I have recently bought a gws corsair complete with the motor, and i bought the battery, servos, reciever and speed controller separatly. I am using a futaba 6EXA radio, and the same crystals from my other plane in a jeti micro reciever. I find that when i connect the Nimh 8.4v 1050ma battery pack to the circuit, the speed controller (ripmax 12) gets very hot. the micro servos that i am using (hs 55's) are not responding to the radio, and i have no controll over the speed of the motor, but the motor does run.
Does anyone know if i am doing anything wrong, or if i am using the wrong equipment?
This is my first electric aircraft so any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks

Do you have your battery connected to your speed controller plugged into the throttle chanel?

yes, the battery is connected to the speed controller, and the speed controller is plugged into channel 3 in the reciever. Is it ok to use a 6 channel radio on a 4 channel reciever? and is the heat coming of the speed controller normal?

I have it running ok now, turns out one of the wires was the wrong way round! But now the motor wont run steady, it will spin for a second, then stop, and it wont reach its peak rpm - I think this is because the battery isnt fully charged but how would i go about charging a nimh battery with a BEC plug on the end?

You're lucky, or maybe not. Hooking up the wires the wrong way 'round generally causes the ESC to burn out. The erratic behaviour could be the result of a dead battery, or a burned out ESC.

To charge the battery, you'll need a peak detect battery charger, and a charge lead with the mate to that BEC connector. I don't know what's available to you in the UK for chargers, though...