E-flight 20 amp speed controls are junk. i'm on my third plane because they keep auto shuting off. the latest crash was a shock flyers yak fresh batt i held it straight up 1/2 throttle plane gets 10 ft off the ground and the motor quits plane just falls out of the sky and smack, breaks the motor mount, wing, and fuse. this has happend three times causing the plane to crash. it shuts off for 30 seconds then turns back on. at first we thought that the battery wasent charged then we found that was wrong i'm about to take it to the anvil and smash it.

20 amp speed control
E-Flight 370 1360KV out runner
thunder power 11.1v 860 mAH

my e-flite 20 amp never just shuts off you must have the cheep old broken one
because mine just makes my motor pulse at high rpm only after 20 minutes of flying which allows me to land safely thank you e-flite for making my 20 amp esc with pulsing cutoff

so i am going to dissagree with your statement that there junk because mine works great
and if i had to buy another esc (for the mini edge) it would be e-flite

just wondering are you using a gws receiver? could be your problem

I also disagree. Ive been using a E-flite 20A brushless ESC for a LONG time, and its never missed a beat despite being used on three or four motors and in at least three planes. Its one of my favorites.

If something in your avionics is causing crashes or not working properly, why in the world would you keep trying to fly it. Not trying to be mean, but common sense would tell you to replace it before trying to fly again.
If its broken, dont fly. Get it fixed....or you'll keep crashing airplanes.

correction... eflite-yak54=junk

what prop are you using??

The first speed control I bought had a defect, I didn't know enough at the time to recognize the symptoms. No names, but it wasn't the E-flight ... the mfr. swapped it out no problem. I'd give them a call, maybe that's what you have going on.

Sounds like you are overloading your BEC. What servos and how many are you using? The BEC on a 25 amp esc can only handle so many servos with that cell pack.

For a 25 amp ESC:

High draw servos - 2 to 3
Std Micro servos - 3 - 4

I bet your 20 amp BEC is even less.

You need to size your ESC by servo load in addition to amps drawn by the motor.

Hey now,
I had exactly this trouble using a CC phoenix 25 in a 3-D foamy, drove me crazy! I thought it was the esc (nope), reciever (nope) maybe even the motor (nope). I finaly discovered it was the battery (naw, couldn't be!). I'd charge it up, according to my volt meter it was fine, but never the less it'd cut off early.
When I used my whatt meter I found out the pack voltage under load was dropping to below cutoff level quickly. From what you're saying it does sound like you're overdriving the battery either because it's old, abused, or just too small for the set up.
Before you smash the esc try a bigger/newer battery pack. I bet you fifty cents this is you trouble.
RobII

I too disagree that the EFlite 20 amp ESC is junk. I've been flying one for a couple of months now with great success. I think it has good value, was easy to hook up, and is very simple to use since it auto detects the cell count...

You may have a defective unit -- it happens. Or there is something else wrong with the battery being the most likely culprit.

let me change my statment on its junk. its the batt because i found out that if i fly my plane long enough with the tunder power 860 it will start to pulse but i have had a lot of troubl with my electrifly 720mAH i think that the little safe charge chip is not letting it charge correctly because i tryed charging it today and it would not register on the charger and yes i had it hooked to the charge lead but once it took it it charged for about 20 min and then i took my plane and ran it and sure enough it cut out i have never had it cut out with the thunder power as i orignaly stated sorry for bad mouthing Eflight becasuse after flying 4 packs through today it worked flawlesly!

theres alot of tension out there i just want my xxx-t rtr truck to smoke a nitro truck but the rc trucks are still back in the dinosaur days they dont have brushless info
for trucks and my xxx-t came with a 19T brushed trinity motor

Hey now,
So it is the battery. Cool, that's cheaper than the esc on the small packs. I don't much care for the Grape Stains electrafry stuff, they don't make it and I don't know who repackaged it for them. I think it's better to buy from a more er, reliable, no that's not it, um, known company. ThunderPower, Appogee, even Kokam, although they don't seem to last as well... are I think better choices than going with Tower's lowest bidder.

TF2Psycho, Look into the Hacker B-40 motors or Kontronic fun 480-33 for your truck if you want it to scream, ofcourse glow would be cheaper, a lot cheaper... I used an Aveox 1406-2Y in a Losi buggy for a while years back, used to shut the glow boys down hard!
RobII

My EFlite 20 works great too. You didn't mention what receiver your using. Maybe interference is shutting it down. I've had that happen with single conversion Rxs.

or which prop.... it is possible that you are just over amping the battery..

the TP might have a higher C rating and able to take the pull a bit better

I have 5 of them and they all work perfect. Never have I had any of them just shut off. I have no complaints and the price is too good to beat.

the i took off the wraping on the bat and the charge leads were not sodered very good i fixed it and it charges a lot better

The 370 (EFLM1205) 1360kv requires a 2 cell li-po battery. Try a two cell and see if this works better?

