these things.

The other thing you can do is just ohm out each winding. Just ohm two of the three then switch 2 more times and if all of the readings are the same, then the motor is fine.

As for going bigger on the ESC, one thing to remember is the motor PULLS the power, the battery and ESC don't push it. So you can go as high of mah and C rating as you want (in fact, I would go as high on the C rating as you can, I run 90c packs in my trucks). The ESC, you say yours is a 60 and that is the current handling capacity of the ESC so you would need to know the specs on the motor to know if it is under sized. Going with the 80 is never a bad idea unless you are wanting the lightest weight and smallest footprint ESC you can get which is what most people do if they are racing. I suspect this is a back yard basher though so going larger is a good thing here.

 

[Tommy]

Thanks again Tony. I found a RC store that was close enough I could get there until I have to go pick up my kids at school but I bought a hexfly hex 10 1:20 amp waterproof brushless ESC for 1/10. Think that might do the trick

 

[Tony]

As long as it will fit, it should work.

 

[Tommy]

Thanks again for all your help Tony. It worked out perfectly and your explanation of the difference between brushless and brushed makes perfect sense. The 120 amp ESC rocks. Unfortunately as I'm inexperienced I configured it with the throttle trim on zero. So it ended up either full speed or no speed. Quite an interesting situation. My kid blew out one of the steering knuckle Hub screws so I got some aluminum ones but I have some questions about that. Seems like the screw threads in the bushing ( you can see the screw in the bushing in the photo) that presses into that piece that holds it ( screwdriver is through the holes that the bushing presses in) and I think it should free float in that bushing to allow it to pivot. So anytime I tighten it up I have no steering. I think I need to just clean out the insides of the bushing so that it'll free float in there and allow it to steer. Any suggestions?