Sorry I can't be much help, but these things do sometims just happen. My friend has let the smoke out of three XL-5 ESCs in about a two month span. Not a very good intro to RC for him. If he didn't enjoy the hobby so much I'm sure he'd have thrown in the towel after the 2nd one as they were just days apart. This was with stock gearing and a stock motor on a completely stock Rustler. I went over his truck with a fine toothed comb and could find nothing wrong. [sm=punching.gif]