Sorry to hear about your problems. At least you know what the problem is now. I have 2 eflite 20a and have been happy with both. The soft cut off is nice. I land as soon as the pulsing begins. I then meter the lipos after flight and the rate is always 11.1-11.35. Is this normal or is it safe to fly them below 11.1? I always thought this may cause deep discharge. Am I correct?

i had a little scare a few days ago ..i would fly my yak up , cut the motor to glide for a while then when i try to turn on nothing would happen[X(], but steering worked so i had to glid it down and land on top of thorns lol ......

but after trouble shooting i realized the throttle trim was set to +20 which was confusing my 20 amp esc and motor so after i put trim at 0, the motor has come on everytime ...
fixed!.....just my experance with this esc so far

You shouldn't take 3s lipos below 9v UNDER LOAD-I check them after flight with the motor at full throttle. 11.1v is your no-load voltage and has basically no relation to voltage under load....Jim

HELP!

My brand new eflite 20amp esc worked fine for testing and a nice long flight, remained cool, came home charged the pack full, tested the power system/servos = all ok. Disconnected the battery 30 seconds and plugged it in while tx at full power to turn the brake back on (i wanted to try without brake), I followed the procedure perfectly i think. Now even if i leave it disconnected for a long time when i plug the battery in it keeps beeping every few seconds at throttle off. It follows programing sequence but can never finish it. every time i connect the pack it does nothing but beep every 2-3 seconds at neutral and initiates program sequence at full throttle, beeps 3 times at mid throttle as it should but no matter what i do it doesn't operate after i reconnect the pack. I was hoping someone here knew how to fix this because the instructions ( yeah the whole paragraph of them) do not mention anything like this.

It really sucks if horizon made this esc so you can actually render it useless while programing it's brake feature. Why o why did i have to turn it off in the first place? It was fine the way it was. Still it has no business bugging out like this, and better happen now than further down the road i guess. I'll take it in where i bought it tomorow for a replacement. Lucky for me my lhs has a membership system and they stand behind everything they sell, if a part goes bad they give you another one and deal with the company themselves rather than have you wait turnaround time. Their guarantee is better than the manufacturer's in some cases they'll replace stuff free even if their is no warranty, but not for a non member. This doesn't apply for dumb errors like reverse polarity, water/chemical damage etc or accidents and wear and tear. But this is definitely not the problem in my case. Membership has it's privileges!

wow you actually tried to reprogram the esc ...i dont even know what the brake is ?
i never tried to change it ...so mine still works fine the only thing i found is it wont work right with the throttle trim above 0 so good luck to you and next time i would leave things alone

Yeah i know, i prefer having it on anyway, by deffault brake setting is on most of the time At least for the eflite. i just wanted to see what it was like with it off on an outrunner with no gearbox friction= The plane glides forever off throttle by comparison, needs longer landing approach, annoying if you ask me. As for ''should have leaft it alone'' Forget it, the feature is there to be used there's no reason it should do harm, i paid for a esc with that feature. When i pay for something i want to work it as intended period.

Now get this, this super hobby shop who sold me the benefits of a 20$ membership 3 years and a couple of thousands of dollars ago won't replace the esc ''no questions asked'' as they initially promise upon signup, or let me trade up for a cc25. They'l only send to manufacturer after rma etc... So i can't fly a couple of weeks. I am a little disapointed. I constantly buy more expensive things from them rather than cheaper internet sources because i want to support a local hobby shop and get better service. Screw them, i'll voice my discontempt when i have my esc in hand and never go there again, i vote with my wallet, i wouldn't be so pissed if they hadn't made that big a deal of their ''standing behind everything they sell'' in the first place, the service procedure itself is quite normal. Still ticked off and not wanting to be grounded for weeks, i go buy a great planes bl-8 from another hobby shop, it's only 8 amps but apparently is all i need for the rimfire at least according to the manufacturer's website, with recomended props of course.

Guess what, i get it in the plane, test it= no go, motor cogs like mad below 1/2 throttle and spins emitting wierd irregular and weak sound without a prop at wot, put a prop on to see= can't even turn the prop one revolution at wot and esc gets hot. I take it back to the other hobby shop where i bought it and they were really nice, made an exception and replaced it free of charge. Now that's a p.r. gesture. Of course they know me there too but still it was very nice of them. I get home, test the new esc= it works BUT on the great planes brake is set at off by deffault, i tried to program it but the brake won't come regardless how well i follow the instructions. Now am i supposed to trust the lvc on this thing? I think not...

Too bad, i will fly it like this and be carefull until i get my eflite back then if all works ok i'll return the bl-8 for service and sell the new or refurbished one they give me asap. One thing is certain i came really close to setting my plane and everything related to it on fire this afternoon.

i had a great flight but when i was done i noticed the prop was tight to turn ..but now its not
i wonder what happened and i hate to pull the gear box out to inspect so i think i might be ready for a outrunner but i hope its as powerfull as my 4100kv brushless inrunner

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