I think my viper 10 blew up

[alad61]

Well it appears my viper 10 just crapped itself!!! Over the last couple of nights I have been doing some dry tests. At first all was good. I am using the batteries as per Davids instructions for the Seaview. I have one set parralled up with another still to do. I got me some lipo guards which I added as per instructions. I went through several checks to make sure all the wire polarity was spot on. To start with everything worked a treat. My rear dive plane servo is a bit jittery off the adf2 but I'll sort that latter. Today I got me a new tx so I was setting the controls how I want when out of the blue NOTHING! The lights went out on the ecs and the adf went berko then it to went ominously quiet... When I grabbed the equipment tray the esc was too hot to touch. So I swapped batteries, starting at the source, but as soon as the battery is connected and the ecs is switched on it immedately gets hot. So I walked away to let it and me cool down. After a break I tried it again and it all seemed to look ok then only the red light stays on and now the motors power up by themselves to full throttle, so fast the axel shafts are hot to touch... Bottom line I reckon my Esc is fragged!!! So now I guess I'll order a new & send this one back to Mtronics :'(

[Kazzer]

Mike,

Ball in your court - what should I do at this point?

Dan

Send them back to Caswell Inc. We'll give you a credit toward the Marine 15s due in next week.

Mark them for my attention.

[roedj]

Jim


I just spoke with Steve at Mtroniks and HWSNBN and it looks like you bought all these a while back. David and I think this was one bad batch as we aren't getting any more problems with these lately.

Can you give us some idea when you purchased them please? We should be able to return them and sort this out. Also some details of what these are being used it would help. ie motors, battery types/size etc.

Mike,

I'm getting confuseder and confuseder about this issue. Here's my history on these:

Order # 100789 ordered on 2010-06-21 P/N = ESCMV10, qty=3 @ $39.95 each = total is $119.85

I'm giving you all this info to help me and you be sure I'm talking about the correct product. I've hesitated putting these 3 ESC's into anything awaiting some resolution of the issue.

Ball in your court - what should I do at this point?

Dan

[Kazzer]

Jim


I just spoke with Steve at Mtroniks and HWSNBN and it looks like you bought all these a while back. David and I think this was one bad batch as we aren't getting any more problems with these lately.

Can you give us some idea when you purchased them please? We should be able to return them and sort this out. Also some details of what these are being used it would help. ie motors, battery types/size etc.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Something has been done by the manufacturer, Jim. They have discontinued production of the 10's and now only offer the 15's. And that's the extent of the conversation I'm aware of between Caswell and MTronik's.

Mike?

David

[jim h]

Anyone know what they are doing about this now. I just lost my third one today and it took out a real nice detail job by smashing the sub into the wall of the pool full speed. I have a 15 and two 10s all in different subs and all either burnt out completely or went full speed on there own and will not respond at all now. I have some $29.99 speed controllers I have never had any issues with. Heat should not be a issue with a sub running at scale speed ,we are not building drag boats here . This is begining to be a expensive JOKE. I will be taking ALL of the others out and will not use them EVER again if they are not showing some kind of effort to correct this problem.
Sorry for the rant but I am really tired of throwing money out the window. Anyone want to buy 14 small paper weights ? Plus three more that are fried.


Jim

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Bob's observation about the MTronik's ESC's is spot on. I too have a few years history using these things. And, only recently, have I had just this one type of MTronik ESC go south on me. I'm with Bob here: there's a bad batch of Viper-10's out there!

And Andy's right, Dan: Heat dissipation is not the issue!

Some, not all, of the MTronik Viper-10 ESC's either suffer from a batch of bad parts, or faulty assembly. I would put my money, as Andy suggested, on some bad big current passing semi-conductors within all that epoxy.

Dan: I recommend, for the Subregatta, you leave your Viper-10 out of the boat and install an alternative -- don't want things going south on you at the show.

