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Over the weekend I was breadboarding the devices -- checking them for a full-up integration test in a WTC I was working up for Joe Oliver -- and an old problem revealed its ugly head: exploding Mtroniks ESC's.
These electronic speed controllers (ESC) are great units, but it seems that about ten years ago several lots of this product were produced with faulty circuitry -- either the FET's themselves or a component(s) on the board that drives the FET's were faulty.
The result can be disastrous: a dead short through one or more of the FET's producing enough heat to melt, vaporize and eject both molten resin and solder at considerable velocity. As the above and below photos illustrate.
Mr. Caswell (we were working for him at the time as product developers and vendor) and I got e-mails off to Mtroniks -- the UK firm that produces these ESC's -- after a few of them exploded on me and customers who experienced the same rather disconcerting 'issue'. In answer all Mike and I received from Mtroniks was a grudging acknowledgement that there was a remote possibility that the company bean-counters had secured product from some Asian 'lowest bidder' vendor. That's all we could get out of Mtronks as to what was going on with these little hand grenades.
So, apparently there is, out there in the world to this day, one or more lots of bum ESC's ready to blow up if you look at them wrong.
Mtroniks, an otherwise fine company that produces a wide range of ESC's for the hobby trade -- forever tarnished by one or more bad lots of potentially explosive devices -- now has some of us questioning the reliability and safety of their product.
A lesson here: if you produce a bad product, own it! Inform your customer base of the problem; do a better job of selecting your sources of supply; and do a better job of Quality Control.
These electronic speed controllers (ESC) are great units, but it seems that about ten years ago several lots of this product were produced with faulty circuitry -- either the FET's themselves or a component(s) on the board that drives the FET's were faulty.
The result can be disastrous: a dead short through one or more of the FET's producing enough heat to melt, vaporize and eject both molten resin and solder at considerable velocity. As the above and below photos illustrate.
Mr. Caswell (we were working for him at the time as product developers and vendor) and I got e-mails off to Mtroniks -- the UK firm that produces these ESC's -- after a few of them exploded on me and customers who experienced the same rather disconcerting 'issue'. In answer all Mike and I received from Mtroniks was a grudging acknowledgement that there was a remote possibility that the company bean-counters had secured product from some Asian 'lowest bidder' vendor. That's all we could get out of Mtronks as to what was going on with these little hand grenades.
So, apparently there is, out there in the world to this day, one or more lots of bum ESC's ready to blow up if you look at them wrong.
Mtroniks, an otherwise fine company that produces a wide range of ESC's for the hobby trade -- forever tarnished by one or more bad lots of potentially explosive devices -- now has some of us questioning the reliability and safety of their product.
A lesson here: if you produce a bad product, own it! Inform your customer base of the problem; do a better job of selecting your sources of supply; and do a better job of Quality Control.
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