My brother has been building a new plane and this past weekend I was able to help him out a little. We were going to install all the electronics, but we decided we'd test everything before putting it into the plane...I'm sure glad we did too. My brother plugged the battery into the receiver and immediately it began to smoke. He unplugged the battery and dropped it into an *empty* ammunition box we keep nearby. The pack's plastic covering caught on fire a few seconds later and the room filled with smoke and really healthy fumes.

My question to you guys is: has this ever happened to you before? And if it did, were you able to get your pack/receiver replaced (I purchased them from ServoCity). I mention a new receiver because one of the contacts in the receiver was broken off (either in the haste to get it out of his hands or by the extreme heat).

Also, any suggestions on how to avoid this in the future? Is there an easy check one can do to a receiver to make sure it's in operating order before installing a battery pack? Thanks for any help.

Sorry for your loss. I have never heard of this happening. It is possible that the positive and negative bus inside the receiver were shorted out. The battery was certainly completely shorted in order for it to get that hot. If you have a multi-meter (volt/ohm/amp), set it to "Ohms" (resistance) and test the resistance across the plus (red) and minus (black) pins on the receiver (use the pins where the battery was plugged in if they are still intact). There should be some resistance. Zero would indicate a short.

What kind of battery is this? LiPo? NiCad? What? If LiPo, and if you are an AMA member, there is a rather strong statement about care and feeding of LiPo batteries on thier website.

One possible explanation is (if you were using a Futaba 127 receiver and not using a Futaba connector on the battery lead) that you plugged the battery into the receiver with the connections reversed. This would not be possible with a Futaba connector as it has a flange on the plug which prevents improper insertion. On the Model 127 receiver the center pin (the positive lead) is shorted to the inner pin (the signal lead) on the receivers printed circuit. Now if you plug in a generic plug the wrong way into the battery slot (no keyed flange on the connector) you put a dead short on the battery. If you found melted insulation on the battery leads, this is probably what happened. I do not know if other model Futaba receivers have this problem or not as I've only checked it out on the 127's. I'd be interested if this checks out for you.

This has happened to several people before. Some people tried to make the claim that if you hook a hitec connector backwards into futaba equipment that it will short out but this was proved by some of the members here not to be true. Some of the members have hooked in battery packs backwards and never had a fire. If you think about it, because Hitec is easy to reverse when mixing futaba and hitec equipment we would be have fires all the time, but I could be wrong.

Ok let me answer a few questions you guys had and give you an update.

1) The battery was a NiCad with a universal connector.
2) The receiver was a Futaba 127. I did show my brother how to plug in the battery (I watched him do it correctly too) because I have heard some discussion about the inner pin being shorted to the center pin.

So for the update: Servocity said they could not replace the battery so they sold him one at cost and they picked up the shipping. They told us they couldn't do anything about the receiver and that we needed to contact Futaba. Futaba told us to send it in and they'd have a look at it. Honestly I'm not too pleased with this, but I guess it's the best we can do.

I gave him some of my electronics to use and he completed the plane. I'm guessing he'll maiden it sometime this week.