David,

[Subculture]

No way heat should be an issue. Modern MOSFET stages are so efficient, they're getting close to a perfect conductor- many ESC designs don't even fit a heatsink any more and for most scale subs, you shouldn't be getting even close to getting these things warm. Sounds to me like a bad batch of MOSFETS, but it could be other things.

[RCSubGuy]

I've run these in my boats with no issues for years. With this recent rash of incidences, I think there is an issue with the units themselves. Too many issues too close together all at one time.

[roedj]

The only thing that seems to be the problem is when these units are employed in a submarine.

OK, understood.

If it only happens in subs could it be a heat dissipation issue?

I'm going to be:

1) Really upset if I get to the Sub Regatta and my Viper 10 blows up (but that's life, right?) - I'll take a spare ,

2) Taking extra care to try and dump as much of the heat as I can overboard mainly through conduction and convection- mounting the ESC to outside walls not near other sources of heat, and

3) Probably using a separate battery for the receiver and servos to reduce the current draw on the ESC and to have some ballast control if the ESC comes to smash.

Does this sound like a reasonable approach?

Dan

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I stand corrected. At this time, send only your bad (actually fried!) Viper-10's to Mike.

Sorry about that Mike and the rest of you -- I should have consulted with Mr. Caswell first, before spouting off.

David,

[Kazzer]

Blah blah blah -----
Send your fried Viper-10's and unused Viper-10's to Mike for replacement -- excluding those bought from another source, of course.

David,

WHOAH!!!!!!!!!

Nah! Don't do that. I don't have any authorisation from Mtroniks that these will be replaced. IN FACT -NOW PAY ATTENTION HERE FOLKS!~

The only thing that seems to be the problem is when these units are employed in a submarine. And it doesn't seem to be solely related to D&E Equipment. WTCs from OTW and other have had the same problems.

We need a dead unit, toasted, fried, white smoke, all that stuff. Got one? Send it in.Mtroniks want to see it.

[roedj]

D & M,

Clarification please. When I last visited this issue you were asking for Viper Sub 10 ESC's that had blown up to be sent back. It now appears that you want ALL the Sub 10's back regardless if they are "all blowed up" or not. Is this correct?

I'm asking because I have 3 Sub 10's in the original package, never used, that were about to go into 3 separate sub's this summer, one of which I hope to take to the Sub Regatta in early August.

Bottom line: I need at least one comparable ESC that probably won't go poof when I fire it up by the end of June.

What's my best course of action here?

Dan

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I just had TWO of these explode on me. One came from OTW and one was in my parts bin. They both exploded in a like manner (yes.. literally exploded). They were pulling power from the same source, however they were driving two different motors, one the main drive motor and one a little Graupner motor for a bow thruster.

Smoke billowed out of them and they literally spat gunk all over my shiny WTC innards. Both were working perfectly up to the time they died.

Weird as heck.

Bob,

These Nuked ESC's you pictured: are they the now infamous Viper-10's?

You must be madder than hell about this. They popped IN your WTC. Ouch!

They popped at the same time? Did they pop at power-up or after some time after power-up?

I know you use a lot of the Micro-Marine 10 ESC's -- ever have a problem with them?

Send your fried Viper-10's and unused Viper-10's to Mike for replacement -- excluding those bought from another source, of course.

David,

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Merriman

Thanks for your answer.

Do you meant with 'bum units' that they are suspicious?
I'm not so happy with that idea, now I have three left which be can toasted. :(
They are not so cheap that you can trow them away and order an other brand.
Beside that, I'm dutch, we folks trow nothing away. :biggrin:

No, don't toss the Viper 10's you have. Send them (and the fried units if they are still in hand) to Mike Caswell for replacements -- we're working with MTronik's right now to replace all Viper 10's with ESC's of an improved design and higher capacity.

Thanks to you, Bob and the others who have brought this issue to our attention -- we can't fix what's wrong unless we hear from you guys in the 'field'.

David,