HOLY COW Colstonman!
I did the same thing when I got my new charger ... worrying so much about the NiMh packs ($160.00 worth) that I completely forgot to payzin attention to the TX pack! Oh well, that's what they call "chalking it up to experience".
O.K. then. I presume the dead TX was not telling your RX that you wanted throttle making it appear that your motor pack was sick. That certainly makes sense. Then I would have to surmise that the previously hot motor and ESC situation were more than likely a result of the motor brushes wearing down, causing sparking at the commutator, causing voltage drop at the brushes, excessive current, heat, reduced motor power etc., etc. I think you get my drift.
I'm glad you solved the mystery, as it can be pretty complicated at times.
All of that aside, if the $$ supply is limited 'till summer, I would forget about a brushless motor/ESC for now, clean up the commutator on the present motor and change the brushes if you can find some. After you do that it would be really great to see if you can "seat" the brushes with a commutator stone. This should get the motor into "like new" condition. I would suggest getting some spare brushes too. The helis aren't like cars that coast some of the time, or planes that glide some of the time ... they are developing horsepower every second of the time you are off the ground. Consequently the motors work harder than most folks think. Hence the total joy of brush-LESS!
Then spend a few bucks on another battery pack or two. Depending on how quickly your Piranah charges them, you probably would be needing three or so packs to be able to to keep rotating packs and keep flying. Incidentally, a brushed motor is probably not going to like being run constantly without some cool-down time, so you may only need two packs. You can figure that one out. I am also not too sure of 8 cell packs, but maybe someone more knowlegeable than I can help with that question. You want to buy packs that will work with the brushless motor also. It's also nice to have them all similar so you don't have to be remembering how much flight time you will get out of dis-similar packs.
When you are able to spring for a brushless, do a lot of searches (as in "Corona brushless" or "best brushless for Corona") and reading on these forums ... hunrdreds of guys like you (and I) have gone this same route. For instance, after I ordered my Corona and continued to read all these daily posts and asked a zillion questions, I wound up ordering a Hacker brushless and ESC, and the original motor/ESC that came with the Corona are STILL in an in opened bag (with the kind of cheesy gyro)! You want to be VERY careful what you buy as I've heard some horror stories with some brushless motors and ESC's too!! The idea is to make this more fun, NOT more exasperating!
Hope this helps a bit,
Happy coptering,
Russ
An afterthought: Don't worry too much about the so called "memory effect" with the NiMh's ... they don't operate the same as NiCd's. I'm told and have read from very reliable sources that all you do is be SURE not to store them for more than a few hours in a fully charged state. When they are run down, leave them that way and charge them just before use (a couple or three hours). Like NiCd's, however, the first charge won't give you much flight time, they have to go through 3 or so charge/discharge/recharge cycles before they get acclimated to full capacity.
ENOUGH!
Russ
